By Kreighton Long
Feeling adventurous, I set out to build a pigsty for my rural Bolt Action terrain. Most of the materials were easy enough to order online. The wattle fences came from Renedra Ltd; the mother pig from Warlord Games; and the balsa wood, match sticks, coffee stirrers, and green stuff from my hobby cache.
By Kreighton Long
Slowly but surely I’ve been working on improving my terrain options with the focus on Bolt Action. My primary army project for this year is overhauling my Soviet forces. Accordingly, my terrain optics have been focused on the terrain pieces that will best fit the Eastern Front.
By Kreighton Long
Bring on the pain! I bravely (read foolishly) decided to break out my X-Acto knife and green stuff to try to build a Case Yellow Fallschirmjager force using the Warlord Games sprues. As I started planning there were a few things I needed to keep in mind.
First was to have as many troopers as possible in the early war step-in smocks. This was in keeping with the fact that the second version jump smock had not become readily available to the Fallschirmjager corps during Case Yellow. Second was to use heads with uncovered helmets.
Nearly all the photographs I found online from this period show the Fallschirmjager with neither camo covers or netting over their head protection. Third was to identify where weapon substitutions or additions would need to take place. The primary light machine gun for the Case Yellow Fallschirmjager was the MG34 and the flamethrower of choice in 1940 would have been the Flammenwerfer 35 as the Flammenwerfer 41 was not introduced until 1941. With these three things in mind I got to work.
By Kreighton Long
A few weekends back I had the opportunity to compete in a Bolt Action tournament. Twenty-four players converged on Titan Games and Hobbies in Timonium, Maryland for a day of competitive play. Operation Roundup was Tournament Organizer Mike Kehs’ third tournament and largest so far. Mike began organizing tournaments in Maryland to support events for players in his area. Learning from other TOs, Mike advertised early and often for his event which helped to pull in players from multiple states around Maryland.
Mike’s tournaments aim to provide enjoyable experiences for competitive players, hobbyists, and new players alike. Mike was supported by two assistants who doubled as judges for the painting competition. The assistants helped to ensure a smooth event considering it’s size with one stepping in as a ringer to even out the numbers.
By Kreighton Long. Pictures from May ’40 Miniatures, Warlord Games, Black Tree Designs, Artizan Miniatures, Offensive Miniatures, Perry Miniatures, Wargames Foundry, Gorgon Studios, Crusader Miniatures, 1st Corps, and Westwind Productions.
As one Bolt Action project ends, another begins. Reflecting on my current inventory I notice a distinct lack of dedicated early war options. Within my hobby circle this is the period of World War Two which is notably neglected. Theories as to why range from a lack of US involvement to a distinct absence of the more iconic mid and late war tanks and weapons. In an effort to try to rectify this bias, as well as to challenge myself with something new, I began planning to build and paint an early-war German paratrooper, aka Fallschirmjager, force designed around Case Yellow.
Case Yellow, also known as the Manstein Plan, was the German invasion of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. The Fallschirmjagers saw their first deployments in the Poland campaign and then saw their first firefights in Norway. These experiences provided lessons to hone their abilities for Case Yellow. On 10 May 1940 the Fallschirmjagers made arguably their greatest contribution to the war with their successful capture of the Belgian fort of Eben Emael. The raid is worth a look if you’re unfamiliar but I’ll tease you with the note that 85 Fallschirmjagers landed in gliders on top of the fortification consisting of multiple gun emplacements and housing over one thousand Belgian troops. After a few hours of fighting the garrison surrendered and history was made. The Fallschirmjager went on to operate with mixed results in the Netherlands, Greece, their last major airborne operation of the war — Crete, and finally as conventional line-units in Italy, Russia, and Western Europe.
