The month of June has been a slow hobby month for me. Evan and I have been doing a little bit of work on the blog format and slowly assembling the download and resource page. I’ve also been busy proofreading Evan’s deluge of articles. However, in between family vacations, editorial duties, and working I have been able to squeeze in a bit of hobby time. I have been able to hit the main food groups of hobby: building, printing, researching, and even some painting.
I have been reading through the very informative Osprey Publishing Caucus Campaign and Smolengsk 1943 Campaign books by Robert Forzk. They provide a great account of the battles, the forces involved, and have excellent maps and photographs. When I am feeling in a little hobby slump I grab a book and the juices start flowing again after a few pages. I plan on using some of the battles as inspiration for some Bolt Action and Chain of Command games in the near future.
Unrelated to the Caucus and Smolengsk Campaign, I continued to flush out my winter Heer platoon. I added six StG44 riflemen which will be part of the Volksgrenadier Assault Platoon structure. I need a total of 16 which will be split into two squads of eight. I have four metal StG44 riflemen from Artizan Designs to add to the first six. Amongst my recent resin prints are assault troopers from RKX miniatures. In addition to that I printed off a pair of Panzerschreck teams and another MG42 gunner and loader both from RKX. Unfortunately, half of the pre-supported prints failed and I was left with 3 StG44/ MP44 troops and the two-man MG42 team. Some of the details on the crouching StG44 rifleman are a bit shallow so I will be adding some details with green stuff and plastic parts.
My miniature prepping progress is a little bit slower than normal as I am taking time to sculpt overcoats and winter camouflage smocks onto some of the rifleman. This should give some variety to the sea of German Fieldgrey. It takes about an hour or so of sculpting for each miniature but the prospect of having unique miniatures makes the time investment worth it. They won’t be winning any sculpting awards, but they will do the job.
I also prepared and mounted a Warlord Games le IG 18 infantry gun and four of the five crew needed for Chain of Command. Three of the crew were metal with interchangeable heads and the last was built from the Warlord winter grenadier multipart kit. The gun itself was a pain to assemble and it still has a slight tilt to the carriage. I am hoping the lopsidedness won’t be as noticeable once I add the snow to the base. I have played with printing off a replacement on my resin printer but I have yet to pull the trigger on it.
Excitingly I completed a tutorial for painting winter Heer Grenadiers. Quite honestly the miniatures have been sitting on my desk looking at me for quite a while which was ruining my hobby fengshui. I wanted to make sure the photography was consistent for the guide, so I was only able to work on them in my basement hobby shop where I had initially started. The tutorial will be live in the next week or so. I also did up a quick tutorial on the basing used for the winter chaps. That tutorial article should be out by the time you are reading this article!
My summer Germans have been getting some love as well. Have been plucking away at a few additions to my Blitzkrieg/Barbarossa force to bring them up to a mid/late war standard. Mainly this has been replacing MG34s with MG42s and adding the iconic zeltban capes to break up the standard Fieldgrey squads. I am taking my time with the additions until I decide I need them for a game and give myself a little pressure to get them done.
Tangentially, I have always been interested in second and third line units. The lack of adequate equipment is very intriguing to me. So of course, I bought the German sentries kit from Wargames Atlantic. As a test I built one smoking rifleman to be part of a relaxed patrol through the villages.
I have some printed MG08/15s and ZB vz. 26 light machine guns that were common in rear echelon platoons who were low on the equipment totem pole. Not everyone could be issued an MG34 or MG42 afterall. I’ll be building a platoon to match the Security platoon structure below. I’ve wrestled back and forth on using a security platoon in a game. They were commonly used in an anti-partisan role in which brutal reprisal tactics were used. That being said as adult wargame enthusiasts we know we are playing a game and we don’t condone the brutal nature of what happened. There is an interesting cat and mouse game that can be played out on the tabletop with partisan raids against supply points or infrastructure. And as I said I am intrigued by forces that don’t have all the shiny toys to rely on. This force and a partisan force fit that bill.
My local wargaming group finally got our act together and began to organize our first set of club terrain. We have been talking about having a repository for club members to be able to use at our home base FLGS. Several members have donated terrain they received as prizes from events and now we are planning out what our board theme will look like. It seems we will be going with the good ole wargaming standby, the French countryside. It offers the most versatility for historical gaming namely World War II. France was the site of early war battles, partisan action, and a huge part of the late part of the war. The printers have started to spin up to crank out buildings and the like. Trees and roads will be built in group effort. I printed out Pietia’s Coal Shed to add to the stockpile. If anything, the group terrain builds are a good excuse to get together once in a while to hang out and feed off of each other’s nerdy energy.
The Star Wars bug has bitten me hard. Fortunately, it makes the perfect alternate project to my WWII stuff. I have been running the printer hard to crank out Cochin industrial terrain and a small IT4 scout ship from Imperial Terrain. The terrain is open lock compatible which in theory allows you to rearrange the parts for different set ups. After talking with Evan, I think I will glue the parts together. While at first the ability to shuffle parts around seems great, there really is no way to prevent paint chipping even with a nice coat or three of varnish. That said I will take advantage of the modularity to build something unique. I also need to remember that I need to store said terrain so a 2′ by 2′ structure won’t be happening even if I wanted it to.
The Saturn resin printer has spit out several batches of Star Wars miniatures. A handful of minis are ready for paint and the rest are awaiting support removal and curing. I have to say I am a huge fan of the Cochin dock droids and security detail. They scream filth with a side of credits.
My collection of the Star Wars themed patreons has grown yet again. I have added Skull Forge Studios and Dark Fire Designs. They along with Squamous Miniatures are phenomenal values for their cost. Each brings something special to the table and I highly recommend them. I am sure I will be talking about them on the blog as I add to my Smaug-like hoard of STLs.
After writing this article I have been pretty productive despite feeling like I haven’t had much time. I suppose that’s the life of a wargaming dad. Until next time!
Iron Dice Gaming 