Autumn… The Season of Taxing Temptation.

 The last few weeks have seen the arrival of a number of temptations, designed to entice me away from my ongoing painting schedule and result in the arrival of yet more plastic (or metal) to add to the mountain already awaiting attention.

First on the list, is the range of Danish figures produced by Great Escape Games for the brave but short-lived attempt by Denmark to oppose the German invasion on April 9^th 1940.  If you’ve seen the movie, “April 9^th… The Battle Begins” you’ll appreciate the appeal of recreating Second Lieutenant Sand’s battle against lower quality Early War Germans. Aksu Antilla has written an excellent campaign for Chain of Command, with four scenarios, which can range from a strategic German victory, to a total disaster for the Third Reich and a hangman’s noose for the German commanding officers!

Danish Infantry 1940 (greatescapegames.co.uk)

The Great Escape Games Danes include a Platoon Deal, which gives you two squads, a total of 24 figures for the discounted price of £35 (as of late September 2021). You can get infantry on bicycles, Nimbus Motorcycles, with headlight lenses as an additional option, all sorts of support options and all the paints you need to get them ready to face the German onslaught.

Next up on the temptation list, and I was only a click away from buying these, are the Wargames Atlantic French Infantry, designed to be used in both the Great War and World War II. At £25 for 35 hard plastic figures, these appear to be an absolute bargain and a really good way to get a Chain of Command French Infantry Platoon under way. There are more options than you can shake the proverbial stick at and, building a 1940 French Infantry Platoon, gives you the opportunity to get your German opponent angrily hurling his dice around your games room in frustration, just like a certain Lardie, who shall remain nameless…

Finally, the one I wont be able to resist, is the upcoming PDF release of Clash of Spears, Rise of Eagles. This extension of Clash of Spears into the Late Roman Republic and Early Empire, is due to be released sometime in mid October and contains rules and lists for armies such as Ancient British, Dacians, Parthians and, most significantly, TWO offerings for Germanic Tribes...

If you've read anything on this Blog before, you will know that I have made numerous attempts to build armies for various rule sets. This time, more than any other time(!) I'm ready to go... my Germans are already painted, based and in the box ready to play. My preferred German army is the Batavian Revolt version and this is certainly a possibility with Clash of Spears. I have some Victrix Roman Auxilia ready to paint and £25 for the bag of Roman Legionaries would be money very well spent, to provide some opposition to Gaius Julius Civilis and his revolting hordes. I've also thought about 9AD and the slaughter of the Roman army of Varus in the Teutoburg Forest, although I may have shot myself in the foot a little by buying some Battleflag shield transfers for the VI Victrix Legion, which served in Germania in the later stages of the Batavian Revolt.

TINKERING WITH MY SOVIETS.

What on Earth do you do when you have spent months building, painting and basing an army and, suddenly, it’s all done?

(silence…)

It is a very strange feeling when you don’t have that objective there to work towards anymore. For ages, you’ve had a constant, on-going, set of little steps to achieve, that move your project forward; finish painting those four skirmishers, start building the last six warriors, think about how you’re going to get those four mounted warriors done when you haven’t painted any horses for years.

I have all the figures I need for a third Dux Britanniarum warband (the dastardly Saxons) and I’ve got all the components sat on a shelf to build a Chain of Command German platoon, but I’m not sure I want to embark on another big project so soon after finishing this one.

When I began rummaging around in my little garage paint shop, I started to find bits and bobs that had obviously been left behind at some point in the past and sparked enough of an interest to get them under the cutters and micro files.

Some old Fireforge archers and sergeants would paint up nicely as groups for a Baron’s War retinue. I actually started painting these archers during the final stages of completing my Irish Raiders, doing a bit of a mash up with figures from Fireforge, some Gripping Beast Dark Age Infantry and even some left over Irish bits…

Although Baron’s War retinues will be my next actual project, because you don’t need many figures and you can play the game on a nice small table, I really couldn’t resist going back to the Chain of Command rule book and having a look at what extra Support Options I could build from the smattering of figures left over in my Warlord Soviet Infantry box.

Although I’m absolutely morally opposed to the use of flamethrowers, having a team up your sleeve, just in case, seems like a really good idea!

In Chain of Command, flamethrower teams have a crew of three, with the other two crew members simply being there to soak up casualties and keep the weapon in play a bit longer. The flamethrower comrade is a metal figure from Warlord but his two colleagues are left overs from the box. Every weapons team needs someone pointing out a target, or the location of the nearest public toilets, but the Third Man proved to be a bit of a conundrum. In the end, as he has a very limited life expectancy, I decided to give him a packet of looted zigaretten… if he needs a light, he’s certainly in the right team.

Next onto the painting bench came a 5cm Mortar team. Just two men this time and, even by Chain of Command standards, not the most effective bit of kit you can have; they have no capacity to lay down a smoke screen and, being a Team, will only activate on a “1” or if a Senior Leader is close by.

