Women of the Red Army 28mm

[6milPhil]

I thought these looked interesting, hope they haven't already been posted.



from: http://thedicebaglady.net/bad-squiddo-games-women-of-the-red-army/

[Annie]

Thanks Phil, just came to post but you beat me to it!

YouTube announcement




A million women served in the Soviet Army in WW2, now you finally have the figures to represent them on the tabletop, or perhaps as a part of a diorama.


Release Date
Available NOW for PRE ORDER, this will be shipped worldwide 25th April 2016.

Salute 2016
They will all be available to buy before general release at Salute 2016 (16th April, ExCel Centre, London). You can collect your pre order there too and save postage. See the Salute page for more information.

I am extremely pleased to announce this new line as part of the Believable Female Miniatures range from Bad Squiddo Games. I’d like to thank sculptor Alan Marsh and painter Andrew Taylor for bringing this all to life. Will there be more in this range and era? For sure! Keep tuned on Facebook and Twitter as I discuss this more over the coming weeks, as well as a planned interview on Meeples and Miniatures very soon. – Annie

Here for the Soviets - http://thedicebaglady.net/bad-squiddo-games-women-of-the-red-army/
And here for Salute pre order Information - http://thedicebaglady.net/2016/03/08/salute-2016-pre-orders/

Meeples and Miniatures are interviewing me next week, and I'll be dribbling out more information and photos as we go along

Thanks!

Annie
Bad Squiddo Games

[6milPhil]

You're welcome, I like the idea of Nina Lobkovskaya or Lyudmila Pavlichenko in the ranks. Best of luck with them. 

[cuprum]

Good job!

By the way - women did not serve in large numbers in infantry units as combatants. They have served in ancillary roles - medics, signalmen, workers of staff (secretaries, translators, etc.), economic units (laundry, cooks, car drivers, etc.). Directly in combat units were snipers, anti-aircraft artillery, pilots, rarely - tankers.

Since you are have decided to take the theme of women in the war, I recommend to consider building women's anti-aircraft gunner.
In 1942, in the battles near Stalingrad was an interesting episode with their participation. 23 August German tanks came to the Tractor Plant. The path of the enemy blocked three anti-aircraft batteries of the second division in 1077-th regiment of antiaircraft artillery manned by female staff (37 artillery guns), the battalion factory workers, two tanks and three armored tractor. The enemy was detained for two days, until the arrival of reinforcements. Were destroyed or damaged about 80 tanks. Almost all the girls and the workers were killed in the battle.





In the old Soviet movie "Stalingrad" there is an episode in which are reflected these events (1:08:10 - 1:13:25):



To watch the video go to the "YouTube".

[Annie]

I first came to the project by looking at pilots, and before I knew it I had a huge stack of books and couldn't stop reading.

Whilst women carried out all the same wartimes roles as the other forces, the Soviet Union was the only one who officially allowed them to bear arms or pull a trigger. This means that we do have frontline troops, a lot were actually combat medics, or joined under guise of "medic" for a bit of frontline action. It was also pretty common for angry, patriotic women to write to Stalin demanding to fight, which was responded with "Hey, put that lady on a poster and give her a gun, this looks ace."

So whilst the total of the million quoted is not a million riflewomen, there are still a lot.

I found reading Russian resources to be very helpful as most of the books or articles I was reading very much focus on the same 10ish people, so it would be easy to think these were exceptions. They are the more famous (be it snipers with huge kill tallies or photogenic/celebrities, but there are so so many) but only a drop in the ocean.

It is such a fascinating subject to read about, and get's so much more interesting once you get past the "Women were allowed in the Red Army straight away it was ace, go Russia", it is far less straightforward. I'm excited to finally be able to talk about this, as I've spent the last few months doing all this reading rather open mouthed, and having nobody to say "!!!!!!!!!! Get a load of this!"

The choice to start with frontline troops was a mixture of

- wanting to start the release with figures that are very useful in game. This is the largest single release I have done so far, and a big chunk of money for a relatively new one person band, so I wanted to make figures that people use first, to see if it works enough to make more. The reaction overnight has had me messaging the sculptor with a "Yes! more!"

- learning about the 1st Women's Volunteer Rifle Brigade. It requires a dig (like many of these things, I learnt quickly are not simply google-able). It was what I can gather to be a bit of a disaster. The success of the Night Bombers led to a plan to form 50 Women's only brigades, 162,000 people.

The first had

- 4 rifles battalions
-Training battalion
-Automatic weapons unit
-Reconnaissance unit
-Communications company
-Sapper company
-Automotive company
-Mortar division
-Machine gun division
-Medical nursing company
-Artillery division
-Bakery?!

So that's effectively my green light to make them all!

The "disaster" I mentioned was that it was a great plan, they were all trained and ready to go, and never got put on the frontline. And a number of them had been taken off the frontline in the first place, so the moral was appauling as the women felt they had been lied to, and there was a higher rate of suicides and desertion....to the frontline! The keenness to get to the frontline was another of the fascinating elements.

They were used though, mostly for guarding and patrolling freshly liberated towns, just not the frontline action they yearned for.