For my early-war Fallschirmjagers I aspire to stay as true to the Case Yellow theme I chose for myself. This means limiting my troopers to the early war smocks. The early war smocks were step-in smocks where the paratrooper had to step into the leg holes, pull the smock up over his shoulders, and feed his arms through the sleeves. These smocks differed from the next generation smocks, issued starting in 1942, that look more like short cut trench coats. By 1941, both the the early war step-in smocks and the coats were issued in the splinter camouflage pattern. As I want to keep my jumpers true to the Case Yellow period I sought out models that exclusively used the early war step-in smock model.
As I started investigating different options on where to get my Fallschirmjager I quickly realized that I was about to be overwhelmed with the possibilities. A feeling of paralysis by analysis started to set in. Below are some of the options I found and a quick summary of what I noticed.
May ’40 Miniatures appears to be an excellent match for Case Yellow Fallschirmjagers. Their sets even include Fallschirmjagers with hollow charges for their raid at Eben Emael and a set with captured Dutch weapons for their fighting in the Netherlands. For someone looking to get painting right away these option is tough to beat.
Warlord Games has a variety of options for Fallschirmjager models. The core is the plastic box set which includes five sprues of six torsos with three being sculpted with the early war step-in smock and three with the mid-war open smock. Warlord offers the widest variety of support weapons and options for Fallschirmjager collectors. For my early-war vision I would have to be mindful of whether or not I’m getting metal models in the mid-war smocks when ordering their support weapon sets.
Black Tree Designs has a range of Fallschirmjager for both early and late war. Most of the model packs I looked at were sculpted with the early war smocks so that’s a plus for Black Tree Designs. There is an excellent variety of support weapons and options which is appealing. Most everything I foresee needing is available. Black Tree Designs features Builder Packs to help save money when ordering multiple packs at a time which is another plus for this option.
Artizan Miniatures features a range of Fallschirmjager modeled for mid and late war actions. Their packs include sculpts of both step-in and open smocks. I’ve painted Artizan miniatures in the past and am a fan of their work. However, as their miniatures are metal they are more difficult to modify than plastics. Additionally, their weapon options are tailored for the mid-war period with no MG-34s available.
Offensive Miniatures‘ Fallschirmjager range has a ton of character but appears to be sculpted with mid-war actions in mind judging by the open smocks and MG-42s. Certainly worth considering for Fallschirmjagers fighting in North Africa, Italy, Russia, or France after Operation Overlord.
Perry Miniatures includes packs of Fallschirmjager in their German collection. The sculpts look intended for the North Africa campaigns and include open smocks mixed in with step-in smocks. While the metal miniatures look like a joy to paint altering the metal open smocks to fit the step-in requirements of my Case Yellow army will be far less joyful.
Wargames Foundry has four sets of Fallschirmjager. While the miniatures look well sculpted with details such as external knee pads for those tough landings, the limited selection of options makes this a difficult sell for filling in a full Bolt Action army roster efficiently.
Gorgon Studios offers nine sets of Fallschirmjagers. All sets are sculpted with the step-in smock and are an ideal match for early-war Fallschirmjager. This was my first exposure to Gorgon Studios and I will certainly keep them in mind if when I look at either Norwegians or Polish 10th Mechanized Brigade.
Crusader Miniatures‘ Fallschirmjagers are sculpted for the early-war period with step-in smocks and MG-34s. Their World War Two Platoon Deal is an ideal way to start collecting an early-war Fallschirmjager force.
1st Corps also has a range of early war Fallschirmjager. 1st Corps also offers casualty figures (especially handy as I’ll need to make pin markers for my army), drop canisters, and a supply dump. Easily a one stop shop for getting started with early-war Fallschirmjager.
Westwind Productions offers a few packs of Fallschirmjager which appear to be more suitable for late-war action based on their uniforms and the equipment they are sculpted with.
