WW2 project in 1/35

[Freddy]

Time to open a topic for this one too: I have a little ww2 project in this unusual scale.

I became a wargamer long after I started collecting models, and when I reached the point where I seriously wanted to get into ww2 wargaming, I was like ,,nah, there is no chance that I will collect these again in a  different scale". Besides, in this scale there is a huge supply of figures, and the detail is incredible both in modeling point of view and in what is available.

The rules are my own, I created an universal skirmish ruleset for XXth century conflicts (from ww1 to postapo) which is detailed enough for small skirmishes, but can be upscaled easily. Do not think something incredibly revolutionary, it is just a simple d10 mechanic, it can be used together with most other rulesets. The figures are based individually on 30mm lasercut bases, and there also squad bases, the smaller one is holding 2 figures, the larger 3, I use these to represent squads of 5/10 men. With the individual soldiers I can play squad level skirmishes, with the bases company, maybe battalion level ones.

I also have a lots of vehicles, these are mostly the regular 1/35 display models, I recently bought some of them for gaming, which are damaged second hand stuff, so not that detailed, but better suited for the wear of gaming. Same applies for the planes, I have a collection of those in 1/72, and I can use any of them on the tabletop with a properly designed universal stand made out of laser cut wood, but I also have some older models repainted with less details for the frequently used ones. I like planes in my games, whether or not they are unrealistic in company level, for their dogfight I use the Lacquered Coffins rules.

The biggest army in my collection is the Royal Hungarian Army. Here most of the infantry:


Here you can see the old bases, before I switched to 30mm standard:


Some of these figures are converted from Germans, this Tamiya BMW bike set is well known for anyone ever touched the topic of building 1/35 models:


Despite what I wrote in the beginning, ww2 Hungarians has a lot of white areas in 1/35, so I can practice my sculpting skills too:


The (in)famous Fast Corps, using bike-mounted infantry:



Gendarmes:


I have seen, especially in wargaming, a lot of people paint late war Hungarians into camouflage colours. It is wrong, the known examples of camo equipment were either experimental pieces photoed behind the front, or unique lash-ups made by individuals, usually officers. So these guys wont be a squad like this, I just grouped them for the photo.


The base of these homemade camo clothes was usually the tent-poncho, which was actually camouflaged and part of the equipment of the individual soldier from the beginning of the war. It looked like this (this guy is a sniper with a Solothurn antitank rifle):


This army needs a lot of development, for starters I need to round out some of the mixed units, now I have some assault pioneers and paratroopers mixed into the generic infantry. i use the Bolt Action lists for list building, their Budapest book gives a rather good guideline. Then, of course, there are always more special weapons and stuff to be added.

The other faction is the Red Army. This one mostly consists my really old figures now properly based:



Later addition is the 9th rifle division, the foot Cossacks:


Also some partisans. Hungarians fought a lot against them, the details of this fight is a rather unknown and also very gruesome chapter of ww2 history.


These two T-34s are good examples for badly built old models I just repainted and use for gaming. There is no ww2 soviet army without T-34s.



This one is more of a display model, but a funny one. A Hummel, captured by the Soviets, used the fights in North-Western Hungary. Built based on a  photo.


Soviets also have some proper high command (an ICM set). Marshal Zhukov:


...and comrade Stalin:


The Soviet force also needs some development, mostly more infantry. Now I have more Hungarians than Soviets, which is historically not the most accurate ratio. They will also need some planes, now they have only Anglo-Saxon ones.

I also happen to have some US forces too, I can not use them in Eastern front scenarios, so they are waiting till my Germans are also done.



As everyone, I also started collecting 1/35 models with Germans, they were the ones with the biggest range and the cheapest price in the 90s. Some of them were converted into other stuff (early war Germans make good base for Hungarians), most of them is waiting to be updated for todays painting standard of mine. So General von Manstein shall stand alone for a while for his troops to arrive.


This is it for now, I will post the updates here. To the end, some battle pics. Note: my system uses card based activation (at lest it is one option), where Ace of Spades

and Queen of Hearts

mean double activation

[robh]

That looks great, nice set of figures. 
I wanted to play Warwick Kinrade's "Normandy Firefight" in 1/35th as intended but dropped to 1/48th in the end to use scenery I already had rather than start a new set.

http://warwickkinrade.blogspot.com/search?q=normandy+firefight

There is something wonderful about seeing the big 1/35th scale vehicles on the table.

[fred]

Interesting to see 1/35th scale figures being used for gaming - I recognise a lot of Tamiya figures in your collection - I had a lot of these way back, probably in the 80s, and some were good, and some seemed dated even then!

By the look of your basing you aren’t playing at a 1:1 skirmish level?

[Freddy]

That looks great, nice set of figures. 

Thanks!

