BA Early War Germans

I hadn't picked up a brush or rolled a die in a few weeks but Tony at the club has just finished his Early War French army so popped down to see him at the club Weds and arranged a game for next week. I don't usually get to use my axis forces so its a great opportunity to get them out for a game but it meant I needed to finish off a few bits and pieces.

Early-Mid War has always been my preferred gaming periods for World War Two, there are none of the usual suspects when it comes to equipping Germans- no assault rifles, no big cats, and indeed German tanks are often inferior to their opponents.

So last night I finished off my pioneers and added a pak 36 door knocker to round out the force, as well as highlighting the uniforms on the infantry. I've used an eclectic range of figures- a few Assault Group, a squad of Warlord Early War Germans, as well as a few from Crusader Miniatures & Black Tree Design to round things out. Out of the ranges I think I prefer the Crusader figures for ease of painting and detail- they just paint up so well. The Warlord figures aren't bad but are a bit fiddly to paint and (as seems common with Warlord Game figures) had plenty of flash.

Each Squad is 10 men- SMG armed NCO, 7x riflemen and an MG34 LMG. That gives me plenty of flexibility in deciding how many troops to field in the squad. As with most of my figures I prefer to multibase. I have 4x 2 figure round bases, a single rifleman (which is used to repalce single losses) and single SMG figure.

First Squad

2nd Squad. The NCO  in this squad is from TAG.

3rd (Pioneer) Squad. This squad has 12 figures as it also has a flamethrower team (Black Tree Designs) as well as obligatory LMG team (I don't care about the online arguments about their pints cost, its just not WII without obligatory squad level LMG team, and in fact I find the extra range to be damn handy). Again the squad is a mix of all the ranges.

Warlord Games MG 34 MMG and 81mm Mortars for additional support.

 My vehicles and AT guns.

 A Warlord Games pak 36.

 A Blitzkrieg Miniatures (I think) pak 38 for games in Russia. It was pretty fiddly to put together but turned out all right eventually.

 Warlord Games SDKFZ 251/1 and SDFFZ222 armoured cars and a Blitzkrieg Miniatures Stug D.

 I need to add a few trucks at some stage and a motorcycle combo or two to round out the force. I've based my Early War Germans on the Gross Deutschland Regiment in  France. They were one of the few units to be supported by the then still new and experimental Stug D assault guns- I think one or two batteries of Stug D were involved in the invasion of France. Helmet Spaeter's book The History of Panzer Korps Gross Deutschland has some excellent small scale actions that would be perfect to wargame. It can also be used as a mid War Gross Deutschland force easy enough and it will also provide the core of a LW force. I like the idea id a motorised infantry platoon in trucks with a motorcycle or two in the vanguard. My only issue, i hate the way transports work in Bolt Action- it is one of the frustrating things about the game to me. 

Where to from here? 

I intend to add a squad or two of Artizan LW Germans for more variety (and for LW games) at some point and have ordered a squad of their EW Germans in Great Coats as a 4th squad.  I like both the Artizan and Crusader Miniatures figures for rank and file troops but I absolutely HATE their ridiculously oversized MP40s! Check this out: 

WTF are those things those Crusader Miniatures figures are carrying? They sure as hell aren't 28mm scaled MP40s! So I'm not sure who I will use to add more SMGs but aren't keen on those ones.

Craig