Weird World War I : Are You Afraid of the Dark?

 Western Front.

A French patrol crosses No-Man's Land on a moonlit night to investigate a suddenly silent section of German trench

 

 

 

They meet no resistance on entering. No signs of anyone.

Cautiously, they navigate the twists and turns of the trench, ever watchful for ambush.

A private expresses his disdain for this mission to the officer, who himself would rather not be there.

Meanwhile the others, unaware that they were just two, continued to advance.

Out of the darkness, a terrifying roar bellows from a hideous visage. Intent on satisfying its blood lust, it leaps upon the poor soldiers.

The other's race to catch up to their comrades and join the fight against the terror from the shadows.

The fight was over before it began.

*****

As those photos were taken this morning, the atmosphere is somewhat lost - here are some photos of the infantry that I took last night by kitchen light

I am pleased with the results - actually I can't believe I painted them. They have the look for this kind of game that I wanted them to have.

The "trench" is a proof of concept, literally slapped together while I waited for the figure bases to dry. Materials used: a cardboard box, a thick card mailer, a bamboo skewer, paint. I didn't measure anything and it shows, but I like the look none the less.

World War I Updates

I completed the second machine gun and crew for the Austro-Hungarians (I use the German mg and crew from Irregular Miniatures, with gasmask heads because gasmasks look cool) and with that, phase 1 of my WWI armies, for Austro-Hungary at least, is complete.

We'll call this a battalion of three 6-figure companies with a stormtrooper company in front,

I haven't decided if I'm keeping the Green Tea base color or not, hence the plain wood rounds.

Now obviously, when someone says something like "Phase 1"that implies a "Phase 2". Indeed, that is the case here. 

Of course, these phases, so-called, were derived after the fact, thus the labels are being retroactively applied.

Phase 1: 

• 18 infantry figures
•  6 assault troops
•  1 leader
•  2 machine guns with crews. 

The Italian gun and crew are in the queue and have jumped to the front:

Irregular Miniatures British HMG and crew, with Adrian helmeted heads from their Empire  Multi-parts range,

Phase 2:

For both sides: 

• 6 additional infantry figures (giving me 4 companies for my battalion, when using 6-figure units),
• 1 airplane

For the Italians: 

• 2 additional cavalry figures 
• 6 Alpini figures

Phase 3:

• 12 Germans
• 12 British 
• 1 German MG
• 1 British MG

"Now, hold on there, Jethro!", I hear you say.  "What's this about an airplane?" 

Well, I acquired a print copy of Contemptible Little Armies and I really like the way air support is included on the table. Before I could say "contact!", I had a 1/48 scale model whizzing through the mail to me:

The search for a suitable (i.e. cheap and not difficult to assemble) kit for Austro-Hungary continues. 

I haven't built a model plane in nearly 40 years. I'm a bit nervous about the painting. And I've always hated applying decals(I always tore them accidentally). The 1/48 scale should hopefully be easier for my all-thumbs-itude and my sketchy vision to deal with, at least.

Finally, also World War I, but on the weird side, I have assembled my 1/35 ICM French

They remind me of game pieces in this grey state.

Let me be clear, I love these figures. The poses are fantastic, the sculpting is crisp, and the figures very clean with no flash and minimal, easily removed, mold lines. HOWEVER, I doubt they will last more than a game or two, if they survive painting. 

Apparently, the difference between 1/35 and 1/32 is that in 1/35, bayonets are skinny little needles that break when you look at them wrong (both of those pictured are glued together somewhere in the middle of their length as a result). That the bolts on the rifles were a separate piece to be attached with glue defies all logic that I can muster.

At least I somehow managed to glue the bi-pod on the LMG the right way.

As I said, this is a Weird World War I project (and ICM is helping by suddenly releaseing a bunch of sets of figures in the attempts at armor made during the war). Weird means there needs to be something, well, weird. First up:

This is in-progress. I have yet to decide on how I'll finish i off

This is a hook horror from CP Models. It is intended as a larger than human-sized 28mm figure. But, I wrote to the proprietor and found out just how big.

I think it fits quite well with the 1/35 figures. It doesn't look bad next to my 1/32 HaT Spanish Infantry either (which are undersized). 

Painting for the entire Weird War I project is intended to be grittier than my usual glossy toy-soldiers to convey the weird aspect in visual form.

Oh and one last thing, I recently learned of Never Going Home, a WWWI RPG. Savage Worlds has its own Weird World War I books, which I will acquire eventually, but I managed to score the entire Never Going Home PDF collection via a Humble Bundle deal. Highly recommend if just for the evocative artwork!

WWI Project Updates

I love the look of gas masks, although wearing them maybe not so much (a band I was in once did live music for a theatrical production and were required to wear surplus gas masks while performing - it was hard to breath and seeing the guitar neck through the lenses was something else). I also happen to really like the French WWI horizon blue uniform and the gas mask they used for the majority of the war. 