I wanted to play Warwick Kinrade's "Normandy Firefight" in 1/35th as intended but dropped to 1/48th in the end to use scenery I already had rather than start a new set.

That is a nice one, I did not know about it. Yes, terrain can be a problem, but I design mine to fit both 28mm and 1/35, for most of the stuff it is easily doable.

I recognise a lot of Tamiya figures in your collection - I had a lot of these way back, probably in the 80s, and some were good, and some seemed dated even then!

I have some, Tamiya is the backbone of any 1/35 ww2 collection Some are outdated, but a head swap and a proper paint job can do wonders.

By the look of your basing you aren’t playing at a 1:1 skirmish level?

Either on 1:1, or on squad level, or sometimes I mix them, with my rules it is doable- for now the size is mostly limited by the amount of models I currently have. The figures are all based individually, the "squad bases" are basically just movement trays. (The unused squad bases I sometimes use as woods, putting trees into the slots)

[bluewillow]

Not so unusual I painted over 300 figures for a client in the USA, US Para and Wehrmacht / Fallshirmjager for DDay. Lots of great figures and vehicles available and perfect for true squad skirmish games.

Cheers
Matt

[Freddy]

Not so unusual I painted over 300 figures for a client in the USA, US Para and Wehrmacht / Fallshirmjager for DDay. Lots of great figures and vehicles available and perfect for true squad skirmish games.

Cheers
Matt

Wow, 300 of them is truly another level! Do you happen to have some pics of them?

In the meantime, I dug up some more photos of mine.
The Hungarian general:


Hungarian stretcher-bearer:


Hungarian nurse. Unlike the Soviet female stretcher-bearers, they did not go to the frontline, but in my games she has to.


And a Soviet mortar, one of my oldest 1/35 models. I updated the painting a little. The mortar itself is serving in other 1/35 games too, I simply add an Afghan crew for Afghan war for example, this 1938/43M mortar is a truly ubiquitous one regarding 20th century history.

[bluewillow]

It was more than 20 Years ago, they may be some in old photograph books. The chap I painted them for has sadly passed away.

Cheers
Matt

[Gunner Dunbar]

Nice, often thought of doing this, already have wwII in 3 scales though.

[PeloBourbon]

This is a really cool work Freddy! And you choose and an uncommon theme, congratulations!
I've been myself hoarding 1/35 stuff and painting quite a few but never played with.
I've also the same dilema should base them in individual bases (as it is now ) or group them in a 3 or 4 base or "mouvement  trail" as you have done to avoid some damages? Rifles, smg are really fragile.

Cheers

Alberto

[Golgotha]

Great idea - I have got some 1/35 stuff and have been thinking a very small North Africa skirmish game.

Lovely painting. Any chance of getting a copy of your rules?

[Freddy]

It was more than 20 Years ago, they may be some in old photograph books. The chap I painted them for has sadly passed away.

Poor guy, would have been interesting to know a like minded fellow.

Nice,

Thanks!

often thought of doing this,

already have wwII in 3 scales though.

Yeah, thats how I got into it: life is too short to do the same thing in an other scale

This is a really cool work Freddy! And you choose and an uncommon theme, congratulations!

Thank you!

I've been myself hoarding 1/35 stuff and painting quite a few but never played with.
I've also the same dilema should base them in individual bases (as it is now ) or group them in a 3 or 4 base or "mouvement  trail" as you have done to avoid some damages? Rifles, smg are really fragile.

Depends. I think that in this scale individual figure-based skirmish should be always possible, so individual basing shall not be given up. I also plan some more dioramic squad bases, but the figures will be removable also from there. On the other hand if you have like hundreds of figures, then group basing makes more sense even for an 1:1 representation.

Great idea - I have got some 1/35 stuff and have been thinking a very small North Africa skirmish game.

Lovely painting.

Thanks! North Africa is a popular theme, has some really great figure sets.

Any chance of getting a copy of your rules?

