Having been introduced to Chain of Command briefly by HasBeen (see Angry Ivan thread), I find myself compelled to explore it further and cover an area of WW2 I have not done before, namely painting and collecting Waffen-SS. I used to have a large Rapid Fire Normandy 20mm set of armies but sold it about 15 years ago.
A few of us, myself and Jamie, are looking to collect forces to enable us to fight in the Ardennes offensive, late 1944.
This will also mean a new playing mat....I have one in mind from Deepcut....and some new scenery. The idea is to utilise trees etc I have from other ventures, but we will between us require a few buildings, entrenchment, mine fields etc so a little building fun to be had.
Chain of Command centres around a single platoon on infantry with a few support choices, so this will not be a large project...typically about 40-50 minis total and no more than half a dozen vehicle options.
I am not naming the Division...these will be generic troops. I simply could not decide between them as to which Division appealed. Answer is, none of them appeal...I don’t like what they stood for and I certainly find their respective atrocities despicable. However, despite the later war years meaning troop qualities were declining, I can’t deny that many of them were damn good soldiers. Mostly, I like the idea of painting camo schemes and making them a little more interesting!
I want to be able to use the Germans to play on the Eastern Front and other theatres and I’m not very keen on dressing them all in white mainly because I can’t paint white very well! Lol
As such, they will be in a mix of clothing, smocks, Parker’s and great coats,, with a few attempts at various camo schemes and one or two with white smocks. There may be tiny amounts of ice/snow on a few bases but the idea is to base and paint them say as per the opening few days of the engagement, before the snow hit hard. Not as it would seem that many of the Germans were issued with adequate snow camo gear anyway!
Believe it or not, we actually started reading official after battle weather reports last night!
The Deepcut Northland mat seems useful, not completely snow covered, but looks bloody cold! I will get one ordered.
At this stage, I have just been ordering a few figures.
With so few minis required, I would have liked to think I could cover them all uniquely, but as I’ve found, not quite so easy!
I really like the Warlord SS winter chaps....but there are only ten in the box. Ok....so I also bought a box of their winter panzer grenadiers...as mixing the two together makes perfect sense. But, with each box having ten figures, a section or squads worth, unfortunately, they each contain only one LMG team. Standard practice for a squad seems to have been two teams per squad. Bummer!
Scouring the net, I see a few size comparisons between manufacturers including those of Offensive miniatures. They looked fine in the little pictures...but I think someone has been very selective with their choice of minis for the shots! A box with a single squad in arrived and they each weigh about half the weight of a Warlord mini!
Needs must so for now I will use the LMG team despite them not being quite so heroically sized. I have ordered a pair of Artizan teams in winter gear and I did this small conversion on a casualty cameo piece from Warlord to represent another team. I will also try and convert a plastic great coat team from the few bits I have from the WI freebie...and I’ve just realised I can make another team from the STuG riders set....starting to come together!
Anyway....I will get all the minis I have for now based and primed then have a crack at painting the first few. Should be fun.....
Edit: Also decided to do Normandy!
23 June 2007, 02:25:16 PM