Arrowhead Miniatures

 

I ordered this Renault FT17 and accessory pack yesterday. It arrived today. Colour me impressed. Beautiful castings too.

Purpose of said purchase I hear you ask?

If truth be told, this is to be made up for size comparison shots with my mecha, because I like to keep things in perspective. The one thing that bugs me is the distortions made to vehicles for wargaming. It's my bugbear, I carry it with pride.

And just look at how cute the model is. Also, the accessory pack shows that in my heart I'm as much a wargame modeller as wargamer.
  

WW1 Interregnum

It has been a while since I've posted anything about my efforts to put together two WW1 forces so that I can play games set in late 1917 and finishing with the 100 day offensive of 1918. While I'm no where near finished painting anything of note, what I have done is finally finish basing all of the figures for both the Germans and British forces I am building.

Above shows the British company and I'm thinking about about adding another base of three Tommies to all the rifle squads because as they stand each platoon is only 33 men. This would strengthen the platoon to 39 men. As you can see I have six Vickers machine gun teams and a four mortar teams to support this lot when in defence. I'm also making up shock markers using casualties on stretchers, but again I haven't decided how many I will need? Or,  I could use one each with a die next to them to indicate shock points. Any advice would be welcome.

Alternatively, if Pendraken were to do some poses of Tommies firing either prone, kneeling and or standing, then I could add two scouts to each platoon, which would only strengthen them up to 35 men. I'm undecided about this.

The German company organisation is taken straight from the example in TooFat Lardies Through the Mud and the Blood book, and represents a late war company with Stosstrupen attached, which makes them quite formidable and what has caused me to re-evaluate the number of Tommies I have in my British company.

Above is the basic company consisting of three kampfzuge (platoons). Two of the  kampzuge are made up of eleven man einheits gruppe (squads); seven riflemen and one LMG four man team, plus NCO. The third kampzuge is half strength einheits gruppe consisting of of 32 men; two groups of eight riflemen, and two groups of with one LMG with eight men.

To strengthen the German company each kampfzuge will have a stoss gruppe (shock troops), or assault grenade squad attached to stiffen them when attacking. Finally, there are the erganzun zug consisting of sixteen men with four NCOs and the reserves made up of a recce squad and granaten werfer squad. In addition, I've added two flame thrower teams and one 37mm artillery piece that the stoss gruppe could have attached when in assault.

I also have tanks for the British; three MkIVs, three MkVs and three MkI supply tanks, plus eight Whippets for the break through group, and plan to add a cavalry troop/squadron to this as well, but no pictures of them yet as I haven't managed to assemble the models.

Besides WW1 actions I intend to use this force as the basis for a what if continuation war that rolls over in 1919 and beyond that is based on the Germans not counter attacking when the Americans arrived, but rather basing their strategy on defense in depth with mobile quick strike formations. This story could then develop into a breakdown of both sides ability to wage war when the inevitable discontent the lengthening of the war produces leads to uprising and civil war breaking out. This does preclude me going all out and adding H. G. Wells Martians for a War of the Worlds scenario. I have some tripod war machines that would serve quite nicely for this idea.
   

Mud and Blood WW1 WIP 3

 

 

It has been quite some time since I posted anything about my Too Fat Lardies games Through the Mud and the Blood WW1 project, which I started in a fit of enthusiasm, but then I lost sight of the models, and as a result progress ground to a halt. As a metaphor for WW1 this is very fitting. Well, except that in this case "lost sight" was only in the sense that they were sitting on the shelf waiting to be painted and I did nothing with them. Well Saturday I was inspired to get them out and start working on them again (I know I was distracted from working on my Spirit of Steiner force, but as I have said before, I'm like a butterfly who flutters from one thing to the next).

I realised that I wasn't totally happy with the way my British Tommies had turned out, as I had tonally transposed the uniform and webbing colours. So I set about rectifying this by an application of Games Workshop's Thraka green wash that did a good job of correcting this problem. However, while that corrected the uniform I still had to repaint the webbing. I've started on this used Catachan green for the dark tone, and will probably use a light khaki for the highlight on the webbing.

Of course once I started repainting the core of my first company I just had to look at the remaining infantry and work out what figures I needed to complete the formation. Fortunately, I had actually bought most of the necessary figures some time ago, but I had just slipped them into a shoebox until such time as I felt ready to continue painting up my British force again. Another out of sight, out of mind moment. Anyway the above picture shows the core of the four platoons my British company will have, the actual formation will be organised as follows:

Four Section Platoon

Seven man rifle section
Seven man rifle grenade section
Seven man bomber section
Ten man Lewis gun section with two Lewis guns
A Lieutenant and senior Sergeant lead the platoon

I intend to field four platoons and as you can see from the picture, add a mortar and HMG sections, with an artillery battery for support. Additional forces will include a troop of cavalry, some Whippet tanks, and of course the iconic MkIV and MkV tanks.

If my Tommies were a little unloved, my Germans were languishing even more from a lack of attention. So I got my notebook out and started sorting out the figures to complete my late war German company.

The company will consist of five platoons, or zugs as they were called by the Germans. Being this is a late war force I'm basing my formation on one that is cited in Too Fat Lardies games Through the Mud and the Blood rules.

The company will consist of three kampfzuge (battle groups),  each with two zugs. The first and second kampfzuge will each have two zugs consisting of two 11 man einhets gruppes (standard squads), while the third kampfzuge will have two 16 man einhets gruppe.