It was probably inevitable, then, that in a moment of feeling sorry for myself for missing my friend's wedding due to Covid, I would order the ICM WW1 French in Gas Masks. 

They are 1:35 and ICM is small 1/35 in my opinion - based on comparing their Austrian and British machine gun teams with my 1/35 Soviet machine gun crew.  Clearly, they won't fit with the Armies and Plastic, Waterloo 1815, or Dulcop figures. 

That's OK. I have a plan.

I've really been enjoying the army building and background creating for my Venusian forces, I realized I wanted to do more fantasy-based themes. Fantasy role-playing games and world-building loom large in my personal gaming history. I also happen to be a fan of weird fiction (Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Algernon Blackwood, etc.) and the general ideas behind the various Mythos related role-playing games. It struck me that it would be fun to do something themed around that.

Weird World War II might be an obvious choice given my existing collection plus the Nazi occult themes, zombies or werewolves and sometimes mechs. However, I am really more interested in WWI generally speaking and I started this post talking about the ICM figures, so you have to know I'm leading up to their use!

Why not Weird World War I? 

I picture a handful of gas mask wearing infantry (the ICM figures!) heading into no-man's land, exploring mysteriously empty trenches, underground constructions of non-human origin, villages filled with low-hanging fog and no signs of life? Perhaps some slumbering Eldritch horrors have awakened due to the death and destruction sown upon the land? 

So, that's a new project that came out of nowhere - an RPG-light skirmish wargame.

I already have some horrors in mind - the lovely Hook Horror figures from CP Models. The proprietor, Mark, was kind enough to measure the figures for me. They come in around 50mm which is just about perfect.

FYI, the ICM figures come with two heads per figure, one with a gas mask and one without. Theoretically, you could buy two boxes of the gas mask figures to get an extra set of gas mask heads, then by a box of their French infantry without gas masks and gain a few more poses. 

I suspect I'll pick up some ICM British in gas masks as well, Germans too. Why should the French have all the "fun"?

In other WWI gaming news, I finished up my (for now) final base of Austro-Hungarian infantry and Italian infantry as well. They both now have six bases of regular infantry. The Austro-Hungarian force is done, save for a machine gun base that I need to purchase. The Italians need two bases of arditi (6 figures total) and a four cavalry figures painted up and another machine gun base as well.

Speaking of cavalry, here is the first head-swap to make Italian cavalry:

The body is an Armies in Plastic Egyptian lancer and the head is from a Dulcop arditi (the grenade throwing pose - the dagger pose has much too small a head). The head isn't a perfect fit but it's close enough. and is the best I had to work with. As much as it pained me to cut up a Dulcop figure, as was mentioned in the comments on the cavalry post, the AiP French heads are *way* too big to use for this purpose.

I'd be lying if I didn't note that I am already planning to acquire a box/bag each of Armies in Plastic WWI Germans for Caporetto, and the British for Asiago and Vittorio Venetto.

WWI Italian Front Organizing Considerations

Returning to contemplation of my WWI Italian Front project, I realized I had completely forgotten what my rationale was for the Austrian poses I had selected to paint That may have worked to my advantage as it forced me to dig through my source materials again and think through my intentions with this project.

According to Hell in the Trenches (Morisi, 2018), an Austrian sturmpatrouillen (assault patrol) consisted of 9 men:

• One patrol leader
• Two Grenade throwers
  
• Three Grenade bearers with rifles
• One sapper
• Two  riflemen to protect the rest "of the platoon" (these 9-men patrols are said platoons ).
  

 

At 1:1 the above could represent the aforementioned assault patrol. There are plenty of scenarios suitable for just an assault patrol or two. For a game of Trench Hammer, which I want to give a go, what does it represent?

Every base above represents an assault patrol in this case (the bases are "sections" in the rules, so say 10-15 men paper strength). What does four assault patrols represent? It's not quite anything in particular.

There is an example on page 173, of a company in the 31st Division crossing the Piave, and it consists of 12 sturmpatrouillen. So, while this is hardly definitive, the picture above represents  approximately 1/3 of a sturm kompanie It's not a singular unit the way a platoon would be in another army or time period, but rather, it's four independent patrols that, for the sake of the game, I'm putting under a singular leader.

To represent the proportional weaponry/functions of the individuals in an assault patrol, from left to right, I'm assigning the following unit types for Trench Hammer: 

1. Leader
2. Offensive Oriented Infantry (from the Trench Hammer Expansion Pack )
3. Bombing Squad
4. Another base of Offensive Oriented Infantry
5. Trench Raiders / Assault Troops. (Trench Hammer doesn't have a Sapper / Engineer unit type that I can find, but Assault Troops can clear a path through wire, so that seems like a fair choice).

All are rated as Experienced to give them an edge. 

