A slight diversion - French 1940

A change of plan, since I had a France 1940 game arranged, I decided to paint the box of Pegasus French figures I had hanging around. Of course one thing led to another and before I knew it I was rebasing most of my French Army (a separate post to follow) personally I prefer the Caesar French, but these do come with a nice pair of MMGs. The downside is that almost every figure has to be assembled and in the few cases the fit it not that great. The mortar comes from the old Esci set and the 25mm AT gun is a venerable Miltra piece, and the RF battalion is completed with a fw odd figures from other sets.

Burgundian Pavises

I decided that my Crossbowmen needed pavises, but rather than fix them to the base I created them as stand alone models. So here they are, quite simple I just printed out the pavises to what seems the best size for the figures; then stuck to card cut-out and folded slightly in the middle.They are then glued to a base and added cur down bits of matchstick for supports. Then paint the back and base and touch up the edges and here they are.

Burgundian Crossbowmen

A couple of crossbow units, the first as usual in white/blue livery coats and the other in red coats with a red cross to represent a unit from Savoy. Figues are the lovely Strelets Medieval crossbowmen set, which has four sprues of 14 different poses, which gives a lot of variety. To make up the numbers I added a couple of Redbox figures.

At the back an old favourite, Sheriff of Nottingham archers, just enough to round out an old unit for use with Hail Caesar. The figures themselves were found in the famous box.

Finishing off the DAK!

Worked through all my lists and my remaining DAK figures to sort out the last infantry "needed " for my DAK and here's the result.

On the left a battery of 28mm squeeze bores sPzB41. The orbats give these as an option for replacing the Pak38s in the Panzer Grenadier battalions. On the right a trio of anti tank rifles PzB39, a nice group of figures from Grubby kitted out in sun helmets so just right for the early period when they were used. At the back are a couple of Flak 38s as these are needed for defensive positions, Zvezda models with head swaps. Also a couple of extra Revell MMGs, always useful and a Matchbox motorcycle combo that I found painted without a crew (strange?).

Finally scattered around are three bailed panzer crew bases, The figures are from Orion and are more suitable for rear areas, but they were available and painted up nicely.

British Para Polsten Gun

It eventually emerged from a hidden corner of the painting desk, so my British Para Brigade for Rapid Fire in finally finished. It's a nice little model from SHQ, but the plans were not completely clear, so it took a bit of Googling to work out how to set it up for ground action. I decided to use the drum magazines to make it look more intimidating.

Trading - Wants - August 2013

I'm currently looking for the following as part of a trade, see the Trading Department for more details.

Fujimi Panzerjager I (1)
Fujimi Valentine (1)
Fujimi Sherman 105mm (1)
Hat 1805 French infantry (set 8062)
Hat Wurttemberg Artillery (2 sprues)
Hat German Tank Riders
Imex American Pioneers
Italeri Persian Cavalry (just two chariots)
Matchbox Panzer IIIs
Matchbox Hanomags/Sdkfz 251s
Matchbox Priest (1)
Orion Cossack sets (Mounted or Foot)
Revell SYW Austrians
Strelets GNW Russian Dragoons – dismounted figures and mounted grenadiers
Strelets Norman Cavalry on the march
Strelets Narva to Poltava – any of the “command figures”
Zvezda GNW Russian Infantry, Cavalry or Artillery
Zvezda Russian Napoleonic Heavy Artillery
Zvezda Turkish cavalry

Plus I'll consider anything that might be suitable for the Sudan, North Africa 41-43

Haves are on another post

Burgundian Men at Arms

Continuing the Burgundian theme, here are the dismounted men at arms, most of the heraldry matches that use on the mounted Ordonnance companies. Figures are Redbox Burgundian/German Knights Accompanying them is a unit of pikemen made with the Redbox Continental Mercenaries, only two poses so not much variation.

Italian Motorcyle combo

This comment on my blog took a while to answer as it posed an interesting question about Italian Motorcycle combinations.
"Question, since you seem to know a lot about WW2 Italians in Africa: Do you think that those Zvezda bikes could work as Italian bikes, simply by swapping the drivers heads with Italian ones? You seem to be one of the most experienced gamers around here and I thought you would have an idea on it. Thanks! FF

I had planned to get a Skytrex motorcycle Trike combination for my Italians, but given friendly Fire's query I checked the Rapid Fire book and saw it showed a combination, but on the other side to the German one.

I raised the question with Simon R, who's the best expert I know on WW2 Italians. His thoughts were:
"Will, The Motociclo Alce, tended to mount the side car on the LHS, so did the Tipo Sport, another common combination in use at the time, saying that I have images of the Gilera Marte with a side car on the LHS and the RHS! They all carried the Breada 30 LMG. What I have never seen is a Bersagliari combination in North Africa, I'd be more inclined to have a MC with the LMG mounted on the cross bars, or use a " Mototricicli" or " Motocarro", the 3 wheel trike type bikes which are very Italian."

Eventually I managed to find one on the web, looks great fun and matbe not too difficult a conversion.

DAK light artillery

A couple of extra 105mm guns for my DAK. The figures are a simple repaint job from the Revell German Artillery, plus a couple of extras to make up the numbers. This second battalion is only needed for one scenario, but since I had the figures available I decided they should be included in my DAK tidy up.

