28mm Great War Germans from Foundry

As I wrote in my recent post on my Foundry Great War British project, I've developed an obsession with the early part of the First World War to match my enthusiasm for the late war. So having finished the early-war British, it was straight into the early-war Germans to fight them.

What are early-war Germans without UHLANS??? Nothing, that's what! So I had to make sure my army had a contingent of these amazing lancers, led by a purposeful looking chap wielding a C96 Mauser pistol.

Sorry about the focus... but these models are too cool not to have a close-up. I love the musician particularly. The lances were included with the models and I painted the pennons to suit a Prussian unit. I was going to do Bavarians with their white-over-blue pennons for a pop of colour, but once I did the white it had to be Prussians.
 

The castings were fantastic, and so detailed that I had to buck my usual style and paint eyes on them.

Can just see these guys riding down some BEF infantry/getting slaughtered by machinegun fire...
 

Quite a lot of models here. The contingent started off with twenty-odd models from the collection of our late friend Glenn Shott, which I augmented with about forty-five more infantry figures. The totality represents a three-company battalion under the Great War rules.

The Germans took quite a while longer to finish than the British did, just because of all the detail on the models. While the Brits' P08 webbing was all one colour and a snap to paint, the Germans' equipment was multi-coloured and took many steps. Even so, I did paint all 45 or so infantry in one batch, one colour at a time!

These are some of Glenn's models, I just touched them up a bit and based them.

I really rate the Foundry models highly. It's just too bad that no modern figure ranges mix well with them. Modern figures are all too big and chunky.

Three MG08 machineguns, one painted by Glenn.

Here are some I painted. You can really get an idea of the detail in this shot. I painted the troddeln (bayonet knots) the proper colours for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd companies.

Infantry all together. These should be an adequate force for some early-war fighting where the Germans were on the attack. Of course, there needs to be lots of Germans to be targets for the famous "mad minute"... looking forward to getting these chaps out for a game soon.

"I died in Hell - Passchendaele" 28mm WW1 Battle Report

When I think of the Great War from a Canadian perspective, I most often think of the blasted Hellscape of Flanders in 1917-18. We've had it drummed into us from an early age that this was where Canada became a nation. From my perspective now I'm not entirely sure I agree with all of that, but the mud and muck sure are evocative of the CEF experience.
 

Conscript Frederick makes a point about the futility of unsupported frontal assaults

So, the Conscripts gathered last Thursday for a post-Remembrance Day game set in the Hell of Passchendaele, near to the 98th anniversary of the Canadian part of the battle itself.

Conscript Byron is having none of it: "ATTACK THERE!!"

We set up a scenario from "Over There", the Warhammer Historical supplement to the Great War rules. The book contains a good deal of background material on the various "warzones" of the Great War and actually features "Passchendaele, 1917" as one of them. We selected "Village Assault" from the list of recommended scenarios to play.

"Village Assault" is set up on a 6x4 table with a village sector of several buildings at one of the "short corners". The defenders (Germans in this case) set up there, whilst the attackers are allowed roughly twice as many points of troops, and set up anywhere more than 24" from a building. The Germans had a three-platoon company and two machineguns to deploy, and two Stormtrooper platoons in reserve.

The Canadians deployed their troops - a battalion of two three-platoon companies, a highlander company of two understrength platoons, and two machineguns - outside the boundaries of the red measuring sticks.

Away went the Canadians towards the outskirts of Passchendaele village.

Another angle - the objective buildings in the distance.

A platoon of Canadians picks their way through the shellholes. In the scenario, all terrain is treated as "Difficult" (roll 2d6 and move up to the distance on the higher die) but if "doubles" are rolled, the platoon loses that many models! Soldiers just fall into mudholes and are swallowed up...

Germans prepared to defend the village of Passchendaele.

I'd been waiting since summer to crack open these bottles of beer that I picked up in Belgium, at the Memorial Museum Passchendaele. It's brewed locally and helps support the economy of the region.

