Here come the "Siberian Rifles"

 

Zvezda Ski Troops

Some opposition for all those greatcoated and bed-sheet draped Germans in the ruins of Cholm.

From the Blitzkreig to Stalingrad

 I've been whiling away the winter weeks and COVID induced lockdowns here in Melbourne painting for the early part of the Second World War. On top of having Richard Marsh's scenarios for the Eastern Front, I also recently picked up the newish Blitzkreig Battle Groups supplement for Rapid Fire. I was also picking through old issues of Wargames Illustrated and was taken again by Richards' old display game based on the siege of Cholm which took place after the initial German march on Moscow broke down in the face of Soviet resistance and the rigours of the Russian winter.

I noted and really admired the pictures of the Zvezda figures from their "Art of Tactic" as well as the "German Platoon" sets in the newer of the RF! publications, so I was determined to use them myself. Naturally I seem to have missed the boat both with their German and Soviet platoon sets which seem to be almost completely unobtainable at the moment which is a huge pity as the figure are superb, so I have settles purely on the Art of Tactic figures with some ring-ins from here and there. 

The goal then is to put together a couple of battalion each of "winter" and "summer" Germans, a couple of three battalion regiments of likewise "summer" and "winter" Soviets and a battalion of  BEF British.

A air amount of painting as been completed as you can see. Paints as ever are GW. Mostly Death Guard Green for the tunics and Administratum Gray for the trousers and helmets. Vehicles got a base coat of Tamiya German Gray, a wash of GW Nuln oil and then dry-brushing in Administratum Gray which was lightened for lighter layers of dry-brushing with white.

Zvezda PAK36

Matchbox SDKFZ10 and Pegasus IG18

Zvezda Command types

Zvezda German infantry and MG34 team

Zvezda German infantry

Zvezda German "Winter" Command

Zvezda German "Winter" Infantry - note the 'moving' mortar grew. Super engineering.

Pegasus German Infantry at Stalingrad.

Size comparison Pegasus and Zvezda.

The BEF, again by Zvesda.

Thanks for looking in. if anyone has one of the German or Soviet Platoon Sets going spare, do drop me a line..! The Strelets Germans in Stalingrad set would be welcome as well! :^) bloggerator@gmail.com

Sorry, blog, I've been neglecting you.

 So here are some pictures to cheer you up.

I've spent the past months blitzing away at my old WH40K stash. Painting has gone rather well and I think I've gotten through about 50 figures and vehicles. So here we have a small sampling of what's been through the painting pipeline... The eagle-eyed among you will doubtless be able to tell what is what among these and doubtless some may be horrified by the de-blistering and painting of some items. But. It was either that or eBay.

A Weekend in the Stash Pile

Late last week I was looking at my various stashes of figures as a break from painting Willies when I happened across an older GW box set that I had bought some years ago, probably from eBay. It's the "Battle for Macragge" set with a small force of Space Marines and a slightly larger one of Tyranids plus some cool terrain and objective markers.

My set was minus all the rulebooks and fluff, but the box had become a repository for all my various Space Marine bits and pieces. The humus was rich and deep and perhaps it was time to go to harvest.

It wasn't until I started painting them that I realised how cool the Tyranid plastics were and how well they'd respond to the Contrast paints I wanted to use on them. Two thumbs' up GW. I went with A green and bone combination that I will use on everything. It contrasts nicely with the orange-yellow of the groundwork which was felicitous as I chose that as a contrast to the dark blue of the Marines. 

Army colour choices - sorted!

It's a Mars-like world, newly colonised, the soil rich in oxides of iron that are being trickle-mined by gen mod plants. There is no heavy industry yet and only a few millions of colonists who've only lived on this world for a couple of generations.

When the Tyranid invasion came, there were only a few millions of fighting creatures. It was never known why this was although in the aftermath, Tech savants theorised that it was a hive that was either immature or severely compromised. The planetary defense corps held it's own handily, although Marines were sent to help them finish the job. 

What was not realised in the aftermath of the first campaign was that remnant forces were still extant at the Southern pole of the planet and also that Genestealers had gotten in among the Civilian population.

The Tyranid Remnanters grew in strength over time.

And when the time was right they struck in terrifying numbers. The Defense Corps and the Marines may have held them. Just. 

However, then the Cultists struck from within.

The situation is dire. All fronts are collapsing. The troops are in full retreat. All they can hope to do is cover the civilians as they stream toward the evacuation transports at the spaceport, harried and desperate carrying nothing but the tiny bundles of their dearest possessions.

All is lost.

