My BKC(II) Project - Part 3 - BEF and British Airborne

So on to the final part of this trilogy of posts concerning my BKC project. These final two forces were really supplementary to the main part of the project. The BEF force came about as we mentioned playing the early war at the club and I knew I could do a BEF force by simply using the same infantry I had already painted and swopping out the 6lb guns, armoured and air units. So that's exactly what I did(all miniatures are from Heroics & Ros, except the collapsed parachutes which are Adler):

A selection of early war tanks and some 2lb guns

These were done in no time at all, with a fairly basic(but effective) paintjob, add in the two infantry battalions I already have and its a reasonable sized force.

The British Airborne were another matter,  I have this force in 20mm and wanted it to look the same so I used the same method for the camo smocks and helmets covers (khaki base coat, with tiny dabs of Luftwaffe camo green and German camo pale brown, finished with a mid tone wash). whilst time consuming I think it was worth while, as I didn't want them looking just like the regular infantry with red berets which is all to easy at this scale.

The CO and HQ's

Support Company with 6lb Guns

The Recon Element

Off Table Support

 

Forward Observers

Full Battalion with support elements

 

Brigade HQ

 

 

I'm quite pleased with how the para's turned out, but was glad to get them finished, this diversion amounted to 42 units and 2845pts.

 

All in all I ended up with 320 units for BKC and ideally I'd like to add a US Paratroop Battalion at some point but for now I really don't want to see another 6mm WW2 figure for a while.

 

 

As that was the conclusion of my main project, I have moved on to my War of the Roses 6mm project for Impetus using Baccus miniatures which again started as a smallish project of about 30 units, but has now reached 93 units, as most of them have 30'ish figures per base I'm looking at nearly 3000 troops in total!! I'll post some pictures soon as I'm now down to last 25 or so units.

My BKC(II) Project - Part 2 - Ze Germans

Following on from my last post, my 6mm German army spiralled even more out of control than my British Army, ending up at 10,365 points and 130 units which I blame entirely on the larger variety of German Armour available.

The first formation up is one of two identical infantry battalions, both of which have mechanised support company's whilst the rest are foot sloggers:

And the 2nd infantry battalion:

Next up is my Armoured formation, which was the formation that seemed to grow and grow, though I think I did well in only adding 3 Tigers to the mix. I have done two HQ's for this formation as I tend to split them up with the SPG's in one group and tanks in the other.

This next formation is my big hitter, being a fully mechanised infantry battalion with mechanised support, I used the Panzer Grenadier infantry rather than the standard infantry for this one and even did the smocks and helmet covers in appropriate camouflage:

I wanted to see what the German Para's looked like so ordered a pack, this is the outcome, a reduced strength battalion with some support elements:

A Recon company on foot (well they do have Motorcycles too if they get tired)with some armoured support and Forward Observers:

The CO's formation contains a bunch of odds n sods which didn't fit into other formations:

 

and the off table support:

As for painting, starting with the infantry, as ever these days I undercoated them brown, and applied mid flesh tone to hands and face, personal weapons were next which were either brown or black, whilst the black was out I did the boots too. German field grey was then used for the rest and to neaten up the earlier coats and I finished with a wash of mid tone. The camo'd vehicles were painted with bleached bone with splodges/stripes of German Luftwaffe camo green and German pale camo brown.

The final part of this project will be the subject of another post which will show my British Airborne and BEF battle-groups

My BKC(II) Project - Part 1 - The Allies

The Set Up

This is the story of how a small straightforward project has taken several years to come to fruition.

About three years ago the amount of games I was playing had taken a major nosedive, mainly due to my regular opponents being consumed by real life issues, so I decided to look into some solo gaming, and I had a yearning to play WW2 in a larger format than the 20mm skirmish games I was used to playing.

I started looking into 6mm(1/285 -1/300) stuff and was immediately impressed with the quality of the GHQ products. However both the cost and the fact that I could not cherry pick exactly which vehicle etc, I wanted put me off them, I decide to take a chance on H&R and bought half a dozen vehicles and an Infantry pack which came in at about £5.00.

A week or so later I was clipping extremely tiny soldiers from the casting sprues and looking into basing them, I was more than happy with the H&R stuff, albeit not as nicely detailed as the GHQ stuff but its considerably cheaper and the slightly less detail issues are not a problem at this scale, in my opinion.

