Snipers, Casualties and Boardgames

This weekend my friend John hosted a Commands & Colours day and invited me and The Boy. I think he has at least one copy of all of the Commands & Colours series of games (in some cases, I think he might have MORE than one copy!?)

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

The Boy and I started out with the introductory scenario for Battlelore - the fantasy version of the game. The Boy was a bit disappointed that it was just humans vs. humans and there were no fantastical creatures involved or magic... (different elements are introduced one at a time through the scenarios).

Afterwards we played a game of Commands & Colours: Ancients

Others were playing Great War and Memoir ‘44. We left around supper time – just as the pizza the others ordered arrived. Games continued on into the evening…

I finished these snipers from 1st Corps up this past week, but didn’t really have time to post them. Truthfully I wouldn’t have taken much time to post two pics, but I was waiting for something else to post them with… and didn’t want to post them with the posts on complete German units I’ve done this past week (11th Bavarian Infantry Regiment and 261st Reserve Infantry Regiment).

This standing one I actually painted last week, but I wasn’t happy with the paint job. Luckily Stu Rat came to the rescue with a link to this fantastic post about Great War Sniper camouflage – with some fabulous pictures. I am much happier with the results now.

Another sniper – also from 1st Corps

I also finished up some casualty markers for the 5^th Brigade – the figures are from Gripping Beast/Woodbine Design Company.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Should have three more posts in the next day or so – 16^th Battalion, 22^nd Battalion, and… Hellboy and the Scooby Gang escape a Zombie Outbreak….?

261st Reserve Infantry Regiment

This is the second of the German Regiments I painted up over nine years ago to oppose the 4^th Canadian Division at the North end of Vimy Ridge. (the other regiment – the 11^th Bavarian Infantry Regiment – I posted earlier)

The 261^st Reserve Infantry Regiment was part of the 79^th Reserve infantry Division – which was part of the 1^st Bavarian Reserve Corps (Gruppe Vimy)

261^st Reserve Infantry Regiment

Regimental Command – currently a sigle staff officer (that I made myself)

Trench Mortars – from Renegade Miniatures (The 261^st held hill 145 – which I know had a trench mortar batteries on it!)

I/261^st Reserve Infantry Regiment

II/261^st Reserve Infantry Regiment

III/261^st Reserve Infantry Regiment

I found an interesting article about the 79th Reserve Infantry Division in Canadian Military History Volume 15 Issue 1. It is available in PDF here:

The German 79th Reserve Infantry Division in the Battle of Vimy Ridge, April 1917 - PDF

There is also a Wikipedia entry about the Division here:

79^th Reserve Division (German Empire) - wikipedia

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Could be a game report for a Fear and Faith/Kooky Teenage Monster Hunters game we played on Friday… or the 22^nd Battalion, which I finished up last night… or the 16^th Battalion, which I finished rebasing… or some other random stuff…?

11th Bavarian Infantry Regiment

As I haven’t bee posting any newly painted Canadians (or Germans, for that matter) for the Vimy Project (largely due to the arrival of THREE brigades worth of miniatures and me spending most of my hobby time getting those organized and prepped and based and primed and gooped…) I thought maybe I should get around to taking and posting pictures of some of the units I have already painted and just not gotten around to posting as complete units.

All of these are figures I modeled and cast myself . Most of these I painted over nine years ago. I think originally I made 13 figure battalions. Since then, however, I have changed to 15 figure battalions. So, somewhere along the line, I painted up a few more to bring them all up to strength.

Both of the German regiments I have done so far opposed the 4^th Canadian Division and the north end of Vimy Ridge (Because that’s where I started with the Vimy Project).

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

The 11^th Bavarian Infantry Regiment was part of the 16^th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Division – which was part of Gruppe Souchez and occupied the very north end of the Ridge. It’s partner regiment (14^th Bavarian Infantry Regiment) occupied “The Pimple” - a heavily fortified knoll just north of Vimy Ridge – which the 10^th Canadian Infantry Brigade attacked a day or two after the assault of Vimy Ridge.

I/11^th Bavarian Infantry Regiment

II/11^th Bavarian Infantry Regiment

III/11^th Bavarian Infantry Regiment

I know machine-guns were integral to German infantry battalions, but I’m not sure how to represent them in the game – when I ran it at Mayday 2007 I just had all the machine-guns in bunkers. I may do the same this time around, but at some point I should probably pick up some MG teams.

