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.

On the Painting Desk (1)

Whilst I've not managed much gaming of late, I have done a decent amount of painting, I finally started my 6mm WW2 British Para's, these were meant to be the conclusion of my 6mm WW2 project (I have now extended the project to include a small BEF force) and I have been putting them off for almost a year, the reason I think, is that I had done one test unit and decided to paint them with a Camo smock and whilst easy enough I think I was daunted by the amount I had to do.

Seeing how the Para's were on the desk, I decided to finish the last of my Leven Miniatures 6mm buildings, especially the Hartenstein Hotel that I have had for ages.

As ever there are 6mm Baccus War of the Roses miniatures on the desk, I'm about half through painintg 3000 of these, and I've lost a bit of desire to paint them at the moment, that's probably why I'm making good progress on the 28mm Centauress which once finished will be an ornament for me mam, I've painted a few things for her over the last few years as she has an interest, in folklore/mythology and it gives me the chance to paint some really nice 28mm stuff which I usually don't bother with.

 

One week on from the above photos and you can see that the Para's are all gone, all finished ready for their first battle, most of the buildings have been finished though still that pesky Hartenstein to do.

 

 

 

My BEF tanks have arrived from H&R and they are next up, jumping to the front of the queue as they are a relatively easy job, and I've done two practise runs on my latest project 1/3000th WW2 naval which you can see here (the admiral Hipper and a German destroyer). After the BEF will be some more WW2 naval as again they are fairly easy, and then I must get on with the War of the Roses stuff, and I have still not finished the 28mm female centaur, though its almost done and I'm pleased with how its looking.

 

 

 

 

Oh, and as I mentioned Leven Miniatures(again) I've just found out that a paint job I did for them a little while back of a few of their railway buildings has now been finished and put together in a diorama, you can see it at the Blog With No Name (a Blog I highly recommend).

Odds & Ends (5) - Zulus, Sir....... thousands of em!!!

I've not got much gaming in recently due to holidays and real life interfering with my gaming time, we did manage a small game of Black Powder at the club recently, in which I took control of several (5) impi's of Zulu's against Rob who commanded 4 battalions of British.

I've not played Black powder that much, maybe half a dozen games, but I like it, and I'm always up for a game. In this simple scenario, which was a practice run of a much bigger game we have planned in the next few weeks, Rob's British were defending a small farmstead, from my marauding Zulu's.

My forces had little option but to advance as fast as possible having only one unit with ranged fire, this I promptly did and was soon closing in on the British, who had set up in two lines each of two battalions.  Craig the GM (whose fantastically painted miniatures we used) had secretly informed me that I had a sixth impi hiding in the long grass on my left flank, quite close to where the British had established their forward line. With this knowledge I advanced my royal impi and muskets up the left flank to join the hidden troops in what I hoped would be a decisive attack on the British line, in the centre and right I advanced my remaining 3 impi's in a head on rush toward the enemy line.

The Zulu's moved forward in almost perfect unison, the centre/right forces formed a "Horns of the Buffalo" type formation and headed toward one British unit, whilst the Royals, muskets and hidden impi smashed into the end of the British line on my left. Neither British unit lasted too long and I was soon advancing again into a third unit, between this unit and the fire from the remaining unit, the Zulu advanced stalled and I started to take casualties, two of my impi's were soon wiped out, and 3 of the remaining 4 were badly shot up and looking as though they might run. A turn spent rallying my troops had them back on the move, and they finally destroyed the stubborn third British battalion, forcing the last battalion to retreat to the farm to watch me close in.

That's where we had to end it, as it was getting on, but their were no doubts that it had been a triumphant Zulu victory. I had been lucky and almost everything had gone right for me, and my melee dice rolls had been very good through-out the game, my opponent did make the mistake of having his forward line too far forward so that it was not supported by the 2nd line, but even so at the crucial point in the game it looked as though the British might just pull it out of the bag. I can't wait for the larger re-match now, though I'm not looking forward to facing the Gatling guns.

The stout defenders of Vangendorf farm

The view at the start of the game from the British side

Two Impi's in their starting positions


The Zulu initial deployment( a unit of Muskets were placed in front of the topmost unit)

 

 Zulu Muskets and Impi.
 

 

 The British 2nd Line.

The Game

The Zulu advance in the centre, a third Impi forms the head of the Buffalo just out of shot.

 

The Zulu left flank, once the hidden impi had revealed itself.

 

 Fierce fighting on the left, results in the loss of one British unit.

 

The main battle in the centre, 2 Impi's take on 2 British units with 3 Zulu Impi's moving up to support, 1 British unit had been wiped out at this point.

 

Following the loss of the 2nd British unit the Zulus poured forward to engage the 2nd line of British.

 

 

 

Another unit of British was swiftly dispatched by the horde of Zulu's now advancing on the farm.

The last unit of redcoats retreated to the relative safety of the farm.  

Things didn't look too good for the remaining British troops.