1914 German Infantry - The repaint begins

I have started on the EW German infantry that I obtained recently. I was hoping that they would be as easy as the EW British but after review I will be doing a complete repaint.

I did the CO, 2IC and the HMG Section as a sample to see what I was getting into. It is not to much, though the little detail of the red piping and such will slow me down.

The platoons are huge, 17 bases each. So this part of the project will take longer than I had hoped but better to do them right the first time.

I am fighting the urge to follow my gaming mates and do a DBA RRR army. I will eventually do a French one based on The Three Musketeers but for now it is back to the 1914 Germans.

EW BEF Infantry

Here are my 1914 British Infantry. They were part of the large collection I purchased a few months ago. The figs are Peter Pig painted to a reasonable gaming standard. I rebased them for FOW1918 and dipped them. I think they look pretty good. I just need to do some cav and an artillery battery but I am on to the German Infantry next.

CO and 2IC.

1914 German Kurassiers

One of the many early war German cavalry units that I am rebasing and touching up from my resent acquisition is a Kurassier troop. The Kurassiers were the heavies of the German cavalry. They no longer wore the breast plates of yore but were still large men on large horses. For my EW force I want a full troop (nine stands) so I will have to purchase a few packs from Minifigs to finish this unit. One thing that all German cavalry shared was the lance, leading to confusion within the allied armies as to whom they were actually dealing with.
The lances all had pennants distinguishing there region. I used some medieval ones off Warflags.com and painted them. I will do a different region for each type of cav unit I created, Hussar, Uhlan, etc. I found the Renegade Miniatures article very helpful and it matched up with the pictures on the Landships website.
I am very much looking forward to seeing them on the table in mass.
I have some Peter Pig Kurassiers figures but they are a wee bit smaller so they do not work on the same stands. The nice thing about the Peter Pig figs are the pennants are already present and the lances are much sturdier.

Online sources:

http://www.renegademiniatures.com/article13.htm

http://www.landships.freeservers.com/german_earlywar_uniforms.htm

http://www.germanmilitaria.com/Imperial/photos/G005957.html

EW Armies, O' my!

I just purchased a large collection of EW Armies. British, German, French, Serbian with some Russians, Italians and AH thrown in. It is huge and I am a little over whelmed. Most are Peter Pig but a good amount of Minifig and then Eureka.

A large amount is painted but then again a lot is not.

I have started to rebase the British for FOW1918 and then will be doing a little touch-up painting. This will get the EW gaming going fairly quickly.

The things we find on eBay!

I search eBay regularly for WW1 15mm figures. My latest score are these Serbs. I am not sure the manufacture since the only current line is Eureka and these are different. I rebased them on to Litko bases and have no idea when I will ever game with them since I will need a EW AH or LW Bulgarian force as an opponent. They sure look cool!

The little things that can be done.

With my bicycle training hitting its most demanding period and starting a new job I have had very little time for gaming. I did manage to 're-base' my WoW WWI aircraft in the few minutes I could find. It is a really neat way to enhance the gaming with the miniatures but I can not take the credit for it. Harry did something similar for his Check Your Six miniatures.

It is a steel ball hot glued to the stand and a ring magnet glued to the plane. It allows total variance in yaw, pitch and roll of the plane with little effort and it stays in place. It makes a difference when using the miniatures and the plane to plane rule instead of the base for shooting.

Now to just find time to game!

Trench Battle Game - FOW1918

The other day I hosted a game for the DAHWG's (Dulles Area Historical Wargamers) at the Monday night fights. It was a pure infantry attack based in 1917. I used a combination of The Big Push mission in the main FOW rule book and the D-Day mission. I will work it up as a FOW1918 mission and post it on the Yahoo group after a few more play tests.

The British had four infantry platoons, a Stoke mortar section, a rolling barrage and a counter battery barrage. The Germans had two full platoons, one with three squads (no bombers), a HMG section and a Defensive (SOS) barrage.

The Pre Lim bombardment was fairly effective in clearing some wire but did little damage to the one German platoon on the table.

By turn three some of the Tommies were through the wire and into the trench. Will the Hun finally got their SOS barrage only to have it blasted away by the British counter battery. On turn four the German HMGs come on the table as his ambush.

Turn six the Germans finally get their reserves (both platoons) and they rush to cover the objectives.

It came down to a real nail biter at the end of turn 11 beginning of turn 12.

Jan wrote up a more detailed review from his point of view as the British CO at http://knightrecoil.blogspot.com/2009/05/western-front-wwi-tactical-combat.html

I think we may actually have it. The feel is good the game flows. The different weapons and FOG is good.