I also have a few Trench Mortars… but I’m not sure how they fit into the organization. I know there were a few on Hill 145 – because I read somewhere one of the taskings of the Canadian Trench Mortar batteries was to drop smoke on hill 145 to keep the German Trench mortars from being able to observe the advance of the Canadians on the Ridge. It seems later in 1917 there was a Trench Mortar Company in each Division and Platoons in each Regiment…? But where did they show up in the organization earlier? For now I guess I’ll just shoot for one or two per division.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

261^st Reserve Infantry Regiment

Long Weekend and Assorted Great War Canadians

A belated happy Canada Day to all my fellow Canadian compatriots and happy Independence Day to all the Americans checking out the blog tomorrow! I hope you’ve all had a great long weekend (how often does that work out that Canada Day is on a Friday and Independence Day is on a Monday?).

I spent Friday finishing off Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season Two (so I could return it to the library of Saturday). Saturday I spent pretty much the whole day (well… 10 hours of it!) playing Angola with some friends:

A very long game of Angola (covering only the first 10 months of the 30 year civil war). Brent and I played the MPLA/FAPLA (which was considered two separate factions for game purposes) John played the FNLA (with some help from Zaire and assorted Mercenaries) and Kurtis played UNITA (and the South Africans). it was a tough game and there was a lot of back and forth in the first half - utter chaos - I felt totally lost. In the second half more clear lines consolidated and I thought things were looking up for the MPLA/FAPLA, but in the last round FNLA and UNITA really turned it around for the win! Fun, challenging game. Love to try it again sometime.

This was probably at the zenith of the MPLA/FAPLA game. The yellow is the MPLA – which I played – and the red is the FAPLA – which my partner Brent played. John’s FNLA was coming down from the north and Kurits’ UNITA forces working their way up from the south.

After I finish this post I'll probably be doing some yard work... (unless those clouds roll in a bit quicker and it starts raining... do I sound like I'm stalling...? I might be stalling...).

As I mentioned earlier I ordered a LOT of stuff over the last month… and most of it has arrived in the last few weeks. So I’ve been spending most of my hobby time assembling, prepping, basing, priming and gooping miniatures so they’d all be ready for painting – whenever I got to that! I have worked on a few fun things that have lingered on my workbench long enough to get some paint on them.

A staff member for the Second Division from 1st Corps. The 1st Corp miniatures are a bit on the chunky side, but there are a few interesting sculpts and they have a lot of character.

I added some of the same nylon screen door mesh I used for all my other barbed wire around the base of the post he’s perched on. Looking at it now I’ve realized I should have drybrushed a bit of reddish brown on there to make it look a bit rusty…

Another 1st Corps mini – one of two snipers I picked up. I’m not as happy with this one (the painting that is) he’s got a tarp over him for camouflage and while I know printed camouflage was not in use in the great war, I couldn’t imagine a plain khaki tarp being used and thought perhaps they might paint on some blotches of… something… to work as camouflage. The lines I painted on look far to regular – and honestly they probably wouldn’t have had access to such nice green and brown paints… The next one I’ll try to paint with blotches of brown and grey – to look more like patches of mud or charcoal that’s been smeared on… maybe I’ll repaint this guy…

Trench Fighters from 1st Corps. These are kind of a fun set of guys. Most of them look like they’re wearing sweaters rather than the issued tunic – and I wasn’t sure what colours to use…

I’m particularly fond of these first two in the front – especially the guy with two pistols – the funny thing is: one is an automatic and the other is a revolver!? While not exactly useful for the Vimy game, I thought they might be a fun set of characters for some small scale trench raids or role-playing-type game.

Some casualties/morale failure markers – the walking wounded is from Wargames Foundry  and the two dead fellows are from Gripping Beast.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have a battalion of the Gripping Beast figures on the workbench – along with some mortars from 1st Corps, and machine-guns from a few different manufacturers… hopefully I’ll finish up some of those in the not-too-distant future. 

Great War GURKHAS!?

Okay... A little distraction… at least it’s the same conflict!

