I've now (mostly) finished the infantry company for my 8th Army in the Western Desert project. I do have some Vickers MMG teams and 3" mortars, as well as a couple stands of Boys AT rifles and 2" mortars, yet to complete but I wanted to post these models up.
The great majority of the models are from Forged in Battle, a UK manufacturer you might know better as West Wind - why the name change I'm not sure. I say "the great majority" because a couple Peter Pig models have snuck into the company (the pistol-armed platoon commanders). More on this later.
You'll notice that the models are based for Flames of War... so you might well wonder why I didn't just use Battlefront infantry. I sure would have liked to do that - but they are unavailable. From anywhere. I even emailed BF directly to ask when they would be back, and I was told that there were no plans but my request would be "passed on to the production team." Take that for what you will, but my experience with BF is that they're a hot mess.
There are a couple other options for 15mm 8th Army infantry - Peter Pig, Command Decision - but I chose FiB because the painted models on their website looked absolutely gorgeous. I was happy to paint these models, I think they look pretty great, but while it came good in the end, getting this order from FiB wasn't exactly straightforward.
I put in a large order of both British and Germans - a large infantry "platoon pack", a pack of MMGs, a pack of mortars, and a pack of two AT guns, for each side. The FiB shipping caluclator led me to a workaround as adding one more pack doubled the shipping... so I ordered one pack of AT guns as a separate order. That's additional hassle for the retailer for sure but a poor customer experience when the shipping doubles by adding one pack of models. Anyway...
The models arrived in "reasonable time" (I followed up with them once IIRC) and while many of the castings looked quite nice (including these 8th Army infantry) some of the castings were absolutely appalling (the German infantry and MMGs). I did communicate this back to FiB and their representative was very apologetic (apparently the molds were worn out and due for replacement). She offered to replace the bad castings and I heartily accepted that offer.
I also requested some missing poses from the British MMG packs (I only received one gunner figure for the four MGs) and the reply was somewhat puzzling... basically I was told that packs contained a random assortment of models. I get that in an infantry pack you might not get identical numbers of every pose (I didn't), but surely you need to include four actual gunner models in a four-machinegun pack!
In due course the replacement Germans arrived but FiB had forgotten to send the machinegunners. They eventually did send them but from start to finish the order took several months.
ANYWAY... I really like the British infantry (with a couple exceptions - the Thompson sub-machinegun carried by the NCO (photo below) is terrible-looking, and the Christ-like officer (all he's missing is a cross) is just strange and was left unpainted - hence the Piggie replacements. However the rest of the infantry models are all quite good, the equipment looks great, and the poses are all really useful. There are three prone Bren-gunners and number twos included, plus a prone Boys AT team and 2" mortar team. All really good stuff.
Painting: helmet and uniforms AK Light Earth, washed Agrax and re-highlighted. Flesh Doombull Brown highlighted Cadian Flesh, socks Steel Legion Drab, rifles Leadbelcher, AK brown, highlighted New Wood. The webbing was left LE with the Agrax wash and the contrast obtained by highlighting the uniform around it, if that makes sense. Rifle slings are Deck Tan which I may tone down a bit as it's pretty light. For the groundwork I mixed Medium Brown into the basing gel and wet-brushed it up with AK Khaki and finished with a Deck Tan drybrush.
So my goal now is to get the rest of the infantry painted in the next month, with a target of having a game on Thanksgiving weekend. I'll keep you posted on progress. As for Forged in Battle... well it was an experience. The models I got were pretty nice but it took a lot of effort to get them - something I'm not really used to as a customer of an established business. The FiB representative was very friendly, responsive and accommodating of requests but honestly, most of the requests shouldn't have had to have been made in the first place. Worn out molds should be identified and replaced before miscast figures are sent to customers, and packs of special weapons should contain all the figures needed to crew them. Thankfully it all worked out in the end.
