Letting More Stuff Go

When someone said they were doing some WW1 in 1/72nd scale I knew I had a home for these chaps.

My attempt to convert some of the "new" Airfix French Foreign Legion to be Belgium's.

Same set used for early war French.

Some proper French infantry,

but oh dear, brittleness has struck!

My attempt to convert some Matchbox WW2 Germans to be WW1 late war

Airfix Germans.

The grenade thrower was one of my favourites.

Airfix British

plus a flipped German to show I even painted the underneath of the figures.

US Infantry.

The base on the left was for the rules I was using which have since been well and truly forgotten. 

WW1 French painted up for WW2, but I am sure they can be used for late WW1

if they don't crumble to bits in the meantime.

Left over Foreign Legion

Classic

These two where for my WW2 Alpini project since aborted in favour of 15mm for WW2.

A few more leftovers now going to a good home.

Letting Go

Two sayings spring to mind:

• Too much is not enough.
• SABLE - Stuff Accumulated Beyond Life Expectancy.

After religiously following the first bit of advice I am now trying to deal with the second bit.

It is hard to do, but by doing so I earn all important Brownie points with my partner: I've got to learn to let things go, well, a few things.

My Napoleonic focus is clearly 15mm (although I do have some 6mm).  The 6mm came from James and so it was excellent to be able to pass on to him this accumulation of 1/72nd Napoleonic figures, some of which I've had for decades, others only a few years.  Of course I can't just let things go, I had to photograph them and post them here.

But most importantly I had to find them a good home, and in a bit of serendipity I was sitting next to James Fisher in the movie theatre (The Three Musketeers - Milady) and was chatting beforehand.  He had been to Tactics and bought some 1/72nd figures and in the belief that more is better, I offered him some surplus figures I had.  Better still I was able to find them when I got home and drop them to him at the club that evening.  My partner even provided the bag to put them all in, thereby earning me an extra Brownie point (as it was a lovely Koko Black carry bag, not needed, but too nice to just throw out - plus the boxes fitted perfectly!)

C'est magnifique!

But they weren't ever going to be painted and based, 

never mind see the top of a table.

A dream.

Had ideas for some skirmish action,

as well as just much needed support units 

for those Napoleonic campaigns I was going to do in this scale.

This pack is really old.  

I found it in a toy shop and was amazed as it was just what I needed...

But obviously not.

Beautiful for the box art alone.

These were for the Quatre Bras scenario that I thought I would reproduce

 in 1/72nd having already done it already in 15mm (with plans underway for 6mm as well).

Again, for Quatre Bras.

I think I had two packs as they came as a mix of hussars and dragoons,

and I did complete one 12 figure unit.

Better still here is a blog post on them.

Officers were always in short supply, so this pack was a God send.

Excess.

But at least I had plenty of fun with them as can be seen 

here, here and here.

A mixed bag.

And a surprise.

WW2 German Wagon Riders

Following from my 3 December post after finding the new army lists for Megablitz and getting all enthused about creating an Alpini Division (which has progressed a little bit - I have at least now acquired suitable HAT 75mm mountain gun and some hopefully convertible crew plus seen some very nice 20mm AA guns in 1/72nd scale) I opened a box of Germans to find two unfinished wagons.

As every German division seems to need a wagon I decided I would finish them.  Then I decided I needed crew.  The wagons are Airfix (Wagon Train set and ACW Artillery limber) and are just a basic paint job. 

 Horses might be a bit small, but that is war shortages for you.

 Wagon Grenadiers.

 Not a perfect fit, but good enough to add atmosphere.

 They are just balanced on.  

If they ever get used in anger it might be blue tack.

The HAT 8262 Tank Riders almost got put back in the box when I saw this vile green shade.

However I am very happy how they turned out.  Four sprues of 11 different figures for $A12, that's less than 30 cents a figure.  Lots of potential.

Italian Alpini Division for Megablitz - Part One

I decided to do a post on this project, rather than put all the leads into my projects' spreadsheet (where I normally "bury" my "good ideas" to allow me to focus on current projects).

