# My 28mm German WW2 stuff!



## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

I noticed that I never posted my German WW2 stuff here on Heresy, so I decided to do this little thread here. 










Almost two years ago, when the release of Chain of Command (brilliant platoon-level WW2 game by Too Fat Lardies. Highly recommanded) drew closer it got more and more impossible to resist the lure of 28mm WW2. To date I have played not a single game of Chain of Command at 28mm (mostly because neither of our platoons are finished and we're quite comfortable with our 15mm early desert 1941 campaign for now). However, I did play a bunch of games of Operation Squad (squad-level stuff, surprisingly well done, if a little marker-heavy) and Flying Lead (the gun-version of Song of Blades and Heroes. Clever little activation system, also squad-level, but entirely different in how it plays. Surprisingly deep and 'realistic', which you might not think from the first glance at the rules).










I started by buying unhealthy amounts of minis from Warlord Games, a step i regretted a bit later on. Their plastic infantry just don't do it for me compared to the metals by other manufacturers (Black Tree Design and The Assault Group are my favourites thus far) and the metals released after the original Bolt Action range are kind of iffy as well.










Anyway, I got started by reviewing the German Pioniers box. Built most of the box, a few of them like Pioniers, some more as regular infantry. Because nobody needs a full platoon (well, 27 or so guys because Warlord don't put full platoons into a box) of Pioniers in 28mm, unless you're into surprisingly specific scenarios (if so, more power to you) or play HUGE games at a club.

After that I got curious about Warlord's resin vehicle offerings and I did the Panzer IV H:


















Here's the review of the kit.

At the same time I unwisely got myself one of those "starter packs" from Warlord Games (yeah, they got me via the free shipping thing  ).


Here you can see some of the guys along with a bunch of Anti-tank guys by Artizan:









Here's the review of the Artizan dudes.










Cool minis, small arms are surprisingly chunky though.

Of course I also did the mandatory SdKfz.251:




























...aaaaand here's the review!




















The next related thing I did wasn't for myself, but for a client who needed a force for Operation Squad:


















































































Cool little force with a bunch of conversions and quite the wide range of equipment (the core force in Operation Squad unsurprisingly is an infantry squad, so between 9 and 13 dudes). So there's plenty of choice for equipment options.

So that's that for now. Things I got in the works: StuGIII Late (with magnetized gun options for the StuH42), a late Panzer III (the Rubicon one. Had to get one for review reasons) aaand a bunch of guys with MG42s:










Yarr, that's seven bloody MG42 (six light, one in the HMG config), all WIP of course.  That's a ton of dakka. I got those because I was curious about The Assault Group's 28mm figures and so I could turn my regular infantry platoon (which isn't even finished properly yet) into a Panzergrenadiers platoon.

Hope you like the models so far! C&C welcome.


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## Tawa (Jan 10, 2010)

At the very great risk of sounding dull and repetitive...... Great work, Sig! :good:


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## TechPr1est (Nov 6, 2011)

Sie sind erstaunlich! 

absolutley amazing neatness and level of authenticity, colors are spot on.


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## LordNecross (Aug 14, 2014)

Cool stuff. Would love to see the tanks expanded. I love me some German ww2 Panzers.


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

@Tawa: I'll let it slip this time.  Thanks very much!
@TechPr1est: Thank you very much. Of course wars have been waged over the RIGHT Dunkelgelb in the past and I'm not sure if I'm all that happy with the look of the German vehicles but they're alright.  I rather rarely paint historical tanks (which I think is very different to painting tanks for 40k and the likes. At least the expectations and requirements are very different), so it's always nice to get them as an exercise.
@LordNecross: Thanks. I know, German tanks (the later in the war the better, cat names confer a +20 bonus) are the Space Marines of historicals.  And the appeal can not be denied. However, as all things Space Marine they're also kind of overdone and of course there is little appeal in fielding say a Tiger in a 28mm platoon level wargame. This is one of the reasons my main focus in WW2 gaming is early Western Desert British and the fact that the main plan for "late war" stuff is a fictitious conflict between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union in 1945/46. That and the fact that my regular wargaming buddy has a platoon of US infantry and I didn't really want to do 'late war Germans on the western front'. All that being said, of course I went and bought a lot of them (too much really, and as I said I'm not too impressed with the plastic infantry by Warlord Games). Because I'm weak.  And it's handy having opponents for my Soviet platoon(s).  So yeah, there'll be some more German support choices.


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## Tawa (Jan 10, 2010)

Sigur said:


> Of course wars have been waged over the RIGHT Dunkelgelb in the past


Oh you'd better believe it mate. @Logaan was nearly lynched back in the day over the incorrect shades and pattern of his 15mm(!!!) peadot camo on his SS PanzerGrenadiers......