Burgundian Archers

Continuing the Burgundian output - one unit of Archers in Burgundian livery coats and another from the Osprey book and described as mercenary archers

Figures are the mix of Redbox and Miniart

Mersa El Brega 1941

Fifth Panzer Regiment moves forward against the support group of the 2nd Armoured Division. A lead sdkfz 222 has come under fire and suffered heavy damage. A picture from last weeks game taken on my old camera, not the best image.
Overall the British managed to hold the position, assisted by the absence of a German Infantry regiment, somehow left at home - Doh!

British Achilles

This was a bit of an impulse purchase as I already had an Achilles but this Ready to Roll one was cheap on the B&B at Gauntlet. The existing model is the Armourfast one and I've never been completely happy with it.

I was quite pleased to find it was actually smaller than the Armourfast one so it will fit in better with my mainly 1/76 models. It was fairly quick to assemble and paint.

Here a picture of the original models one as a straight M10 the interior detail had to be added.

Britcon booty and Novarra 1513

Well a successful foray to Britcon today.

Firstly an enjoyable couple of games refighting Novarra 1513 as the Lance & Longbow demonstration/participation game



I think overall the Swiss won on points.

A diversion on the way to Modelzone in Deansgate, meant I topped up on my Humbrol enamel gold and chrome paints at a cheap price

Then the B&B came up trumps, the list of bargains:

• A pair of matchbox sdkfz 251s
• Matchbox Humber
• Matchbox Priest
• Matchbox Panzer II
• Matchbox LRDG set
• Hasegawa Daimler
• Osprey Colonial American Troops (2)
• Wargaming WW2 by Stuart Asquith
• Junot's Invasion of Portugal by Foy
• Galvez in Lousiana 1776-1783

And all for less than £20 - success!

DAK command teams

Quite a mix of figures were used to provide these command teams. From left to right the are a Battle group HQ (6 figs); an artillery regiment HQ (4 figs), then three artillery battalion HQs (2 figs each) In front a couple of extra OP teams (2 figs each).

At the back a couple of spare figures and a Pair of Britannia sdkfz 10/4s to provide some AA cover.

Figures by various plastic manufacturers, SHQ and Kelly's Heroes (Grubby)

DAK Motorcycle combos

These are the Zvezda German motorcycles I bought at Phalanx, just a few head swaps and a a suitable paint job means I have some more Motorcycle combos for my DAK. I would have bought more of the Italeri ones, but they seem to have vanished and the Zvezda option is cheaper. At the back is a second hand combo, Hasegawa I think plus a spare Italeri passenger

Oh, and at the back is another Airfix Sdkfz 222, again second hand and only kept/painted as one of the scenarios in Monty's desert battles need four!

And a little extra, the Zvezda Soviet medical team, which was in the bag of figures when I retrieved it from the dishwasher. Quite nice as a bit of eye-candy, but my camera refused to focus on it until I stuck it out in bright sunshine.

Happy birthday Roy

Roy Adams 60 today (top left)

Defence of Oak ridge and Blochers Knoll

Back to Day 1 of Gettysburg at the club on Thursday night with some action on the North-West flank. The scenario came from an old copy of Miniature Wargames #229 by George Anderson.  Plus some input from the Fire & Fury rulebook Gettysburg scenario and WSS #66, the ACW themed issue.

A write up and a few pictures from the confederate viewpoint can be found on Sediments blog.

Some notes on converting the scenario to Black Powder.

• I normally use 4 bases of 5 figures as a regiment (45mm square) and 66% scaling. But given the scale of the action I had to downsize and use 3 bases and 50% scaling. Rather than converting individual regimental strengths the number of regiments in each brigade was calculated by dividing its strength by 400 with some rounding to ensure the overall totals were correct. This makes it a lot easier for players to handle.
• My armies were originally organised for Fire and Fury, so command stands were in short supply, but I used this to advantage with brigades alternating between those with flags (command stands) and those without.  It made spotting brigades easier.
• Batteries were represented by a single base with a marker added to indicate those with 6 guns, instead of the normal 4.  in hindsight it would have been better to add a couple of extra Union 4 gun batteries and reduce the confusion.  Guns with my newer basing were rifles and the older smooth bores.
• Smoothbore batteries were rated 3/2/1 and rifles 2/2/2 and adjusted to 5/3/1 and 3/3/3 for 6 gun batteries.  Their maximum ranges were increased to 80" (40" at 50% scaling) to fit with the scenario.

Overall thoughts

• Scenario was too ambitious for a single evening, but another hour would have seen a clear conclusion
• Three base units work well on a grand tactical level.  Firing is particularly easy as each base gets one dice so splitting fire between targets is simple, similarly the ara of fire and clear view of target.
• 50% scaling is clumsy, something using base widths would be easier

On the workbench - August 2013

After the disruptions of July with Gauntlet preparation and holidays it's time to get my painting back on track. Although I intend to continue working on my medievals I've decided to try and finish off the remaining DAK as well. So currently planned is:

• Burgundian dismounted men at arms (1 unit of 16)
• Burgundian archers (2 units)
• Burgundian pikemen (1 unit)
• Burgundian crossbowmen (2 units)
• Various DAK command teams
• An additional pair of 105mm guns
• a pair of sdkfz 10/4 to provide some more AA.
• Motorcycle combos to allow earlier period games
• Strelets Crusader transport (they're beginning to get in the way)
• and looking back the polsten gun must be somewhere

Another Scammell

The recovery version this time. Time was when this would have been a conversion from the Airfix tank transporter, but all this Oxford Diecast needed was a repaint from the BOAC colours.



Of course Oxford Diecast will produce a desert version in due course, but a discounted model in Modelzone caught me at a weak moment