New 20mm WW2 Village Module

Most of my WW2 buildings have comprised a single building with a variety of add-on gardens. This time I have gone for something a little larger with an integral base. The main advantage with this system is that everything looks a bit more "together" and due to the larger base, you can do a bit more with it. The basic house is another of my plastic railway model purchases from EBAY, cleaned up, re-painted and detailed. The fencing is from the same model railway source, as is the shed.

To add a bit of extra interest, I have made a number of small orchard-type trees, that can be dropped in when needed to vary things.

I have a few more of these on the go at the moment and will post some details when I have them finished. When I can find the time, I am hoping to do a board or two to represent a more urban area and will add a load of larger 3 storey buildings that I have been sitting on for quite a while to represent a town, rather than village setting.

More AWI

After a bit of a break (!) since my last post, here are the latest additions to my AWI collection. First up is a fairly generic Loyalist militia unit. There are 24 figures in total, all from the Perry range. Usefully five of the bases can be used as rebel militia if required, as they are indistinguishable, being in civilian dress. The command base has three of its four figures in red coats, just to set them apart a little, whilst the flag (another lovely Mark Allen production), identifies them as unmistakably Loyalists. They are marching across the first of my newly re-vamped terrain boards - a project that is progressing slowly but steadily. Will do a post on them later when I have more done.

Secondly, a unit of a dozen rebel rifles to add a bit of long range sniping ability. My American force now stands at 1 x 36 Continentals, 2 x 24 militia, a light gun and a dozen skirmishers. The forces of the Crown are lagging behind somewhat, with a mere 24 man militia battalion, a dozen militia skirmishers (which can also double as rebels at need)  plus a dozen Hessian jaegers. I am currently working on a 40 man unit of 71st Highlanders to even things up a bit. When they are done, I will at least have enough for a game of Sharp Practice. Ultimately, I want to be able to play larger battles of 3-5 brigades a side, but that may take some time.

Maultier Nebelwerfer

One of my favourite WWII vehicles is the fearsome Panzerwerfer. Mounted on an armoured Maultier semi tracked truck, it entered production in April 1943, some 300 being produced. It mounted 10 rocket tubes in two banks of five and carried 20 rounds, enough for two full salvoes. A further 289 of the ammunition carrying variant were also produced. The great advantage they held over the towed Nebelwerfer was the ability to quickly change position after firing - particularly important in view of their tell-tale firing signature. The armoured protection it afforded the crews was also valuable. First employed in the East, it also saw service on the Western Front, particularly against the British in Normandy and the Americans in the Ardennes. The main advantage of these weapons is the large area of ground they can cover with their barrages; the template for these weapons in my own Road to Berlin rules is considerable!

The model is a diecast one, another EBAY purchase, with an AB crew.

Scratch Built Normandy Farm

More years ago than I care to think about, I remember buying my first ever Mick Sewell building. Mick had been on the "Rapid Fire" scene as it were for a while, along with Colin Rumford, Richard Marsh and Tony Chadburn of Raventhorpe Miniatures. Their demo games and later Rapid Fire supplements were an early and enduring inspiration for me to try and improve my own modelling and painting skills, especially in the field of 20mm WWII. After Mick sadly retired from model making, I was fortunate enough to get a one-to-one tutorial from the master himself on how he did things. I have been trying ever since, with varying degrees of success, to produce buildings (and other terrain), that I would be happy to put out on the table. For a while I was able to make and sell quite a few pieces, but the pressure of my day job - figure painting - always got in the way. I do enjoy making terrain and it is a pleasant change from the figures, so I have decided that, whilst I can't take on many commissions, I could at least produce the odd piece. It is likely to be a very occasional enterprise, but as and when I can, I will put them on the blog for anyone that might be interested. If, after a while, they remain unsold, then they will go onto EBAY.

First up is a sizeable Normandy farm, around 17" x 12" It is comprised of a farmhouse a stable and smaller barn on an irregularly shaped base. In order to save time and get a better finish, the ever obliging Martin from Warbases makes the walls and internal floors, which I have designed, on his laser cutter and I add the roofs later.