Whether I stick with Trench Hammer or switch to single figure games (H.M.G. where 9 figures is an Austrian company, for example, or GASLIGHT,  or One Hour Skirmish Wargames, for 1:1 low figure count, for example) remains to be seen. Trying to find the right niche for these figures/this period, that isn't already occupied by my WWII collections or by my Great Game collection, is the challenge. However, this is a suitable starting point I think.

Alas, this rather enjoyable mental exercise was undermined by the discovery of just how small the ICM 1/35 MG crew figures are in comparison to AiP figures:

The figure is a British gunner with an Adrian helmet from the Italian Infantry equipment set.

These figures are just far too small even for my low standards of compatibility. They are a good bit slighter than my 1/35 Soviets and Germans for WWII even. So, plan B for the MGs (Irregular Miniatures British MG team with gun with a head swap) it is.

The Christmas Bounty Arrives: Italian Front Acquisitions

Because, like many of my fellow war gamers, my hobbies are rather, shall we say particular, my family typically gifts me money for holidays, with the instruction to spend it as I see fit (though, not to be used for practical things. My mother is quite clear about that.) I decided to parlay it this year into a round of collecting for my WWI Italian Front project. (please disregard that I'm a year behind on my plan!)

The first to arrive:

The eyes freak me out.

These figures, acquired on eBay, were painted by a previous owner and I will be repainting them in my particular style (and in my preferred colors) when I finally get started painting this project. I had them in my watch list for ages and the price dropped like a rock so I snagged them.

They will be used to represent the arditi (grenades and knives being their favored weapons). They are from an out-of-production Dulcop set that includes alpini and bersaglieri. Ross Mac first alerted me to the existence of the Dulcop set a few years ago now, and I have been watching for them to come up for  reasonable price on eBay since! 

Both sides are getting machine guns in the form of 1/35 plastic kits. While I would have preferred to use the Irregular 1/32 sets (the German MG team can easily make a passable late war Austro-Hungry MG team), the cost of shipping made the plastic ICM kits more manageable for my wallet.

Peppermint inspects the troops

They will be under scale, but I do this with my WWII figures and it doesn't bother me in-game or even in pictures. It only bothers me theoretically. 

The Italians don't have their own specific model kit, sadly. So, I will begin with a 1/35 ICM British Vickers team that I will give Adrian style helmets and maybe swap the Vickers for a Fiat-Revelli  (both the helmets and mg courtesy of ICM's set of Italian accessories). Despite an estimated arrival time of late February, they arrived yesterday!

In keeping with the toy-soldier nature of my games, rather than worry about correct artillery, I've decided to go with Britain's guns. There are two different models pictured below with Armies in Plastic figures.

Although they aren't identical, I like the idea of different caliber guns. Now, it's just a matter of which models come up the cheapest on eBay..

At this point, I'm collecting forces to meet the One Hour Wargames Machine Age organization, replacing Cavalry with Assault Troops (sturmtruppen and arditi)- 3 infantry figures per unit initially - making them useful for The Portable Wargame, OHW, and similar. Like my colonial figures, they will be individually based, allowing me to play a variety of rules with the same figures..

Taking another of Ross's suggestions, I opted to go in on two Wings of Glory planes. The Italians are the first to equip with a Macchi M.5 flying boat: 

I really love the pre-painted models. Detail I could never replicate.

If I find I enjoy air miniatures games (I have two air board games that I enjoy: Battle Over Britain from Minden Games and GMT's Enemy Coast Ahead starter scenarios), then I can always acquire more of the planes. Since it isn't likely, for now, to be more than a side show, the pre-painted Wings of Glory planes are more than worth the time saved not having to paint them

Finally, because I stumbled on this article about WWI Italian combined operations, I ordered a copy of The Battle of the Otranto Straits: Controlling the Gateway to the Adriatic. Combined with inspiration provided by Archduke Piccolo's lovely ships , I have an itch to try some naval miniatures gaming as well - although I will probably go with commercially available miniatures, rather than attempting to build my own. I know painting is involved, but a coat of grey seems do-able.

Unfortunately, I noticed this morning that the post office tried to deliver my book to some unknown ZIP code, which I can only assume is either a handwriting issue of the seller, or a mistake at the post office - eBay shows the correct ZIP, and clearly, quite a few things have been delivered to me successfully. Hopefully, I can get this resolved - it was a nice copy at a good price.

Downsizing (Free Stuff) Part 2!

Even if you've claimed something from my previous post, please feel free to let me know if anything here interests you (there’s  still a few things left there).

Nothing left here, folks! Thanks for looking!

First of the 2020 Draftees

The post has been busy the past few days, bringing me packages filled with hobby joy!

Up first, a pre-painted 1/35 Can Do German MG team. This brings up my Germans to three MG-42 bases. I'm aiming for four eventually and will probably pick up one more of these sets in the not too distant future.