Hive Fleet Remnant

The pile of shame had quite a few disparate Marine bits, so I tried experimenting a bit with the poses. Space Marines are famously inanimate so I wanted to get them moving. I think I may be winning.

Ahem. These Marines are losing rather badly. They are troops thrown together from several companies; remnants of squads, the cooks, drivers and batmen all scraped up and put on the line. Equipment is serviceable rather than regulation often being patched together and cannibalised. These are not squeaky clean Ultramarines. These are Marines who have caught the nasty end of the stick and are reeling to keep their balance.

A few items for the Sikh Wars

I've been doing a little painting these past few days and thought I could share a little of that with you, dear readers. These few subjects are additions to my small Sikh Wars forces in the shape of general Sir Hugh Gough

The Bombay Horse Artillery. Surely one of the more outrageously colourful units ever.

Sikh infantry of various regiments. All 'Willie" figures by Edward Suren, of course. Add to these the 25 or so British infantry already painted and certain things I am planning on adding - Sikh Artillery, some British lancers, irregulars of various kinds and you can see where this will go. I am not planning on building for any particular battle, but rather aiming on building a representative collection that I can play with using "The Sword and the Flame". Perhaps four units of infantry a side, a couple of units of cavalry and a battery each. The British side of this collection then may expand to work in with a "Crimean" collection. I wonder if Napoleonic Highlanders would work in with these?

In which your auditor has nothing else to do...

 It was a quiet long weekend after the Christmas Hols.

The brigadier was off in France, collecting the latest from Mlle Desfontaines. I believe it was a Rupert build all of lead sheet and multiple solderings. The poor woman wore glasses like coke bottle bottoms, I swear.

Father was in on some campaign with Tony, one of his other friends. He and Phil and Mr F. and doubtless others were all in together. I believe he was concocting some scheme whereby Dendermonde might at last be beseiged. A sudden descent from the Alligator Swamp, doubtless.

Mother was knitting a new tablecloth and planning some watercress and orangeade sandwiches for lunch whilst flicking through "Royalist" magazine.

So I got on with some painting.

Another sixpence from the Brig, no doubt. Soon enough I might be able to buy some toy soldiers of my  own! I drank up my port, licked my brush to a fine point and cracked on.

A Prussian Mania or Odd Doings in the Night

It had been rather a wargaming bender, with The Brigadier staying over in the guest room when the game had gone on rather too long. Many tense moments were had over Father's painstakingly created Willie tertios as we re-fought the battle of Edge Hill. 

Ye Gods, how it went. Rupert Charging! back and forth with Boye at his heels, faulconets flaming and dour roundheads taking to their heels as gay cavaliers shewed 'em what is what, what! And how the Brigadier held forth! For it was true he had written the book on the Royalists, on the army and on the jolly battle.

Sadly, though all was not well for the King and Father and I were pressing the Royalists sorely at the end of play for the day. We had a mighty fine plan for how we'd settle them on the morn.

Mother had retired early to get cracking on her knitting as I needed a new pullover for Fourth Form. However, this was not before she laid out a rather smashing spread of lamb-chops and well-boiled sprouts de Bruxelles! With bread and butter, too!

Father had retired to the kitchen to use Mother's gas ring and an old saucepan to melt some roofing lead in order to cast some figures in his plaster moulds. Every now and then there would be a terrific crack as one of them blew into shards!

Homework done, I fell into an uneasy slumber. 

I was awakened at 2 in the morning by a heavy foot on the stair. "Wha..?" I muttered groggily, a Blue Peter badge adhering to my forehead. I wasn't quite used to the Brigadiers diet of cigars and VAT 69 Whiskey yet and so could be forgiven a touch of fogginess.

"Who?" A portly figure passed my door. It paused for a moment as though the not-very stealthy somnambulist were pausing to asses my wakefulness. Then the footfalls moved on in the direction of the war-gaming room. I slumbered on in a haze of Whiskey fumes.

 The next morning saw myself and Father green-gilled over bacon and eggs. The Brigadier ate heartily, accepting seconds from Mother before we all trooped off to the Wargaming Room.

The situation on the green baize of the table top had been revised from my recollection and, although Father and I battled valiantly, there was little that could be done to retrieve the situation. Oh how we eyed the inscrutable Brigadier. Oh, how bland was his returned gaze.

The Brigadier slipped me a sixpence and I handed over the first company of the Erbprinz regiment plus a few samples. "Well done my boy! Do that all yourself? Bully for you!" He tossed back a port for the road, leapt nimbly into his MGB and erupted down the lane toward Dover town with a terrific roar of laughter and a showered spatter of gravel.

Discoveries in the Lead Mountain

 

We had gotten to the part of the afternoon where the cigars and VAT 69 Whiskey had come out. 