As the Germans say, "jein". Here they are, but sadly I do not have an English version (yet).
https://makettekeswg.blogspot.com/2021/02/98-wargame-szabalyok.html
I wrote a quick summary for an other topic:
As I said, it is a d10 system. Every model has two actions, which can be move or attack. Base move for a human is 10cm, armor lowers that (-3 for metal armor for example), (...) For CC attacks, you roll D10, add your WS and try to beat the enemy WS by more than 5. Usual WS is 5.
For shooting, you again roll D10, add your BS and try to beat the value for the weapon for that range (usual BS for a trained but inexperienced soldier is 3, the weapons are usually 9/10/13 for short/medium/long range). Of course weapon types affect how many times you can shoot, a semi-automatic can shoot for every action, a bolt action one only once per turn.
If you hit, you have to wound like in 40k: roll AP times d10, add weapon S and beat enemy S. Human S is usually 5, regular assault rifle S is 0, AP is 1. CC weapons use user S + modifier, but usually for S5 models the sum S is 0 this way too. So most likely you need to roll 5+. Cover gives minus for to hit and bonus to S (1 or 2), armor gives bonus to S if the save is successful. Some weapons, like most CC ones are weak, against them the armor is always successful: this way it makes sense to wear leather jacket for example, very little effect against a bullet, but quite good for its price in CC.(...) People usually have 1 W each, so one unsaved wound means out of the game (...). If a hit does not wound, it still stuns most creatures: removes one of their next two actions.
Vehicles use basically the same system, but their strength depends on their side, and of course their weapons are bigger (and cant attack in CC, and are not stunned, and move differently...ok, they are kinda different ). A T-72 has a front armor of 120, W6, and its cannon is S70 AP9, good luck to survive that (every 10 you beat target Strength with is an extra wound)- if it hits of course. And it has a template too for the explosion (template is weaker than a direct hit). (...)
On squad level I put the infantry models on movement trays (...), here one tray of 3 models represent a squad of 10 and they act like the squads in 40k (they even protect the “single” models). I use this method for bigger battles(...) Activation is I go U go, but there are some alternative rules under development. In a recent bigger battle I tried a method where cards are drawn for the squads and they operate in the order of the cards from Ace down to Two. The trick is that you can manipulate the cards, things like light infantry can draw more and choose the best, or support units give theirs for supported ones, not speaking about commanders. But this is still WIP.

Some more pics:
These guys were sculpted by me (and cast in resin), one is an artillery crew, the other I converted into an infantryman. Note the branch colours- in the Hungarian Army artillery had red, infantry green, light blue was for the ,,fast troops": cavalry, bikers, armor crews.


This guy is armed with a Soviet PPSh submachine gun (on his back, you can only see the ammo pouch), it was a popular captured item. Note the missing branch colours- these were more likely in later stages of the war. Unlike Germans for example, Hungarian uniform changed very little through the war, so most of these figures fit any part of ww2, even those dont are not too far away.

[Gunner Dunbar]

The funny thing is, I actually already have a very large box of 1/35 figures, but I just struggle for time for my current project, but so tempting.

[Dubar]

Very cool!!!
Way back last century, the old magazine Wargamer's Digest ran some articles on wargaming using 1/35 figures.  Best I can tell they started the articles with the July 1979 issue (vol 6 no 9).  The title of the article was "Encounter At Checkpoint Chapkevskoy- Skirmish Wargaming".

Short on details, I tried playing a few times, but the rules system was for all purposes nonexistent.  Plus I was never able to get all the follow-up articles to figure it out.

Long out of print but seems like I've seen them offered on Ebay in the past.

Good luck...you're gonna need a bigger table!!!

Upon further reading, looks like the publisher/editor Gene McCoy, used a set of rules he had laid out in previous articles.  I looked for a PDF of them but haven't found any yet.

The article in the July 1979 issue did give a brief on what equipment/manpower was used for the skirmish, maps of the area, and a blow by blow of what action took place.  If nothing else the articles can be used for setting up scenarios.

[Dubar]

It was Volume 6, Number 9.

Upon further reading, looks like the publisher/editor Gene McCoy, used a set of rules he had laid out in previous articles.  I looked for a PDF of them but haven't found any yet.

The article in the July 1979 issue did give a brief on what equipment/manpower was used for the skirmish, maps of the area, and a blow by blow of what action took place.  If nothing else the articles can be used for setting up scenarios.

[Freddy]

Very cool!!!
Way back last century, the old magazine Wargamer's Digest ran some articles on wargaming using 1/35 figures.  Best I can tell they started the articles with the July 1979 issue (vol 6 no 9).  The title of the article was "Encounter At Checkpoint Chapkevskoy- Skirmish Wargaming".

Short on details, I tried playing a few times, but the rules system was for all purposes nonexistent.  Plus I was never able to get all the follow-up articles to figure it out.

Long out of print but seems like I've seen them offered on Ebay in the past.

Good luck...you're gonna need a bigger table!!!

Upon further reading, looks like the publisher/editor Gene McCoy, used a set of rules he had laid out in previous articles.  I looked for a PDF of them but haven't found any yet.

The article in the July 1979 issue did give a brief on what equipment/manpower was used for the skirmish, maps of the area, and a blow by blow of what action took place.  If nothing else the articles can be used for setting up scenarios.

Thanks!
Also thank you for the info, it would be interesting to take a look at those rules. For now I plan to play Bolt Action scenarios with my squad-bases, and I am also experimenting a lot, in my first real battle for example I used hidden deployment for the Soviets (I made the movement trays exactly the size of these cards btw).