Two boxes of the much ballyhooed Waterloo 1815 WWI Italians arrived next. First, notice the box art - ordinary helments.

But the figures are Bersaglieri! I knew this going in, but nothing on the box indicates this.

The pictures below could not look more bland (grey figures on a gray-white background - white balance would have been a good thing to use I suppose) but you can at least see the poses. They'll obviously need some cleaning up - almost every helmet has a plume of flash.

Finally, what amounts to my biggest eBay score in awhile - five 1/32 Waffen SS figures (a mix of 3 Britain's, duplicating a set I already have, and two Conte figures).

I usually lose auctions on eBay (foolishly I bid the max I'm willing to pay and I won't increase my bid beyond that) and so I tend to stick to Buy-It-Now offerings, but this time I put in a reasonable bid, and won the whole lot for far less - just $28USD. At less than $6 for a fully painted metal figure, I'm pretty stoked.

I'll also probably never win another auction again.

These join the other five SS figures I already have and will see service against my British paratroopers and my "Big Red One" US infantry in small skirmish games using One Hour Skirmish Wargames, Five Men in Normandy, or Fistful of Lead (which I just picked up in PDF format after reading Reese's recent game report.)

When I'll get any of these on the table is a good question - I'm dying to kick off an OHSW campaign with my TSSD winter Germans and winter Soviets and so that will probably take precedence when the next gaming moment presents itself.

Soviet Maxim Team No. 2 and a Conversion

Let's start with the first part (always a good choice).

The second Zvezda MG team is complete and on their base. If you look carefully you will still see the blue tint to the air that resulted from this exercise.

The hard part was getting both of their hands onto the gun's handle, without raising the MG in the air. The end result is that they appear to be holding hands from certain angles. I'm quite alright with that, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intention and that I botched the arm attachment.

Here's another view because I'm pleased as punch with the outcome:

Speaking of arm attachment. I rapidly went from "what happens if I try to use heat to bend this figure's arm" to "better lop that melted mess off with an X-acto and find a replacement":

The donor was already missing a hand - he came that way - and so I figured he was the best donor candidate. I also have like 10 of the grenade throwers, most of whom I have no other plans for.

I consider this a proof of concept for a "leader" figure - a company commander, for example, in my G Company or Company Fire - that doesn't look exactly like the figure I painted for the Commissar. I mean it really doesn't matter, but if they're going to be standing side-by-side, I thought it was too uniform and besides this is my first "big"-ish conversion attempt (i.e not hacking off a gun or a paint conversion).

The arm is presently held in place with blu-tac, just to prove to myself that it will work.

I will drill and pin it, and then fill in the gaps (probably) with green stuff before hacking off some of the excess bits that resulted from my previous hacking. 

Painting Madness and Plans

I got quite  bit of painting done in the last few days, much to my own surprise

Both the Germans and Soviets can now field nine infantry units.

And even better, the Soviets can field their first proper HMG:

Nothing fancy but they will serve the Motherland well. Just don't get me started on the pain of attaching the Maxim to the base.  All hail blu-tack!

The next figures in the queue include a German sniper (CTS), a Soviet commander (Marx, which will be my first "real" conversion attempt), and the second Soviet HMG team (the Zvezda box includes two) . It's probable I'll work on those this week.

Once those are painted, and assuming my painting mojo sticks around, I'll probably return to painting figures for my colonial Imagin-nation / VSF project involving the conflict between Ginland (or is it Gntania?) and Vodkya in the late 19th C. I figure a break before painting any more WWII forces will help prevent burnout.


I'd really like to get a game on the table with my figures, but I'm afraid to stop painting lest another long painting lull begin.

I love the smell of Testor’s glue in the morning

The other night I was ready to wax rhapsodic about 1/35 figure kits. Assembling the soldiers was a breeze, cleaning mold lines with a blade was a delight (so easy with this plastic), and you can leave off bits and bobs that your Airfix and Marx figures don’t have if desired. 

Of course, there are slight gaps at the joins that the more detail oriented would take the time to deal with but I am not that person and am not bothered by them.

In my joy-filled haze, I moved on to the Maxims next. How anyone can call this hobby relaxing is beyond me! Minuscule pieces lost, found, lost again (this time with glue on them), tiny little bits to be stuck perfectly in place with no support/hole/anything. Clearly these were created by a sadistic mind and dutifully, I masochistically went through the process. 

The end result, however, was worth it in that I now have two proper Soviet HMG teams and for a reasonable price (dollar-wise, the jury is out on the cost of sanity).

One team and both guns. The nose of the gun on the right came from a broken resin kit I have as I lost the one included.

Despite my frustration with the fiddly gun bits,  I expect I’ll be turning to more 1/35 figure kits for some of the specialists that no one makes in 1/32 plastic.