The Brigadier and I were rummaging through the lead pile here in a remote department of the Duchy when - "Aha!" quoth he. "I remember these little fellows!"

He triumphantly waved aloft a small packet. We peeled off the browned and unadhesive tape, and carefully brushed aside the decayed remnants of some foam peanuts to reveal the undercoated figures.

Fortunately I was familiar with the Stadden back catalogue and I knew them for the Frenchmen they were. 

"Ha! These will paint up a treat, dear boy!" He pressed them into my hands. "Santoigne Regiment, American Revolution. There's a jolly good picture in young Mollo's Blandflord."

"What ho!" he cried. "Have those done by Christmas and I'll have a shiny sixpence for you my boy!". With a hearty slap to my shoulder he poured himself a port for the road and vaulted into his MG. As the gravel spurted from under his tires, I reflected that I had not - yet - completed the first Company of the Erbprinz Regiment.

The Infamous BVC

The Bush Veldt Carbineers were a Light Horse in South Africa notorious for the conviction and execution by firing squad of two of it's officers and the imprisonment of a third for the murder of numerous Boer prisoners of war. They were just one of many small units of what were basically irregular light infantry raised to prosecute the guerilla war against the diminishing Boer commandoes as the Boer War ran down in late 1901-2.

Their job was to out-Boer the Boers. They are a troop type that is absolutely necessary if one is to war game the later phase of the Boer War. I'll probably make up the troopers from Willie Lancers with heads swapped from figures with slouched hats. 

I am also considering getting together a unit of New South Wales Lancers which could probably be done in much the same way with or without lances.

This figure is a lightly converted US Cavalry officer from the Willie "Wild West" range. Sadly the horse looks a little like an over-sized dog!

Willie in the West

 

Taken in the greyish light of the early morning and Apache rides hell-for leather whither I know not.

Basic Willie figure with a shield made from a drawing pin and some Greenstuff.

Old Things Picked Up Again

 Or - the project that would not die.

I've recommenced on an old Landsknechts project this week. The paperboys are having a rest for the next week or so.

I was chatting to a chum about his growing Landsknecht forces when I recalled my own; one thing led to another and we have committed to a battle next year of a particularly school-boy sort where "You bring every thing you've got and I'll bring everything I've got.". And naturally this will be kicking off an arms race, and some good-natured sledging.

So and without any further ado, some pictures of where I am at right now.

First up, the weeks' painting; four preening pike-men.

An enormous movement tray for the pike block that will be eight ranks of eight figures.

And partially populated with the figures I managed to finish basing yesterday.

Yes, I am going large on this project. I am planning 12 and 24 figure cavalry units and at least two units of pike along with sundry artillery, arquebusiers an other riff-raff.

Don't tell my chum this but at least one of the cavalry units will be based plowing through a broken bunch of landsknechts painted to resemble those from one of his own units, so if anyone can tell me what flags he is using...

The Growing Might of Rome

 Appalled by the spectacle of the vile Gauls who have the impertinence to thumb their lime-stained noses at Rome, More troops have been sent to the border areas under Legate Stocus M. Derivitatus.

Not my best photography, I'll admit, but enough to show that the scissors have been flying and the glue splashing liberally about here.

Next time, the Romans' fears are realised. More Gauls.

UPDATE: Right here!

The Last Temptation of Stollen

 

Now the Gauls will need Romans for opposition. So here is yesterday's work, about an hour and a half in between this and that. 

Legate Stocus Maximus urges a cohort of the IXth on to do his dirty work... somewhere in Gaul.

What a difference two days makes...

 I got busy with the scissors and glue over the weekend and knocked out some more stands of Gallic infantry. This is what 12 stands looks like all in a row:

And with the stands doubled per the rules in the "Roman Invasion" Paperboys book. Warbands are meant to be 6-10 stands strong, so I'll be splitting this and adding a few more to get a couple of nice, hefty warbands to terrorise the Romans with.

I love the density of these formations. As everyone seems to be saying, they look great in large numbers.

And who is this? Why, it's Julius Caesar, of course, doubtless ready to pen his version of "The Gallic Wars".

Paperboy Gallic Infantry

 

While the kids watched a movie last night, I was gluing and cutting out some of the excellent Paperboy figures that I bought from Peter Dennis' site for a pound a sheet. What a marvellous thing these really are. 

Fiddly to cut out, once you get into the swing of things, they go fairly rapidly. I processed a bit more than a single sheet last night.  

I have the Romans in Britain book from Helion as well and I am in the process (I think) of scratching a long-held itch.

6-10 stands makes a warband for the Gauls...