We shared out the two 500ml bottles amongst the 7 or so guys in attendance. I found it to be a pleasant Belgian blond beer with a typical hops note. Recommended if you can find it - at the Museum it was sold as a gift pack of two bottles and two 25cl glasses for less than 10 euros - bargain.

Back to the less pleasant aspects of Passchendaele, the Canadian continue to slog forward. Surprisingly few doubles were rolled for movement and only a few men were lost to the mud.

Meanwhile, in the other deployment zone, the Highlanders were picking their way forward through the trenches.

The Germans were ready to receive them and fire was exchanged across the traverses.

The frontal assault on the village was commencing also. The Canadians had managed to knock out a German machinegun with some lucky shooting and that helped them out immensely.

Meeting in the church basement for a reinforcing Stormtrooper platoon.

The Canadian objective was to occupy any village building at the end of the game, and they achieved that. One of the reinforcing German platoons arrived a little too far from the village to be a factor in the endgame, and the other was just overmatched by Canadian numbers. Although the Germans made a last stand in the church basement, time ran out on them to throw out the Canadians.
 

Although I like the Great War rules for their comfortable familiarity (they're essentially just a prior edition of Warhammer 40K, after all) I've found it difficult to balance the scenarios properly. Give the defenders too much and the attackers not enough, and it's a massacre with no chance of success. Give the attackers too much and things can go the other way. I'm told dice can be a factor, too :-)

In any case, we had a pretty fun game with some nice models on good-looking terrain with some friends and some beer, so I guess we'll call that a win all round.

A Tour of the Trenches - 28mm Terrain Boards

A few weeks ago I was fortunate to win an auction for an 8x4 modular terrain board setup being sold by a Quebec gamer who was "getting out of" Great War gaming. Being as I'm currently on a Great War kick (who isn't) I found it too good a deal to pass up. I am extremely impressed with his work on the setup and I wanted to post a brief "tour" - although I am sure that regular readers will see them not-infrequently in future Fawcett battle reports!

One of the 2x2 boards represents a ruined and fortified church and outbuildings. The building bases are removable, and are all quite sturdy - the walls appear to be made of cast material, probably Hirst Arts or similar. The boards themselves are made of two 1" thick foam insulation boards glued together and based on MDF, with trenches and other features carved out. Sandbags and such are plaster.

Some amazing detail in the church building, including broken pieces of "stained glass" and the gold crucifix from the altar.

There are two straight-up "trench" boards, one with a gun position, here occupied by a German trench mortar crew. Lots of duckboards, reinforced walls, sandbags, craters, and resin water in the shell holes.

The boards butt up against each other pretty well in most places and they're somewhat modular - they can be arranged in different configurations as the trenches line up at the edges.

Barbed wire and blasted tree sections are from my own collection. I'm glad the boards didn't include wire as that would have made them nearly impossible to transport.

One of the boards incorporates a "sap" running forwards, with an island traverse position jutting out into no-man's-land.

View from NML back towards the church.

The NML board at left has a large ravine-like crater (left by a mine detonation perhaps?) that provides some cover.

One of the trench boards incorporates an area of high ground I like to call "the Pimple" :-) You can see the bunkers built into it.

View from behind the Pimple.

There are various dugout entrances spread around the trenches, including this one to the Pimple.

Amazingly, the top of the Pimple lifts off to reveal the bunker complex below. If I get really ambitious I may create an overlay for this section out of plasticard with terrain on it so the complex can be played as trenches, with the rectangular areas remaining as underground dugouts.

Shell holes and craters abound, many are flooded with water.

The trenches are quite realistic and irregular.

Some more of the church, as it's so impressive.

Tower is fortified with sandbags.

The view down the line. We've already played one 40K game on the terrain and it was amazing. Looking forward to much further amortization. Great job in building it, Daniel!