It’s not surprising that a force as famous as the Fallschirmjager have been covered by so many different manufacturers. Among the available options May ’40 Miniatures, Black Tree Designs, and Wargames Foundry stand out the most through my Case Yellow tinted jump goggles. While looking through all the pretty toys I began to feel that I wanted more of a challenge than simply buying some kits ready to go. I have been called a glutton for punishment before. In the end I decided to go with the Warlord Games plastics. This is partially me being cheap, as I already have a healthy pile of Fallschirmjager sprues in my box of shame, a combination of gifts from co-conspirators and freebies from Wargame Illustrated and Warlord Games, and partially the excitement of a challenge. Working with the Warlord sprues will force me to step outside my comfort zone by modifying the jump jackets into step-in smocks, kitbashing to have a unique force, and to practice my green-stuff skills by creating some of the weapons I will need (such as flamethrowers for my Fallschirmpioneers). This will be a slow burn project but I hope to one day have a unique looking army to take to both club and competitive events. Time to hit the hobby bench and start proof testing my ideas. Stay tuned for the next addition where I hope to talk about having more success than sorrow converting the Warlord Fallschirmjager sprues into something worthy of raiding the fortress of Eben Emael.
by Matt Varnish
Good morning everyone, hope all is well. While I have been slaving away the past few months with rebasing entire units of French and redoing every single officer, and painting WAY too much gold braiding, I have also taken some time to make up a few characters for Sharp Practice. Sharp practice is a semi skirmish ruleset for a variety of time periods, but is in the adventurous vein of Sharpe’s Rifles, the excellent show where the good guys always lose (the French)
In Sharp Practice, in addition to the usual infantry, horse and skirmishers that anyone with a Black Powder army already has, there are also leaders and heroes as well as some other characters on single bases. There are a great many charts to roll up for them and see what special abilities they had, and a LOT of them under the Cad section has them chasing after women.. I mean, this IS AFTER ALL based on Sharpe !
By Morten A.
Before Battlefront decided to include Denmark in Team Yankee with the Nordic Forces book, I was fiddling around modifying the West Germans into the Danish army, by modifying the BF models to resemble units that were available to Denmark during the 1985-1995 timeline that BF is using for TY.
After the release of Nordic Forces, I continued modifying models and adding some 3D printed ones to either better represent the models in the Danish army or proxy units BF did not include in their list.
By Kreighton Long
I recently stumbled across Father and Son Gaming’s Organic Shapes MDF Terrain Base Set and thought about the improvement they could offer my current terrain set-ups. For years I’ve collected trees, a couple at a time, from various conventions.
I’ve used those same trees on nearly every table I’ve thrown together. From time to time I’ve had a minor hiccup where my opponent or I would need to reposition a tree or two to accommodate units moving through the clusters of trees and in doing so would lose track of the intended outline of the trees. For the most part these are friendly club games and we’ve been able to work through it for the spirit of the game.
By Kreighton Long
Thanks to Great Escape Games I finally worked up the courage to take a crack at painting horses with their Romanian cavalry. Fortunately for me, I have a former equestrian a shout away to lend her expertise. A goal I had for my mounted Romanians was to have an eye-catching amount of variety with the different mounts.
Of course with my partner passing my painting desk every so often to quality control my progress I was able to work with her to incorporate some authentic colorings. Below are some of the different colorings I ended up with and the corresponding colors. All paints used below are from Vallejo.
By Kreighton Long
As I work on improving my Bolt Action Italian army I found myself needing a little extra firepower and maneuverability by utilizing the Armored Car slot. After looking through the options for the Italians I settled on an Autoblinda AB 41 and was lucky enough to stumble across one at a brick and mortar store I visit whenever possible. While looking into different paint schemes for my new speedy-pew-pew I was inspired by photos of Italian armor painted in a three tone paint scheme with a base of tan with blotches of green and brown known as Continentale.
The Continentale paint scheme was used on a few Italian vehicles predominantly in Italy as the Allies pushed the fighting from Africa to the Italian peninsula. Gaps between the brown and green where the undercoat showed through created a unique looking vehicle camouflage pattern that I decided to reproduce. After some trial and error I found a process that allowed me to reproduce the paint scheme I wanted in the least painful way possible.