In the last week or so three big orders from Wargames Foundry, Gripping Beast/Woodbine Design, and 1st Corps (along with smaller ones from North Star/Great War Miniatures, Brigade Games - thanks Jon! – and Warlord Games) arrived. If only I had known how the Brexit vote was going to go and that the pound was going to tank… I could have saved a couple hundred dollars… ah well… I may just order that one last brigade I need sooner rather than later!

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

Gurkhas from Gripping Beast/Woodbine Design.

Gripping Beast/Woodbine Design was the first of those orders to arrive so I got to work on them first. I did order a few things that weren’t directly related to the Vimy Project – like these Gurkhas with Kukri knives and some Turk and Australian casualties and some shepards and a warlord to go with my other Medieval Muslims.

The Canadians are taking a bit longer as they actually required assembly. The Gripping Beast/Woodbine Design British come with separate heads and can be ordered with one of 17 different head options!? I mostly went with plain old Brodie helments, but I got a few packs with SD caps, bareheads, bandaged heads and gas hoods to throw into the mix. The first battalion of the brigade is assembled and being painted – they will the 22^nd Battalion, CEF (the vingt deuxiéme).

This past Saturday the copy of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I requested throught he local public library finally showed up, so we’ve had a lot of TV watching to do this week. (we get DVDs for a week, being a new one, it won’t be renewable!) I think we’re about half way thorugh – luckily Friday is CANADA DAY and Amanda will have the day off, so hopefully we’ll get the series finished up then. I’ve been getting a lot of work done while watching the program – prepping, priming, basing and such. Hopefully by the end of the week I’ll have three brigades worth of miniatures all prepped, primed based and gooped and ready for painting (and maybe even have the 22^iéme done as well!)

In addition to all the miniatures I've ordered, in the last month I've also tracked down a few rule sets The Great War(hammer), Through the Mud and the Blood, and I even broke down and picked up a copy of the 3rd Edition of Contemptible Little Armies. I like some of the ideas in Through the Mud and the Blood, but I just don't think it will work on the scale I'm dealing with. The rules I previously used were a modified version of the 2nd edition CLA rules.  I'll probably stick to the same for the Vimy Project, but I thought it might be worth checking out some others as well - even if just to steal ideas for further tweaks to the rules I'm using. I think I might also pick up If the Lord Spares Us. 

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

22^iéme Battalion, CEF – hopefully!  

13th Battalion (Royal Highland Regiment of Canada), CEF

The 13^th was one of many battalions raised by the Royal Highland Regiment of Canada (Black Watch) of Montreal. Three served as regular battalions in the Canadian Corps (the 13^th Battalion in the 1^st Division, the 42^nd Battalion in the 3^rd Division and the 73^rd Battalion in the 4^th Division), the rest supplied drafts of reinforcements to these (and likely other) battalions in the line.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

13^th Battalion (Royal Highland Regiment of Canada), CEF

Those who are paying close attention will have noticed that there are more troops in this battalion than any of the other battalions I’ve painted so far. 20, in fact, where the others have only 15. This has nothing to do with relative sizes of the battalions at any particular point in the Great War and everything to so with the packaging of miniatures. Old Glory Miniatures packages their Great War highlanders in packs of 10 which include 8 riflemen, a piper and an officer… The Lewis Gunner and Bomber came in a completely different package of “Characters”, which put me at 12… 3 short of the 15 required for a battalion. So, at some point, I broke down and bought a SECOND pack of Higlanders - which gave me another 8 riflemen, a piper and an officer… The piper and officer are being used in another unit (of mostly home-cast figures) and the rest… well I painted them up with the formation patch of the 13^th as I wasn’t going to be making any other units of highlanders using Old Glory Miniatures.

Half of the above figures I painted ages ago – the first pack of ten, then the Lewis gunner and bomber when I picked up the “Character” pack on a separate occasion. Those that I did paint earlier got a bit of a touch up – formation patches were repainted as were the helmets – so everyone would have a matching colour of helmet (originally I’d painted them the same khaki as the serge of their uniforms?)

The originals I painted with a half kilt apron - in the front - and tried painting a Government Sett on the pleats at the rear. The new ones I just painted as a full kilt apron because... well... I was feeling lazy! Though I did repaint the officers trousers - which were originally khaki - to look like trews. 

Detail of the formation patch. The red patch of the First Division surmounted by a blue circle (blue for the middle junior of the division and the circle for the senior battalion within the brigade).