Zug with two 11 man einhets gruppes

Seven man rifle squad
Four man squad with one LMG
A korporal schaften will command

Zug with two 16 man einhets gruppes

Eight man rifle squad
Eight man squad with two LMGs
A korporal schaften will command

Supporting the kampfzuge will be three squads of stossgruppe (stormtroopers).  Two squads will have eight riflemen, while one squad will have ten men with two LMGs. As I like vehicles and want tanks for the Germans too, I will also add an assault stossgruppe consisting of one eight man  bomber squad and an eight man pioneer squad with two, two man flame thrower teams to support the AFV7 and other captured tanks I intend to field when using this force in the offensive role.

Compared to the British company organisation, the German force just did my head in as I worked through it. Probably down to the names and the fact that the organisation was left to local commanders discression, which results in very mission orientated task organisation, but by the late war the Germans were struggling to hold the line, so it all looks a little ad hoc.

Another thing I've noticed is that the organisations here are very telling about the psychology of the factions and the inherent prejudices that both had about what made for good operational doctrine. Ultimately wars are won through logistics, not tactics and WW1 was a good predictor of the outcome for WW2, though that is largely down to 20:20 hindsight on my part.

  

Reflecting Progress 2

Following on from my previous post, I cast my eye across the next lot of toy soldiers on my work bench and it indubitably true that one cannot out-stare a lead figure. The next group that awaits the soft touch of my paint brush are my Pendraken WW1 British & Germans troops. I have a platoon of British painted and based, but need a Company, as I have plans to do a Company level attack with tank and artillery support, for a game that represents a small part of a much bigger action. So there sits on the shelf the rest of the British infantry company, based and primed, with dry-brushed with one colour. The Germans are based, but not all the bases have been textured, and none are yet primed.

In a shoe box, on a shelf above my work bench, I have a French Company that I haven't looked at since I bought it. This includes tanks and artillery too. I also have some tanks put aside for the Germans; one AV7 and the rest will be made up with repainted versions of the MkIV, Whippet and FT17 tanks, representing captured equipment. I also have some lovely MkVs from Pendraken, which are noticeably longer than the MkIVs, and I also have some MkI howitzer/supply tanks too. Lots of toys, and that is why I like modern games. The variety of machines fascinates me much more than the intricacies of uniform details.

When I was younger, WW1 was considered a pretty "black" period to play wargames about. The image that had arisen in the sixties, from dialectical arguments by arts academics were solely focused on the "lions led by donkeys" idea. Depending on your point of view, revisionist historians have challenged that point of view, and what has emerged is a more complex and challenging reflection on the Great War. Certainly the Great War epitomised industrial warfare, even if the first fully modern war was arguably the American Civil War, which we Europeans dismissed as a Colonial affair with no relevance. It is also arguably true that the lessons learnt by the major European powers, between the end of the Napoleonic wars and WW1, were the wrong ones due to confounding variables specific to each conflict.

All my reading around WW1 has also got my creative juices flowing about how to use historical events in Sci-Fi games, of either Ogre/GEV, or more likely Battletech. For instance the whole evolution of tactics and the introduction of tanks can be mirrored in a Battletech game through the use of the "primacy" of the battlemech over other more conventional forces as one's starting point. I especially like the idea of replaying historical civil wars using Battletech. For instance the Spanish Civil war, or even WW1 with mechs, though that is more a Games Workshop Space Marine thing, if truth be told.

Mud and Blood WW1 WIP 2

   

Like most well laid plans of mice and men, my intention to use my booked annual leave to paint some of the projects that have been waiting for me to get stuck into finishing them off, didn't go according to plan. However I am still able to show some progress on the remainder of the figures I have to paint to mostly finish my Pendraken WW1 British infantry Company.

In support I plan to have an HMG section, a battery of field artillery, and some mortars. The figures in front of the beginnings of the support forces are the individually mounted "Big Men" required for TFLs Through the Mud & the Blood rules.

As I mentioned before I also have some MkV tanks and some additional assets to add to the as yet unstarted French Company I've bought. Being the butterfly that I am I tend to flit from one shiney project to another, but OTOH I do enjoy what I end up doing.
   

Mud and Blood WW1 WIP

   

It has been a while since I posted anything about my Pendraken 10mm WW1 figures, Truth be told they are slowly traversing the log jam that is the painting schedule on the Paint-it-Pink workbench. I have this tendency to get caught up by the latest shiny thing that catches my eye, and therefore wonder from one thing to another in a haphazard sort of way. However, it at least keeps my interest in painting and model making fresh.

I've managed to prime more since I took this photo, and even started drybrushing the base colours too. The tanks need to have their barrels replaced, as I find them a bit too easy to bend, which has slowed me down on getting them painted. I also intend to paint one Whippet and MkIV in German colours.
    

Mud and Blood British Tommy's

I bought a bunch of Pendraken 10mm WW1 British infantry, and I've been learning stuff about formations, uniforms and the development of tactics during the war, which went from 19th Century style of attacks and became what was the basis for modern 20th Century warfare.

Fascinating stuff to read, and it rather dispels the rather one sided lions led by donkeys myth, not that the general staff in any of the armies could be considered brilliant and mistakes that cost men their lives were repeatedly made by both sides, but without hindsight I can see that it was a steep learning curve for all the armies involved in the conflict. Not the first time it happened and it certainly won't be the last either.

Well I didn't exactly wake up today intending to paint my first 10mm Pendraken Late WW1 British infantry today, but I did. It was one of those one little thing leads into another, and before you know it you might as well finish the job that you were idling with situation. Anyway, combination of black base with white highlight drybrushing, followed by drybrushing and washing colours on top to get them done like this.

Only another three platoons worth to go and then I'll be able to start the Germans. Got tanks too, lots of tanks. I see fun times ahead.