WW I Southern Front : A Look Ahead to 2020

It's that time of years where bloggers start to reflect on what has been and what is to come - I happen to love this kind of thing as I find it inspiring. Hopefully, you do too. If not, feel free to jump ahead to the tl;dr section.

One of my goals for 2019 was to get started on a Southern Front / Italian Front WWI wargaming collection. I had purchased several boxes of 1/72 figures a few years ago, with just vague plans, based on a reading of The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915 - 1919. However, nothing had come of it in the intervening years.

TL;DR Summary:

2019 turned out to be one about background information - much more has been read. Nothing was painted but figures have been acquired and rule choices have been narrowed. This will be an ongoing project that will kick-off in 2020, not least because the initial figure batch will be under the tree as a gift to myself for Christmas.

PSA: there's a link now at the top of my blog to a list of all of the available figure ranges and scales for this front that I am aware of.

How I Got Here:

This year, I returned to my reading which, I'd like to believe, gave me a better understanding of the war on this front, as well as solidified my ideas about what kind of gaming I'd like to do, at least in the immediate future (that being 2020). So, while nothing was painted, decisions were made.

First, for context, here is what I read this year:

A Soldier on the Southern Front: The Classic Italian Memoir of World War 1
The War in the Mountains
The Italian Army and the First World War
Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign: The Italian Front 1915-1918
Hell in the Trenches: Austro-Hungarian Stormtroopers and Italian Arditi in the Great War

I had previously read:
The Italian Army of World War I
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915 - 1919

And for completeness' sake, at this moment in the queue I have Rommel's  Infantry Attacks and the two Osprey Austro-Hungarian Forces in WW I books by Peter Jung. I anticipate at least one, if not two, additional books on the topic for Christmas (and if not, Christmas money will be spent acquiring them and a few others specifically about the British involvement in the front)

In addition to the reading, I played Burning Mountains (only once completely, as it's a relatively long game - BGG shows 7 hours and that's about right) - a game focused on the 1916 Austrian Spring offensive.

All of this has me convinced, that I have no desire to reproduce battles with divisions or more with miniatures at this time (maybe some day, with 6mm, so I can fit it on my kitchen table). M:y interests are late war (because assault troops) from man-to-man fights in the trenches up to maybe regiment per side. Conveniently, these levels of engagement are described in just about every book I've read - sometimes in great detail - most especially in Hell in the Trenches.


Figures:

Two boxes of Armies in Plastic WWI Germans in Stahlhelm.

As the picture above shows, I will be doing this in 54mm rather than 1/72 as originally planned (nor in 28mm with the lovely figures from Scarab because beautiful as they are, I really love 54s. (As if I needed to say that.).

The boxes of Armies in Plastic Germans in Stahlhelms pictured will serve as the Austro-Hungarian sturmtruppen and late war regular infantry - and I can always paint up some as Germans too for Caporetto. The uniforms aren't exact matches for Austro-Hungarian forces, but will have to do. The only purpose-made alternative is expensive and limited poses from ICM and Italeri in 1/35. I might mix in some converted figures in peaked caps, just for fun, either from Airfix Afrika Korps or Marx Japanese (per Tim Gow's idea).

For Italians, the bulk are going to be bersaglieri from Waterloo 1815 (who for some confusing reason use the same image as the 1/72 regular infantry box. They don't picture bersaglieri). Dulcop alpini would be nice but I'm not holding my breath they will turn up at reasonable prices. AiP French without the great coats or blanket/coat rolls can provide some figures here and there.There are no arditi figures - but, while their uniforms are described as being special, the photographs often show them wearing basically the same thing as standard infantry - maybe different cut jacket, but nothing I'd fret over.

I may end up supplementing both sides with the occasional metal figure from Irregular (they have Austrians in caps, and alsotheir multi-part figure range).

Artillery will be off table for the most part.  Any on-table field guns will have to be scratch built or built from 1/35 kits.Irregular makes a gun that could work for either side if you squint, but it's pricey for my tastes. Flamethrowers will have to be scratch built. MGs and teams will be in 1/35 from ICM and Italeri.

All figures except weapons with crew will be individually based.

Rules:
 

For rules, I am leaning towards

• HMG by Agema -  I've never seen a review of this game but I took a chance and picked them up from Wargame Vault and they have my interest.. They use 9-figure Austrian companies and 15-figure Italian regular infantry companies or 8 figure bersaglieri. That means probably a battalion-ish per side - an attacking Austrian infantry battalion led by a company of stormtroopers would be a not unreasonable 45 figures and a battalion of bersaglieri is only 24-32 figures
  

  

  Messing around with nine-figure Austro-Hungarian cmpanies for Agema's HMG. Organized into two sturmkompanies and two of regular infantry.   Lot's of bent barrels here - nothing hot water can't fix. Those four figures in the back right are kind of awkward.

• One Hour Wargames, Machine Age rules -  these would require modification, but it's easy to build up a force. Like the WWII rules, there are no close assault rules. It is even odder here because unlike in the WWII rules, the WWI units have facing and therefore can be flanked. I'd ignore cavalry and replace them with assault troops who would have a +2 bonus when attacking..
• The Portable Wargame - 4 -6 figure companies in 3" or 4" squares,  for say up to a regiment on each side. 

  

  6-figure companies. A sturmkompanie leads the way for an infantry battalion. A typical use of Austro-Hungarian stormtroops.

• A home variation on Featherstone's simple modern rules
• Some home brew rules with or without a grid - I have started developing a game for the former, albeit with homemade counters, where 1 "base" is nominally a platoon.  

For smaller actions, I have:

• One Hour Skirmish Wargames  - 1:1, maybe 9 or 10 figures per side
• Trench Hammer (Nordic Weasel) - 1 squad per base
• Trench Storm (Nordic Weasel)- 1 squad per base
• Through the Mud and Blood (Two Fat Lardies)  - 1:1, field 30-100ish figures
• Price of Glory (Iron Ivan / Brigade Games) - 1:1, field 30-50 figures

I have probably another dozen sets of rules for much larger battles - divisions and such. But odds are those won't see any use for these figures. Maybe later.


If you made it this far, cheers to you and thanks for sticking with this lengthy post!