The British 1st Airborne Division – A Project Completed

My first article for WWPD was about the British Airborne.  And unfortunately thanks to the changing hosting rules of Photobucket.  My pictures there are lost for all time. But to be frank, there wasn’t much to see. It was a lot of blisters sitting atop a British Flag. Which my wife kept asking me if I was selling. The answer was always and still is, no. Especially now that this is all done.

I began this project in 2012. And it started as a desire to build A Company 1st Airborne.  So I could play market garden games as Frost and his forces holding on against incredible odds. The whole battle fascinates me, and its something I’ve studied extensively.  So much so that I hope someday to visit Holland and see the museum and sites they fought over.

When I first began the hobby, I didn’t have the skills or the experience to tackle the project, and so I kept putting it on the back burner.  Making urban rubble was intimidating.  And I wasn’t confident it would turn out right.  So I procrastinated.  (side note: advice on urban rubble? brown as a base is better than grey or black.) I gathered my materials and waited for my moment.  The other issue I have with large projects is that I tend to work in bursts.  And I want to complete everything in one fell swoop.  Otherwise, I run the risk of mixing the colors wrong or forgetting exactly what I did or what I used.

But no matter how many times I put them to the side, I kept coming back to this project and refused to give up.  I hope that seeing this done, after nearly a decade, can inspire you readers out there to start attacking your mounds of lead and get some stuff done you’ve been putting off for a while.

I first completed Frost’s Company of Urban Rubble trapped Paras.

 

For the support options, I tried to go with a mix of urban rubble and black debris and ash with some grass and dirt, to simulate a middle ground between countryside and city.  This way I could run them with either the Urban Paratroopers or my other planned company, Airborne Engineers. I’m still debating the basing, and am considering adding fall foliage or more grass to these.

 

And I made 3 custom objectives for the City fighters out of scraps of things I had lying around.

Finally, they get their own urban rubble display board

Next, I started to unpack 4 blisters of Airborne Royal Engineers. There are a lot of figs in there.  When I started mapping it out I wanted several components.

1. They all had to have barbed wire on the bases to signify the engineer status.
2. There had to be separate supply wagons and flamethrower teams
3. I wanted at least one max 14 stand platoon

So in some cases, I only put 3 to a base to make room for basing elements.

I also had glider pilots, which I wanted to base completely differently as they were a separate platoon.

The Main Forces:

The support:

 

 

Finally, the Heroes:

Sosabowski had his beret painted red accidentally, so I didn’t want to visit shame on myself by posting it.

As someone who loves playing aggressive infantry, these guys are a blast.  I’ll hopefully have some more basing articles in the future for anyone interested in a tutorial for how I do mine. Thanks for reading!

On a final note, on the podcast, I made a bet with Dennis “aka Matt Varnish” that if I didn’t finish these paratroopers by the end of July AND POST PICS in an article, I would need to buy him a fine dinner.  If I succeeded, I would get a giant Canadian 7 X 5 flag when I go up to see him at Canadian Nationals.

It’s all up to Troy now. [Editor’s note: Tom should check with major gaming companies as to their new product release schedules about potential scheduling. July was rather busy! Of course, he could have bribed the editor with a large amount of bacon.] If he publishes this on or before July 31st, I win…. but if we have too much content scheduled, and it doesn’t get published. Matt Wins.  We’ll see when this comes out, and I promise not to use my editor powers to publish this early.

Tom “Chairborne” Mullane is a writer for NDNG, and a contributor to their podcast. He has been playing an painting Flames of War models since 2011. He teaches history in NY and lives in Danbury CT. Come join him at Hobbytown in New Milford CT for a game, or contact him if you happen to be in Western CT.