STALINGRAD Bolt Action Mega Battle!

This is the first of my German Armour to get DONE!

It’s a great addition to any platoon in an infantry support role. Being armed with a light howitser and two Medium Machine Guns, will make it very effective at cutting down massed waves of enemy infantry, or blowing them out of ruined buildings.

It will have trouble if it comes up against enemy armour, however that is not it’s role.

If I add this tank to my previously completed Panzergrenadier Squad with it’s half track, I will have both the core troop and vehicle choices for a ‘Stalingrad Armoured Kampfgruppe Reinforced Platoon’ from the ‘Stalingrad Campaign’ book. To complete the unit at minimum strength, all I need is a Junior Leutnant. This will give me a very mobile anti infantry force, to act as a fire brigade unit to exploit break throughs, plug gaps in my own line and bring decisive fore power to where it can turn the tide.

I plan to develop this small unit into a larger force. At the moment it is very effective as a mobile anti infantry force, and will be great for capturing vital objectives, but is very vulnerable to anti tank weapons. I like the challenge that different units bring, and look forward to using these guys in future games.

https://store.warlordgames.com/products/panzer-iv-ausf-d-1?_pos=1&_sid=696df0429&_ss=r&variant=32331829051472&aff=42

Panzergrenadier (Stalingrad) Squads must be accompanied by a truck or as in this case, preferably an Hanomag Halftruck. With the units special rules outlined in a previous post, it is a great way of bringing a LOT of automatic fire where it needs to be, fast.

The Hanomag is fitted with an MMG (Medium Machine Gun), which it can fire after moving, and get at least a pin, if not a kill or two one an enemy unit before the Panzergrenadiers disembark, and shower the enemy in lead. At present with a minimum 5 man strong squad with an LMG (Light Machine Gun) a non loader rifleman, and 2 SMG’s (Sub Machine Guns), the squad can fire 10 shots at the enemy. Fully kitted out with 10 men and another LMG, 2 SMG’s and a rifleman, it can fire 20 shots, which is almost guaranteed to delete most enemy units up close.

Sd.Kfz 251 C Hanomag

A fun model that was sent to me as a bonus courtesy of Warlord Games mail order team.

There are some special rules for this chap on the Warlord website, and I look forward to including him in Stalingrad themed games as a mobile tactical objective.

German Army Propagandakompanie Cameraman

Warlord’s ‘Stalingrad Campaign’ book has a special entry allowing you to field theses guys. They are a much needed boost to the regular ‘Heer Infantry’ who suffer from a serious lack of fire power, compared to what their Soviet equivalents can field against them, most notably the deadly 12 strong SMG squads. To fight back they get the much needed option of a second LMG, and can take 4 SMG’s. as opposed to a somewhat underwhelming 1 LMG and 1 SMG.

These guys pack a real punch from a distance, and will get more deadly with SMG fire as they get closer to the enemy.

They also get the ‘Motorised Infantry’ special rule, which means that they can reroll failed rolls to mount or dismount their transports (still in production) when they have pins on them. This makes them much more reliable as they can easily take pins if their transports are hit.

To mark them out as distinct from all the other German units on the table, I have kit-bashed them to have heads from the Warlord’s ‘Panzergrenadier’, ‘DAK’ and ‘S.S.’ plastic box sets. I have also made the odd conversion here and there. I plan to build up the single squad to full strength, and then into a complete platoon of three squads with half tracks, command and appropriately aggressive support units.

I have gone for a mobile and aggressive look for them, and will be using a lot of heads with goggles to further enhance the mobile feel to them.

These guys, God willing, when I have enough of them with support items (that presently in the pipeline) has to be one of the units that I am most looking forward to playing, and playing against on the table top.

This figure came miss-cast with a load of flash metal on his face, I managed to cut most of the waste metal away, and make the remainder look like a moustache. The end result is not the cold, calculating Prussian Officer type, but a disturbingly affable and jovial looking chap. With the WWI style tash, he looks a bit too British and looks too much like ‘that nice chap Roger’ from a 1920’s amateur league village cricket club. I think I may have to get a more suitable replacement?

In the following images I have shown him next to the same model as it should be for a Blitzkrieg army that I have not started.

Blitzkrieg German support group

This ‘Assault Gun’ is a real beast, the turret and gun dwarfs anything else in this stage of the War.

Facing a KV-2  on the table, the German’s will have a serious threat on the table. It is has the ‘slow’ and the ‘Slow Traverse’ special rules, but, it has heavy armour and an extremely powerful heavy howitzer. Armour and experience infantry both have to fear this enemy. I have only ever used it once and it deleted whole enemy units of infantry when it fired. With such heavy armour, most of the German anti tank guns and armour mounted weapons are going to be ineffective, unless the can get round it, and shoot it in the arse at point close range.

The Warlord kit is great, and allows you to assemble a KV-1  turret as well. I am working on two more of these behemoths so that I can field an entire troop.

In terms of presentation, I under coated the model with Halford’s Matt Black Primer. The base colour is Vallejo Surface Primer Russian Green 70.609, then highlights dry brushed with 50/50 Vallejo Khaki/Russian Green 70.609. The whole model the washed with Forge World ‘Dry Mud’ weathering powder in a wash, which is then partially dry sponged off. Scratches an chips added to add realistic ware a tear.

I finished this model over a year ago, and am trying to replicate the look and effects exactly on the other two previously unassembled examples. I won’t know foe sure that I have it right until the weathering powder wash is applied, dried and partially sponged off.

KV1/2 Plastic Box Set

Some of my earliest Bolt Action miniatures. A little naive in execution, but they have bags of character, particularly the NCO checking paperwork. I like the way the unit stands out on the table top with it’s distinctive ‘Gorgets’, which back in the day gained them the nick name ‘Chained Dogs’.

My skin tones were a bit on the deathly pale side back when I painted these guys, and I got the Waffenfarbe (Army service Branch colour) wtong for the epaulettes. This was not any great problem to remedy. as all I had to do was over paint the incorrect artillery red, with a layer of orange (G.W. Fire Dragon Bright), and the old layer of red has provided some depth and shadow at the edges of the orange.

Without an LMG and inexperienced rating, they are not effective fighters, but can keep adjacent friendly units in the fight.  A fun, stand out unit for the game, but they have to be used in a support role to get the best out of them.

German Feldgendarmes

Guarding the Chateau

For a few pounds more than the Warlord’s ‘Soviet Infantry’ plastic box set, this has arguably got to be the most versatile box set on the market, allowing you to assemble at least 14 different squads and teams, of the top of my head: Officer team, Commissar Team, MMG Team, Sniper Team, Anti Tank Rifle Team, Tank Hunter Team, Tank Riders. Inexperienced Rifle Squad, SMG Squad, Strafbat Squad, Veteran Squad, LMG Squad, Guards Squad and of course Siberian Veteran Squad as well as spotters and extra gun crewmen.

I finished paining many of the miniatures that I am going to show some years ago, however many of the squads have now been infused with fresh recruits to complete them.

The following images show a portion of what is possible with this box set.

Siberian Veterans boxed set