Having found the figures I liked, could afford and were relatively easy to store, I started looking for both a set of rules and some suitable scenery/terrain(all I had for 6mm was sci-fi related).

First up were the rules, after some research I had decided to go with Blitzkrieg Commander(II) mainly due to it being a spin off of Warmaster which I was very familiar with and that it seemed suitable for solo gaming.

A few company's did some 6mm scenic's such as the Baggage Train, H&R, Scotia, Timecast, but once I found Leven Miniatures I mainly stuck with them.

I had intended on getting a roughly battalion sized force for both sides, I am sure some of you will be familiar with how these things can start off small but end up getting a bit out of hand.  By the time I actually started painting it was April 2012, now over two years later I've finally finished. So lets have a look at what I've done in the last 30 months.

The British/Canadian Brigade:

So on to the forces, first up is my British North West Europe late war force (though if I use my RAM Kangaroos it can act as Canadians too), this is roughly Brigade sized being two Infantry Battalions and the best part of an Armoured Regiment, in BKC terms this is just shy of 9000points and contains 127 units.

First up is one of the infantry Battalions, this one being mainly foot sloggers with just a Company and the support units (MG's, Mortars, Engineers) being motorised, my intention for this formation is for it to be used primarily as a defensive formation:

Support Company & Transports

 

HQ & Support

 

Infantry Battalion & Transport

 

The Full Battalion

Next is the 2nd Battalion, which is the same as above but the whole battalion is motorised, it is earmarked for the attacking role in the Battlegroup:

The Transport Element

 

HQ and Support units

The 2nd Infantry Battalion

The full 2nd Battalion

Moving on to the armour which is in two formations, one being the heavier stuff mainly Sherman's and the other being more lightly equipped with Cromwell's and Stuarts:

The Heavy stuff

The Lighter stuff

A smallish Recon element, including a company of infantry (motorised) and some scout/armoured cars, this element includes my FAA and FAO one of whom is in the Auster:

Recon units

 

Close up of the recon infantry

 

Observer

The CO's formation is next which has the Battlegroups AA units and various support elements that can be used to plug gaps where needed:

The CO and supporting elements

Finally the off-table stuff, which is just a couple of artillery pieces and air support:

Off table support

I developed a reasonably quick paint method for the infantry, undercoated in medium to dark brown( I find this less harsh than black at this scale), I then do the face and hands with a fleshtone, then weapons, black for MG's/SMG's and dark brown for rifles, I don't bother with the boots as they will be hidden by the basing, finally I paint the uniform in khaki and wash the figure with a medium coloured wash, which result in an effective looking miniature which is relatively quick to churn out.

Next time I'll go over my German forces.

Odds & Ends (4) - What I've got and what I play

The Purge:

Its easy to get distracted as a wargamer, when the latest ruleset or miniature release takes your fancy it's hard to resist and before you know it you have an eclectic collection of half built, half painted forces. Well at least thats how I was, but when my first child was born (nearly 5 years ago) I soon realised that my gaming time was going to be severely reduced, so I started a much needed cull of the miniatures/rules that I either no longer cared for or knew I would never get around to painting up. I also intended on moving on to smaller scales to save on scenery/storage space, so out went my:

28mm Ancients.
almost my entire collection of GW's Warmaster range (I was lucky with these having bought almost everything when they were initially released).
my three 40K armies.
entire legions of 6mm Epic Orks, Space Marines and Squats.
2 Blood Bowl teams plus spare Star players and the like.
the majority of my really old early 80's pre slotta stuff.
all my GZG starships and Battlefleet Gothic stuff.
my 20mm WW2 British Infantry.
several boardgames.

By doing this I narrowed my focus and was actually able to crack on and get projects moving again, it also funded my wargaming purchases for 3 years, mainly due to some of my Warmaster stuff being very rare, I got over £100 for a packet that cost me £5. So now nearly 5 years on from the start of the purge, I am much happier in my hobby, as the unpainted lead mountain has shrunk drastically, and I'm getting more gaming in, on the games I've focused on, which brings me to them.

The Survivors:

So this is what I currently play:

6mm World War 2 using H&R miniatures and BKC2 rules (I have both a British Brigade and the German equivilent at a scale of 1 stand = 1 platoon).

