Picking a force for a table top game comes down to a variety of factors. The miniatures are most important to many. Some may consider how 'good' their army will play before picking, although right-thinkers will recognise this as the behaviour of a callow cheat. I picked a partisan / resistance force to build for Bolt Action for a couple of reasons:
1) Black Tree Design and Warlord do nice little ranges.
2) the figures are flexible. I can use them for anything from A Very British Civil War to Across the Dead Earth.
3) I can't play Third Reich. I know that it's only a game etc, but genocidal bastards? I like to get into character when I play these games - if only tongue-in-cheek. For me the Nazis are too dark a place for an evening rolling dice. Killing tiny plastic Nazis, meanwhile - what larks!
4) 'Regular' armies have identical uniforms. Painting guides require the purchase of the right paints. Painting ranks of khaki sounds a bit too much like work. Resisters, on the other hand, come in uniforms from their old national army, deserters from occupying forces, work clothes and Sunday best. Their weapons vary from the obscure and obselete, the bits and bobs scavenged from the old national army, supplies dropped by the SoE or shipped by the pan-European communist networks, guns taken from the occupier or deserters.
5) the resisters and partisans were truely remarkable men and women. I want to learn more about them and share their stories. More on why I picked the Greek leftists of EAM another time.