For some reason omitted from the Support Options list is the Medic. I don’t know why this is, as it is an option in the Early War list that you can download from the Too Fat Lardies web site. Assuming that this is an accidental omission, I’ve painted one up ready for action… with only one Senior Leader, a Soviet platoon really needs someone who can keep that officer in the fray for as long as possible.

Finally, for now, I decided to add a new sniper team to my list of Support Options. I already have one but, when I saw the two lady team produced by Bad Squiddo Games, I thought that I really needed to broaden the diversity profile of my table top armed forces and so, we warmly welcome Ludmilla the Nemetski Killer to our happy little family.

MINI PROJECTS 2 - GERMAN PLATOON HEADQUARTERS FOR CHAIN OF COMMAND

Although my current focus is painting Irishmen for Dux Brittaniarum, I really like the idea of running mini projects along side the main campaign. There are two advantages of doing this; firstly, it keeps background projects ticking over and moving forward and, secondly, it adds a bit of variety which is a definite painting motivator.

I’ve had a squad of Warlord German infantry painted for some time now, which will eventually be opposition for my Soviets and decided that my next mini project ought to be painting up the Platoon HQ. The Chain of Command German HQ is made up a Senior Leader (Unterfeldwebel) and a two-man Panzerschrek team. The Unterfeldwebel I decided to make up from the Warlord plastic grenadiers sprue:

As with all good World War Two senior non-commissioned officers, he has a map, a pair of binoculars and an SMG. He's also wearing the zeltbahn and I will need to do some re-research, as I have completely forgotten which colours I used when I painted my first squad! 

The business half of the Panzerschrek team is a metal figure from Warlord, but I have given him a head from the plastic grenadier set and some plastic kit. The figure has a big hole in his back, as he is supposed to carry a rack of ammo for the Panzerschrek but, I preferred to have the Number Two carry the ammo, which meant coming up with a plan to disguise the hole! The back pack was super glued into place and a small amount of Green Stuff was also needed to finish off the job.

The Panzerschrek ammo carrier is another plastic figure from the grenadiers box, as I wasn’t keen on the metal one that comes in the metal figures pack. The ammo rack had to have a lug removed from the back (the one that fits into the hole in the back of the other figure) and was then super glued into place. I gave him a rifle, glued onto one of the carrying arms and his right arm is the one with a grenade, which was simply lopped off and tidied up.

The finished Headquarters, painted, varnished and based, ready for action. I've really enjoyed doing these and the trick now will be to push on with my Dux Irish and not get diverted into painting more Germans!

Thanks to people on the Chain of Command Facebook page who suggested colours for the Panzerschrek. I finally decided to go with a base coat of Vallejo Middlestone and a bit of highlighting with Iraqi Sand.

Chain of Command - A Soviet Scout Squad!

Oh dear... I sort of knew that hitting retirement just as the Lockdown came into force was going to result in a few very random weeks as far as hobbying was concerned! I've completed the painting of two Clash of Spears armies and then, I had a burst of activity on some medieval knights, caused by accidentally re-reading my long dormant Lion Rampant rule set and then...

I knew that, at some point, I was going to be digging out my Warlord Soviets again, because I had already decided that Chain of Command was the way forward with World War II skirmishing, rather than Bolt Action, and my Russians would need a little tinkering with to fit in with the Chain of Command army list. Not that I don't like Bolt Action, I just think that Chain of Command is a heap better rule set, as it is, apart from many other things, much more focussed on the sharp end of infantry combat.

One of the decisions I made when I was painting my Soviets for Bolt Action, was to field a squad of SMG armed infantry and these don’t appear as an option when you want to field a rifle platoon in Chain of Command! The list of support squads in the Chain of Command rule book does have a "Scout Squad" however, consisting of a junior leader and two sections, each with two SMGs and two rifles. This would employ five of the SMGs that I'd already painted and would give me four more riflemen to paint. As it is nearly two years since I painted any Soviets, I thought that this would get me nicely back into the painting groove, because I also need to paint up a few more riflemen to complete the third rifle squad required in the rules. 

In Chain of Command, the use of scouts is defined under the Soviet National Characteristics, where they are referred to as Razvedchiki, and each team is allowed to move with 1 or 2 D6 and assume a Tactical stance at the end of the move. For someone who chose Soviets because commanding them means you don’t need to concern yourself with anything as complicated as thinking, this is quite a revolutionary concept and may take some time and cerebral effort to get used to!

Appearing, as they do, in List 5 in the Support Lists, the Razvedchiki might not be fielded too often in campaigns to come, but they are a welcome addition to my Rifle platoon and, at the outset, before casualties are taken, they are composed as follows:

Serzhant Usilov Makarovich – squad leader 

Первый Команда:

Maxim Pavlovich (SMG)

Novoseltsev Fyodorovich  (SMG)

Tarasik Victorovich (Rifle)

Vedeneyev Maximovich (Rifle)

Второй Команда:

Arsenyev Borisovich (SMG)

Dementyev Nikitovich (SMG)

Gavrikov Dmitrivich (Rifle)

Zharkov Filippovich (Rifle)

As you may have noticed, the name generator I am using tends to apply the same four letters to the end of surnames!