The dry stone walling is made from fish tank grit from the local pet shop, layered and soaked in PVA for strength. Whilst time consuming to make, it is worth the effort, looking suitably rustic and run-down. A home made tree and vegetable patch also add a bit of character and contribute to that lived in look, as does the greenery growing up the walls.

A module of this size obviously involves a fair amount of work as well as material costs. One such as this would be around £175.00. If you are interested in this one, or something a little different, then let me know. You can contact me via the blog home page.

Raupenschlepper Ost

I featured a PAK 40 toting version of this vehicle in an earlier post.

http://steve-nationsinarms.blogspot.com/2017/10/raupenschlepper-with-pak40.html

These are doing duty primarily as tows or possibly as SP 20mm flak mounts. The canvas covers are removable, so they can serve for both. Another lovely kit from PSC.

Am currently trying to get my Soviet Shermans done - just need to add the stowage before painting. Getting the right shade of green is always the tricky bit for me; my other Soviet vehicles are a bit on the dark side. Am going to try something a little lighter with these lend-lease vehicles and, if it works, re-do my other vehicles as well.

Marders

One of the most versatile boxes that PSC do, is the Panzer 38(t) and Marder variants. In this case, I built them as the later war 138 model and they will be very handy to offer a bit of A/T support to my hard-pressed German infantry. As you can see, they come with some nice looking crew figures which, with the added ammo box helps to personalise them a bit. One of the three has been held back for a Fallschirmjager crew, still to be painted, again to provide a bit of long range hitting power to my paras.

 

 

A Quick Apology

Hi Everyone. Just a quick note to apologise for not uploading recent comments. I am supposed to get a notification every time someone posts a comment, so that I can see it, remove the bad language (only joking) and then upload it. For some reason, these notifications have not been coming through. I only found out by looking at the Comments awaiting moderation section of the blog and saw a whole load stacked up there. Don't know why that happened and have added them now. Again, my apologies - I appreciate any feedback and the effort taken to provide it. I will need to check manually in future to make sure that this doesn't happen again.

Postscript: Am still not sure that all is well. If you have sent a comment and it hasn't appeared, please let me know at steveshann@blueyonder.co.uk Thanks.

Tiger Tiger.

Here is a bit of heavy support for my late war Germans - a couple of Italeri "Quick Builds". They are actually quite nice models, not massive amounts of detail but nice enough for wargaming purposes.

 

 

I have also added a Pegasus King Tiger. I must admit I prefer it to the Ready to Roll versions I have at the moment and may well get a couple more. The smooth finish on these vehicles works very nicely with the airbrush. The crewman is, I think, from AB.

 

 

 

I am really hoping to crack on with my WWII collection and the terrain (boards and drop on stuff) over the next few months and hopefully post some proper after action reports to show the rules in action. As always, all comments/suggestions are welcome.





Crewed-up Hanomags

Have finally managed to get the vehicle crews done for my 1st (armoured) battalion FBB. As I alluded to in an earlier post, it seems like wasted work in some ways, as they have no effect on the game. Even so, really glad I made the effort as they look so much better crewed up, rather than empty. First up are the basic infantry carriers with the accompanying crew and stowage that make the PSC boxes so attractive. As you can see from these two examples, there is quite a bit of scope for "individualising" the standard vehicle. Three to a box for less that £20, you really can't go wrong.

Next are two of the support options: a 75mm Infantry gun armed "Stummel" and the HQ variant with the 37mm A/T gun. Most of the crews in this case are AB, which match the seated and standing PSC crew really nicely. The gunner in the "Stummel" is one of the very nice sets done by Adler Miniatures - better known for their 6mm figures.

Finally there are a couple of shots of the engineer variant with attached assault bridges. The Armoured battalion did include an engineer company, so these could prove useful.

All in all, this is a very powerful unit, armoured and well equipped. In the Ardennes and against the Soviets, it should prove a handful in action.

Please feel free to comment on anything on the blog - always useful to get some feedback. Cheers and a Happy New Year. Steve.