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## Nacho libre (Feb 23, 2013)

-wipes phone off- 

Phew what a Wargasm!.

Very nice models and an even better paint job.

Have a cookie!.


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## Old Man78 (Nov 3, 2011)

Terrific stuff, when it comes to modelling and war gaming everyone loves zee Germans


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

@Tawa:  Amazing. Recently one of the local guys here was on the search for the CORRECT red for his Napoleonic British too. Especially with uniforms the whole question of exact colour (I mean I try to get stuff to look right, as I'm sure we all do) things get very foggy...
@Nacho libre: Thanks very much, but I make it kind of a rule not to take any cookies from people who just had a -gasm of any kind. 
@Oldman78: Yeah, I don't know...maybe I've had enough of that when I was younger and I probably am overexposed to overexcited people who are really, really into all those Fallschirmjäger-SS-Tigerpanthermausuhu-Fliegerfaust things. Anyway, that doesn't stop me from buying toys it seems.


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## Nacho libre (Feb 23, 2013)

-slides plate over- 

Just in case you change your mind.


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## Logaan (May 10, 2012)

Fantastic stuff Sigur. 

@Tawa - to be fair that guy was an absolute lizard that refused hands down to post anything he'd painted. Moral victory to me.


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## Nacho libre (Feb 23, 2013)

Logaan said:


> [MENTION=20211]that guy was an absolute lizard



I don't know why but that insult is just golden.:laugh:


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## Tawa (Jan 10, 2010)

Logaan said:


> Fantastic stuff Sigur.
> 
> @Tawa - to be fair that guy was an absolute lizard that refused hands down to post anything he'd painted. Moral victory to me.


The guy was a fucking tube! :laugh:

He seemed to pipe down - briefly - after one of the staff told him to shut the fuck up and post some pictures of his own work up.....


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

Well, that was rather enlightening.  

The MG42 dudes are finished now:










They're far from perfect, but I really, really wanted to get them done now. Also wrote up a review of the TAG minis which should pop up within the next few weeks.

In other news - my Gebirgsjäger platoon from Black Tree Design arrived! The minis look great.


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## Tawa (Jan 10, 2010)

Sigur said:


> Black Tree Design


I used to love their figures :good:


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

I still do.  It's amazing how their minis look so much nicer in the flesh than in the pictures on their website. But I have it on good authority that they want to snazz up their website now (I just painted a bunch of minis for them). Got almost all of my WW2 soviets from them and some other stuff. Good minis.


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

Last night's game: 



















First time I used those new houses, still a little WIP, but I think they work great. As it was my friend's first game and due to the fact how first and second floors can be a little detriment to the playability we just said that the houses were not to be entered. Still was an excellent game. Lots of terrain, snipers weren't too almighty, but still managed to do their job well by controlling relatively large areas.

The "lists" used were a regular Soviet rifle squad plus a Commissar, an LMG assistant and a Sniper. The German Grenadier squad got two G43 semi-automatic rifles, an LMG assistant, a Medic and a Sniper. The scenario played was Scenario 1: Recon. We we didn't have a building to take in the middle of the table we decided that the little horse cart has some important intelligence hidden in that blanket. The table used is 1x1.5 metres.

We rolled for who would play which side, I got the Soviets, my friend played the Germans. The German Sniper was set up very close to the mission objective (no biggie as you'd only have to hold it by the end of the 8th turn). My own sniper sat behind a tree on a little hill, overlooking the right flank. He had three buddies with him just in case the germans tried a flank attack there. The rest of my guys (3 riflemen, Sergeant and Commissar) were set up as a group on the left flank along with the LMG gunner and assistant in tow for supporting fire. 

While I rolled rather badly on initiative rolls at the beginning of the turn I was more lucky in rolls for who to react first in reaction chains. Firing was rather even. At one point the Germans abandoned their cover and three of them rushed out from behind woods on the left flank to fire at my guys who at the time were sitting in a small cultivated field (both of which I'd cut out just prior to the game). They managed to wound one rifleman and lateron my Commissar, but in turn two of the Germans were killed and one was wounded. Cover is oh so important in this game.

In the end my Soviets had taken one casualty (the MG gunner of all), the Germans took four casualties, reaching their break point and (after a bunch of unlucky morale checks) another four took off, only leaving the Corporal and the Sergeant on the board. In their own personal Götterdämmerung they stormed out of cover, firing their MP40s, but swiftly were wounded and captured.

Good game, fun was had by both sides. Including rules explanations and such, the game took about three hours.


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

Here's my review of Operation Squad (2nd edition). Squad-level WW2 skirmish rules which I believe solved the particular challenges of this genre rather well.










http://skirmishwargaming.com/operation-squad-rules-introduction-review/

Hope you enjoy the review!


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