(Some of my 6mm WW2 Late war British)

(German Panzer Grenadier Battalion)

(German Armour)

6mm War of the Roses using Baccus miniatures and Impetvs rules (I have around 90 units based for Impetvs).

(A game of 6mm War of the Roses, at the club)

15mm/20mm World War 2 using either my own 20mm SHQ miniatures (about 2-300 of these plus a dozen or so vehicles) or my mates 15mm FOW miniatures with the Rules of Engagement ruleset.

(20mm Para's defending a casino)

X-Wing, I have everything bar the latest large ships that have just been released.

6mm Napoleonic using Black Powder and my mates miniatures (I have nothing at all to contribute to these games).

(6mm Napoleonic Black Powder at the club)

1/1200th Napoleonic Naval, using Langton and Navwar miniatures with the Trafalgar ruleset.

28mm Old West, using a variety of miniature companies and the Legends of the Old West ruleset.

(Red's Gang)

 

(Red)

(Big Dick Bowdre)

(Evil Eli)

(Lightnin' Joe)

(Little Dick Whiteley)

(Injun Joe)

Wings of War/Glory, not played this for a while but still one of my faves for which I have around 20 airplanes including a Balloon and Bomber.

28mm Pirates, not got very far with this, as I only have around 6 crew and a small ship I converted from one of my sons wooden toys, lack of opponents has kept this on the back burner for now.

10mm Warmaster Medieval using my own homebrew Game of Thrones lists and figures from Magister Militum and Kallistra, this got put aside again due to a lack of opponents, but has now been picked up again as I've managed to get a mate interested in it.

28mm Judge Dredd, picked these up at Xmas, not done anything with them as yet, I only have a Justice Dept team ,and I'm looking for some good 28mm Post Apoc ganger types to use as opponents.

10mm Colonial Marine vs Aliens, Im using the Pendraken miniatures, but haven't decided on a ruleset as yet, I was tinkering with my own home brew rules, but have now moved on to converting ROE for this purpose.

 

 



(10mm Aliens & Marines from Pendraken)

 

6mm Sci Fi, mainly GW stuff - Space Marines to be exact and loads of them including a few original metal titans, I have a bunch of stuff from other companies too, and have been thinking of getting back into this genre as I've not played for a long long time.

28mm Samurai, always wanted an excuse to pick up some of the Perry Miniatures Japanese miniatures, and the Osprey's release of Ronin allowed me to do this.

Pirates CSG, I have around 200 ships for this, and at least 1 of every type of ship released, not played for a while, but I intend to use this to introduce my son to gaming.

Blood Bowl, still got 4 teams and a bunch of star players/cheerleaders.

Car Wars- bought this on a nostalgia trip, but still intend to play it at some stage.

(Irregular miniatures 6mm Post Apoc cars)

Most of the above get at least one play a year, whilst some get far more than that, ROE for EG being a current favourite, I think I've played that at least 6 times in the last couple of months.

I also play a number of different boardgames, such as Axis & Allies, Richard III, and Zombies to name some.

The Future:

I'm intending to add to my 6mm Sci Fi stuff at some stage with some CinC & GZG mini's, but their's no particular rush for this. I also want to add more to my 10mm Sci Fi collection as this is currently quite small and I need more guns and bugs, but again, until I get some rules sorted, no big hurry.

As for my WW2 stuff, no plans on expanding my 20mm armies, but I intend to get some suitable 6mm tanks to represent an early war BEF contingent.

I'd like a few more figures for my Ronin game but no great expense (or rush), maybe 1-3 packs from Perry's.

I'll try and keep up with the X-Wing releases but the large ships are currently beyond my gaming budget.

I need to pick up a couple of the more recent releases for Wings of War, the Brisfit inparticular.

I am also really desperate for scenary for  Ronin, Judge Dredd and the 10mm Sci fi stuff, but should be able to cobble together most of what I need apart from the Ronin scenary which is beyond my ability to knock together.

Finally, I have been really tempted recently to start a 15mm Dark Age force for use in a skirmish/warband level game, quite possibly using the free Age of Blood rules, and whilst browsing Khrusan Miniatures 15mm Vikings, I stumbled upon their extensive 15mm Sci Fi range and I now want almost everything they put out....must resist the temptation.