That really is it in a nutshell, all I have time to go into at this moment, but I will be happy to chat through it now. I'll be on Meeples podcast soon and don't want to give away all my material straight away though! I am looking forward to being able to have discussions about it though.

So although there were women on the frontline dotted about, there was also an all-female brigade. I was really moved by the story, so thought it would be a suitable tribute to be able to finally send them to the frontline in 28mm.


-----

Thanks cuprum, that is a good one!

There will be LOTS more to come, I have a huge list planned, can't give it all away, but you won't be disappointed Just need to get some funds back from this investment to pour into the next one, will never be rich right? Exceedingly happy with how this has all come out, and the "this is my job!" exciting realisation makes up for wearing tatty clothes and living off beans on toast.

[The Mystic Spiral]

Way to go Annie!

J

[carlos marighela]

Superb sculpts. I'm really enjoying seeing this range expand. Keep up the great work.

[Vermis]

Things

Blimey.  

Sculpts look fantastic, too. Almost tempted to start 28mm sovs...

Also, I've been wondering how to approach this matter for a while, so I don't say this flippantly, or to cause offense or discouragement to anyone; but after seeing these and Catherine the Great, I have to say I prefer Alan's sculpting. I'm not sure what your relationship with Phil is (what with his whole, personal section on the Bad Squidoo site), and I appreciate his ambitions and his contribution to this general initiative, but I think he needs more experience under his belt.

[cuprum]

Ready to assist in compiling the information for your project. In particular - on the subjects of women's uniforms.

[NeucraftModels]

Great works!

[Annie]

Cheers all, been blown away by how well these have gone down.

Just to add that they are all available for pre order now. And in a rare instance, it is a brand new range, all produced without any Kickstarter... I'm not going to complain about Kickstarters too much as I do have one planned for later in the year (something different to this) but pre ordering helps with making Salute as impressive as I can, having just whacked a load of money at moulds and painting, be good to get some back! And the faster they fly out, the faster I can commission more!

Vermis - So far I have used Phil Hynes, John Morris (Mystic Spirals) and Alan Marsh for the bulk of my range, with a bit of Mark Evans and a recent sculpt from a mystery man (to be unveiled in a couple of months!). All standard working relationships, though I'd like to feel we've developed good friendships from working together, as it does feel a bit more like study buddies, rather than a simple "make this, it looks cool". All the sculptors are really enthused by the project, which is really great, rather than just another job. There's a lot of feedback and ideas crossing each way. They all vary in style and experience and my intention is to play to strengths and put people to work on those, taking into account what they enjoy (everyone works better when they like the subject). A reason I always make sure to give big credit to the sculptors and painters (including on the packaging) as even though I'm the one running it, they are the ones making it happen, and I couldn't do it without them. So it feels like for example the Soviets are not just mine, they're mine and Alan's, and soon, a combination of myself, Alan, and Andrew (painter). John gets double credit when he's clever enough to sculpt AND paint them (why I oughta..)

Phil has a section on my site as I was going to be selling some of his casts as a favour (so he can keep sculpting and not dealing with web sales), but sculpts I didn't want to buy as they didn't fit in with what I was doing. It only got to the Innsmouth butcher and after I painted him up I realised the little fella was adorable and had to have him, so bought the sculpt. The only reason that part hasn't grown is is all the other work myself and other companies have been giving him, I'll probably end up getting rid of that part of the site now as he rarely has sculpts lying around anymore, people keep buying them! You're entitled to your opinion of course, and everyone has a preference, but I'm very happy with Phil's work, and it sells nicely too. It's not something I feel comfortable discussing (or want to carry further) but felt it needed a reply. He has been here since the start (of the female minis project, my company has been around for a few years more... in fact 6 years now!) and has become quite a big part of the heart and soul of it all.

Cuprum - if you have any suggestions, please pop me a message, the contact details are on the site or you can PM here (as to not derail the thread), I can sometimes be terrible at replying to non urgent messages just as a heads up (as I get so many urgent ones!). I appreciate it I just noticed the location part of your profile, and there was me rambling about how you should go to Russian sources ;-)

[Annie]

A few more of the pictures (not all, still trying to lure you to my website(

Command



Rifles


Tank Riders. (The one on the right looks a bit odd as I photographed her on her back. I have some others to upload showing how she sort of "perches" on things. and waiting for my T 34 to come back from Alan and I can pose them around it then!

[Glitzer]

Nice idea. I fear the minis could be to small for my 1:48 (35mm) collection, but I still might end up mixing in one or two (after all, humans come in different sizes). Can someone please do some comparison pictures with other ranges once they are out?

[Annie]

I'll get a photo for you tomorrow if I remember, I have Crusader and Artizan I can photo next to, and I can assemble some Warlord, they're still on the sprue. They fit in really well, but are slightly smaller, in the sense that they are 17 year old girls mostly! Which helps identify them as female too, I'm impressed with the subtle differences Alan has sculpted in them without resorting to the massive hourglass or crazy hair. Things like less broad shoulders and smaller hands etc.

[carlos marighela]

Annie,

Soviet women have served beyond the GPW. I'd love a figure of a Soviet combat nurse in Afghanistan. Alan might be tempted to do it as a tie in with Kosta's Afghan range.