The other week a chap called James posted in the Yahoo Megablitz group a file that is translation of  GDWs "Armies of World War 2" TOE book to Megablitz TOEs.  Wow.  I was hooked and immediately started digging out my 1/76th and 1/72nd scale figures and kit to see what I could do.

Many years ago I took a packet of ESCI Alpini troops and made up a company for Crossfire.  Since starting this post I have discovered they have already been the subject of a post back in 2014. 

 A close up of the captain,which I had failed to mention in my original post was a conversion from the kneeling figure on the right.

Perhaps a white edge to the base would improve the snow effect.

More pics of them can be seen in the original post here.

Some time back had had settled on using Crossfire's basing, but in metric - 15mmx30mm for single figure, 30mmx30mm for squads, company commanders and heavy weapons.  I had then expanded this in increments of 3cm to incorporate larger antitank guns, AA guns and artillery etc.  Like with my 15mm vehicles, I have still not committed to basing trucks and tanks.

While I have a lot of stuff languishing based for Command Decision (basically two figures on a small base) and that I will change over, particularly where the basing was not completed, my excitement has culminated in seeing what I can do of the Alpini Division.

Troops were no problem, just six bases will do fine to represent the six battalions (in fact I now see I have enough to do two divisions - of course I think there were actually three deployed to Russia).  The command stand can do for the HQ (although the mule is a bit redundant).

I have enough spare pack mules (two) to do the supply base.  For the attached AT gun battalion I have this, purchased along time ago and untouched:

 RAFM 4877 Italian 47mm antitank guns.

And I can see why they were untouched - they look decidedly fiddly.

I reckon the HAT Skoda 75mm Mountain Gun will do perfect for the 75L13 Mountain Gun to represent the Alpini Artillery Regiment.

If I can get some of these they, maybe with some head swaps, will do nicely for crew.  Depends on how they compare size wise with the spare ESCI figures I have (some of which could easily convert to gun crews).

That is just going to leave the 20L65 AA gun to source.  It's going to be tricky I think...

The Flames of War, wrong scale of course, model might give me some ideas.  Gun Crew figure a. is perhaps a good starting point.

But maybe I just need to buy my way out of the problem:
http://earlywarminiatures.com/product/20mm-oerlikon-antiaircraft-gun-with-3-dutch-crew/

Once you go down this rabbit hole a whole world opens up, including Doc Models who do a Kit 72262 - Fiat 626 NML with Breda 20/65 AA and Italian Artillery men in 1/72nd.

Then there are the limbers.  At least the box art for the Italeri 1/35th scale kit gives an nice example for the AA limber.

I have also just seen that Waterloo 1815 do an interesting range of Italian WW2 figures. 

And then this list: http://www.miniatures.de/miniatures-WW2-italian.html

Adeunt Romani tecto

Well I cheated and rather than convert some Airfix figures, I bought the HAT Roman artillery set which also had the light infantry I needed.  I know realise I have Airfix Early Imperial Romans mixed with HAT late Republicans.  My excuse is I was too focussed on constructing an opponent for my Ancient Britons.

 Light infantry, psiloi or skirmishers.

 Not sure of the wisdom of the headdress.

The poses are decent.

 A bit smaller than I imagined, but true to scale.

The base dwarfs the model.

 Ready, aim, fire!

or, as the Romans might say:

"Parantibus tenditque ignis"

Thanks Google Translate

I had these guys sitting around and decided to paint them.

 I rather like them.  Unusually for me I had based them first.

 I also cheated when it camp to the camp.

This is a paper model from: 

http://papermau.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/tents-from-roman-campaign-by-papermau.html

I have plans to make a palisade for it, one day.

My whole 1/72nd scale Roman army.  

It is just meant for DBA, but if I was to get some more figures purchased/painted I could do a Basic Impetus army... NO!  I mustn't go there!

One nice thing about this latest addition is that my daughter picked up the HAT figures from Tactics for me when she was in the city recently.  She didn't have to do it, just texted if I needed anything.