28mm Warlord WWII Late War British

All,

Greetings, glad you're here!  You've seen my British 8th Army and my Brits for Sicily and Italy, so come on in and take a look at my British infantry for late war, Northwest Europe.  I say British, but you'd better believe I'll happily pretend they're Canadians as well; you have no idea how much I want to get into the battles around Caen!  And there's a few more models in here, just in case, will explain later.  In any case, I bought one of Warlord's Army boxes and got enough troops for a rifle platoon plus a 6-pdr Anti-Tank Gun, a Vickers MG team, and a 3" mortar team.  I also have an engineer team, and they're from Warlord, but I think I had to buy them separately.

The whole mess, with a 6-pdr ATG, Vickers MG, 3" mortar, engineer team, platoon HQ, section leadership (Corporals and Lance Corporals with Sten Guns), three Bren gunners, and 21 riflemen with Lee-Enfields.  And then, down at bottom left, are the extras I'll discuss later.

The platoon HQ element, of platoon leader, Platoon Sergeant, PIAT team, and 2" mortar team.

The Platoon Sergeant (left, with Sten slung, reading the map for the platoon leader), and the Leftenant, practicing his jazz hands while wielding his Webley.

Another look.  As you can see, nice simple paint job using contrast paints.

Uniforms are Snakebite Leather, web gear and packs are Skeleton Horde, helmets are Creed Camo, metal and boots are Basilicum Gray, wood is Gore Grunta Fur, and skin is Gulliman Flesh (over white primer, everything else is over light gray primer).  Too easy!

From behind.

The 2" mortar team.  I absolutely love this 2" mortar gunner pose.

Another look.

PIAT team.  Very utilitarian, just wish I had a pose with him actually using the weapon.

Reverse.

Section leadership, Corporals and Lance Corporals, with Stens.

First pose.  Just realized that I painted these guys weapons Basilicum Gray and finished them before I discovered the whole technique of using Lead Belcher over top of it (which was true of a number of forces), but I forgot to go back over these guys to fix it!  I think it still looks good; hell, I'm sure some of you hate the fact I use Lead Belcher over the black and like this better, so here's to you!

The other Sten pose.  You can see I was very much in a hurry and focused on meeting certain table of organization requirements with this force, so I made a lot of the same pose-types, rather than working to individualize some of them.  This was one of the earlier forces I painted, back when I was still afraid of decals, and now I regret that I didn't put decals on these guys...

My three Bren gunners.

A closeup.

Reverse.

The riflemen.

Three of these.  Overall I'm happy with the look of this set, but the right hand on this guy bothers me a bit, pretty damn big.

Tossing a grenade over a wall.

Moving up, weapon at the ready.

Double timing to the front!

Looking to stick somebody!

Shouting a warning to his comrades.

A couple Tommies in a good kneeling position.

Again.

And one more rifleman double-timing.

Again.

And once more.

The engineer team.

The team leader (left) and the flamethrower guy.

Reverse.

A mine detector and some wire cutters.

Reverse.

A dude with a plunger (I think), getting ready to detonate some explosives (or could be a pack of explosives that he's cramming a detonator into?).

Another look.  These guys are metals, but they've got good size and proportions I think, unlike some of Warlord's other metals.

One more.

The Vickers MG team.

Reverse.

The 3" mortar team.

Reverse.

The 6-pdr anti-tank gun.

Reverse.

And here are the 'extras' I was rambling about.  It hit me that I might want to do some early war BEF stuff.  I'd bought a pack of Wargames Atlantic BEF to use for another project (more on that some other day), but I really didn't want to recreate this entire platoon, so I looked at my late war rifle platoon and tried to figure out what I could live with and what I'd need to fill in the gaps.  I decided I didn't need any more riflemen, I'd be okay with them having the incorrect version of the Lee-Enfield, and the Brens and 2" mortar team would be fine, but Stens are no good and my officer should have a hat on, not a helmet, plus the PIAT team is out and needs to be replaced by a Boys anti-tank rifle.  So, I ordered a 3D printed ATR off Ebay, then dug into my Wargames Atlantic box for a Platoon Leader, Platoon Sergeant, three Section Leaders, and three Lance Corporals.  That's what you see above.

First up, the Boys ATR.  Serviceable, nothing wrong and nothing outstanding about it.

This was the first time I'd had problems with Contrast paints; my Snakebite Leather (primary uniform color) was kind of just smearing around, not sure what the scoop is with that.

Again.

The leadership, from Wargames Atlantic.  Not bad figures at all, fit in nicely with the Warlord dudes, a little bit of a pain in the ass to put together, some arms look a little short to me, but overall happy to have them.

The Platoon Sergeant (left) and Platoon Leader (right).  That is a beautiful M-1928 Thompson submachine gun with Cutts compensator, extended barrel, wooden foregrip, charging handle on top of receive (chambered in .45-cal), with a drum magazine.  Yes, I know the number of submachine guns employed by the BEF was vanishingly small, but I read that most were self-purchased, so my enterprising Platoon Sergeant is just one of those fellows that went and got himself one.  Sorry, I just couldn't pass it up when I saw it on the sprue ;)

Interestingly, the sprue also has M-1903 Springfields, Browning Automatic Rifles, and Lewis Guns on it, apparently for home defense in case of the German Operation Sealion.

From the side.  The gas mask carriers look a bit large, but nothing I can't live with (couldn't get one on the Platoon Sergeant because of the way he's holding the Tommy Gun).

Backsides.

Other side.

My three Section Leaders, Corporals with a beret, Brodie helmet with cover, and a piss cutter (no idea what Brits call that hat).

A closer look.

Next.

And the last one.

And the backside of each.

Next.

And last one.

The three Lance Corporals, Assistant Section Leader.

Closeup.

Again.

Next.

Reverse.

And the last chap.

Reverse.

So there you go, enough guys to allow me to do a British rifle platoon from the beginning of the war to the end (or at least Market Garden).  More to follow!

V/R,
Jack