# Deploy the Army Men! tags: #thoughts Once more into the breech, repurposing Twitter threads into content! Whoo! --- ![](https://twitter.com/__mbutler__/status/1785042245466394830) This is properly balls out going hard when it comes to tabletop skirmish. Phoenix Command is not fucking around. In fact, it might be a little too hard-core… But I'm not about to let folks go without. Let's look at some options which are a little less intense: ## [**NUTS!** from Two Hour Wargames](https://twohourwargames.com/collections/ww2-and-ww1) If you have a traditional bucket of green and gray army men, leaning straight into World War II, I feel like your best choice at this point is **NUTS!** It is comparatively mechanically minimalist but is extremely flexible and easy to run. Plus it folds in perfectly well with RPG-scale play, so if you want to take your squad out on the town in France and see what shakes out, this is your huckleberry. (Also it does solo, co-op, and head-to-head play, so you don't always have to fight against your friends – you can fight with them. Side by side. Band of brothers.) ## [**Twilight 2000** from Modiphius](https://freeleaguepublishing.com/shop/twilight-2000/core-set/) Sure, this is a beautiful game. The art is wonderful, the layout is amazing, and it's juicy. It's also surprisingly less RPG than you may have been told, especially if you have a gentle inclination toward things which are in the similar scale of **[[Phoenix Command]]**. In fact, I would say that it's probably easier to run a squad of troops in T2K 4E than it is in PC. Certainly faster and with less overhead. If your taste runs more toward the Cold War, except everything got very hot and now you're putting things back together – maybe – this would be a great choice for you and your bucket of army men. ## [**Battlespace** from Modiphius](https://modiphius.us/products/battlespace) I didn't really intend to pick two games distributed by the same company, but that's the way it's shaken out. However, they couldn't be more different, even though they both are looking with great lust at your bucket of army men. **Battlespace** is very much modern skirmish infantry, and in particular out of the box anti-insurgent. If you ever wanted to run your own anti-terrorism/anti-crime military force, this game is what you've been waiting for. The mechanics are not overly complicated and play goes very quickly. It's hard to really capture descriptively how this game flows because it is very much unlike most of the tabletop wargames or RPGs you've ever played. However, it's a blast and you will absolutely have a great time pushing army men around the table and flipping cards. An amazing time. ## Exunt Shockingly, that's all I have readily at hand that really fits classic green and gray army men. My collection is generally far more full of sci-fi wargames and RPGs than even World War II and there are very few moderns floating around out there which I'm deeply impressed by. However, if you have a bucket of army men and the desire to throw dice and watch them scream and die… I think there's something in this list that will jazz you.