As I mentioned in the last post I recently ordered two more brigades worth of miniatures. One of the manufacturers I ordered from was Gripping Beast/Woodbine Design, who later in the day (or perhaps it was the next day…?) sent a notification that the package had been shipped via UPS and is to arrive later today!? ZOUNDS! While it’s exciting that it will arrive so quickly (considering I also placed an order with Wargames Foundry in May and I haven’t seen or heard anything from them yet… I guess that was just two weeks ago…). I’m a little anxious though as, in the past, when bringing stuff across the US-Canadian border UPS usually charged HORRENDOUS “brokerage fees” – now I don’t mind paying GST to the government – I LIKE roads and fire departments and socialized medicare and such – but the brokerage fees just go to UPS and are essentially extortion – if you don’t pay their fee, you don’t get your stuff! I’m not sure about stuff coming from the UK though… I guess we’ll see later today.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have two more battalions of highlanders for the 3^rd Brigade I’ll probably finish up – most of them are painted and just require some touch-ups – so I’ll probably finish them up next. The are mostly made up of the very first miniature I ever sculpted – a Great War Highander! The fourth battalion in the brigade was a regular battalion and I’m not sure what miniatures I’m using for it. I may have ordered enough extras from the Foundry  to do that unit… So I’ll have to wait until they arrive to finish it up.

After that I’ll probably launch into painting up a brigade of the 2^nd Division using the Gripping Beast/Woodbine Design miniatures – though they will require some assembly (separate heads) – not to mention basing and priming… so there may be a bit of a break in posts while I get all of that done. 

Beavers, Brigade Staff and Trench Mortars

Beavers? BEAVERS!? Yes, beavers.

Well… it’s been a busy couple of weeks around the Brown household! Dance classes and violin lessons wrapping up, with extra rehearsals and recitals, we’re still getting ready for our year end reporting next Monday – desperately trying to finish up a few projects for that - and a final violin concert this weekend. In the middle of this the copy of Game of Thrones Season Five I requested finally arrived at the library (being a newly-released DVD there was no chance we’d be able to renew it and thus had 10 hours of TV watching to do in one week) and we got a call from our family doctor a couple hours after The Boy went for a blood test, saying we need to get to the hospital PRONTO! Turns out the lab found he had a blood-glucose level of 42, which is apparently super high – like undiagnosed Type One Diabetes kind of high! So that ended up with us spending the afternoon in Pediatric Emergency and a couple days (and a couple of sleepless nights!) up in the Pediatric ward…

Usually I get a lot of painting done when watching TV series – I kind of just listen and half watch while painting, but I’ve just been so worn out and tired I couldn’t even focus on miniatures I was wanting to paint – even with my new reading glasses! So I actually just WATCHED the whole season.

I also, FINALLY, got a bit of a vegetable garden planted this last week… It’s a bit late, but hopefully we’ll get a bit out of it. I never got around to planting anything last year. May is just too busy…

Anyway, on to the minis!

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

The 2^nd and 3^rd Trench Mortar batteries. (Figures are from Old Glory Miniatures)

As I’ve probably mentioned before, I’ve been trying to put together entire brigades from each of the different manufacturers of 28mm Great War figures (well, makers of Late War British – that can be passed off as Canadians – at least!). Unfortunately not all the manufacturers of Great War Miniatures make trench mortars (I’m looking at YOU, Wargames Foundry and Brigade Games!!). So a few of the brigades will have Miniatures attached from other manufacturers – which drives that little OCD part of me CrAzY!?  (Also the brigades made up of my OWN models will have trench mortar batteries made by others as I’m too lazy/don’t have the time or skillz to make masters for a trench mortar – but for some reason that doesn’t irritate me so…)

Some spare figures from Old Glory Miniatures that will be pressed into service as Brigade staff and signaler/runners.

Beavers.

Just… don’t ask… It seemed like a good idea at the time…

(miniatures from North Star Figures)

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More Canadians of the first division. Actually now I have the Trench mortars finished up I could take a pictures of the whole 2^nd Brigade – which I now complete!

I totally broke my gaming budget for the year and ordered the next three brigades worth of figures (from Wargames Foundry, First Corps , and Gripping Beast/Woodbine Design) so hopefully they’ll be start showing up soon-ish and I’ll get to work on those. I was going to order one more brigade from Irregular Miniatures just to be a completist.