"Guns of August" Project Continues - 12mm WW1

More 12mm WW1 Germans ready to march through Belgium!

As Curt's most recent edition of the "Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge" finished, I kicked off another new project. After all, we all need new projects, right? Especially with these endless f*cking lockdowns. This new project was "The Guns of August", WW1 in 12mm, with figures from Great Escape Games. While the AHPC is concluded for another year, I'm still working away on this new project. Here is more infantry, more MGs, another 77mm gun team and a command base. These are all based for Great Escape Games "1914" rules, although they would certainly work for other rulesets as well.

German infantry columns massing for war!

In the "1914" rules, the level of abstraction is similar to that of Great War Spearhead - each base of infantry would represent a company, and each MG would represent an entire detachment of the weapons. Oddly, each 77mm gun only represents one half of a battery...that seems strange to me, but I haven't yet had the chance to try out the rules on the table, so I should withhold any judgements like that until such a time as I finally get to play them!

77mm gun ready to support the advance.

Another view of the gun crew. The bases for artillery are 50mm squares.

The castings from Great Escape Games have been very nice so far - only one broken Uhlan lance in the whole package...the figures are sold in units (generally four bases plus an MG, although in the game the actual size of the units can vary) or in special "brigade" boxes. I started with a "brigade" box for the Germans, and you get a fair bit of stuff - four units of infantry (four bases each), a regiment of cavalry (four bases), bases to represent the dismounted cavalry (four bases' worth), five MGs, two 77mm guns, and a group of command figures. Not too shabby!

Command base, packed with goodies from the box set - very nice sculpts. The German officers are not sure what to make of these maps...

As you can see, I based the command figures on a round base, as I would for games of "Spearhead". I think it looks better, and helps it to stand out from the others. Also, one of the gaps in the "1914" rules (and there are a few) is that, well, they provide literally no rules for what to do with the commanders, so thought I would go with my preference :)

More views of the infantry. The bases are 50mm x 25mm rectangles.

Lovely detail on the sculpts, showing the kit of the German infantry.

The MG08s are on 25mm square bases.

My only criticism on this Great Escape figure range so far would be lack of crew...certainly an MG08 in 1914 needed more than one chap to haul the gun, ammo and tripod around. The 77mm guns would have taken more than two crew to stay in action...but that said, these are all nice castings, they paint up quickly, and I really enjoyed working on them. I'll have many more to share as this project proceeds!

Thanks for reading - please stay safe, and stay sane!