Moderately Small Ground Combat Project

All,

The title is a joke between my buddy Thomaston and I; he is the one that got me into 'Tiny Air Combat' (if you haven't seen my WWII Pacific, WWII Battle of Britain, or Modern galleries here, or my aerial dogfights over on my WWII in the Pacific and Cuba Libre blogs, you're missing out!).  He has also/is also doing 'Tiny Ground Combat,' and again he has inspired me.  He's doing it in 6mm, and had previously done some 3mm (yes, 3mm skirmish gaming!); I looked around to see what I had handy, and it was 10mm.  I told him I was going to try out 'Tiny Ground Combat.'  He informed me that 10mm could hardly be called 'Tiny Ground Combat' ;)

Nevertheless, here I am, working on some 10mm WWII US and German troops from Pendraken to play some tiny (by my view, in any case) skirmish games.  What I'm looking at is finally getting back to my "All Americans" campaign (after five years!); previously I played ten games following an 82nd Airborne Division rifle platoon in Sicily, and another two in Italy.  You can find them here, on a new blog I created (or re-purposed, but whatever):
https://hakunamatatawars.blogspot.com/search/label/All%20American

Anyway, I'm looking to get back into that, so I took these troops, got them painted up, and wanted to share them.  As usual, they're not beautiful, but they're mine, and they'll do what I need them to do.  I actually spent a really long time on these guys; rather than my normal block painting, base, and wash, I didn't base them and didn't wash them.  I was going for a particular look, so I did a blacklining job on them.  Hope they look decent.

Here's the whole thing.  Yeah, not much, is it? ;)  The Americans have 14 guys, the Germans 16, with plenty of MG-42s!

The American force, all Pendraken 10mm from their US Airborne Ardennes range.

The Germans force, all Pendraken 10mm from their German mid- to late-war range, with the exception of four figures from their North Africa range, which I used just because I really like the poses.

Hopping right into it, here's the Lieutenant.  You get a good look at my blacklining method, and the colors I used.  A lot of the Americans are wearing greatcoats, which you see here on the Platoon Leader.

Reverse.  You can see the vertical white stripe of an officer on the back of his helmet.  Some say the stripe continues all the way down to their tailbone ;)

The next pose is a grizzled NCO with a Thompson SMG.  I'm sure it's to scale, but I wish the barrel was just a hair longer.

Reverse.

Another grizzled NCO, this time with an M-3 Grease Gun (though it's mostly obscured by his right arm), pointing and barking out orders.

Reverse.  I'm pretty happy with the color I used for the greatcoats.

The bazooka man, getting ready to pop a panzer!

Reverse.

The bazooka gunner's assistant.

Reverse.

A prone M-1919 MG team with the gun on a tripod.  What you see is cast like this, I didn't base it that way (though I like it and think it's very effective).

Reverse.

Overhead.

Again.  A little too heavy on the silver outlining...

An automatic rifleman with his M-1918 Browning Automatic Rifle.

Reverse.

The other BAR gunner.

Reverse.

A rifleman with M-1 Garand at port arms.

Reverse.

Another rifleman with Garand, one of my favorite poses.

Reverse.

And one more Garand-wielding rifleman.

Reverse.

On to another type of rifleman, now armed with an M-1 Carbine.

Reverse.

Another really cool pose.  This is the last American in the group, and he's got an M-1 Carbine, too.

Reverse.

And on to ze Germans.  Your basic German Platoon Leader, map hanging uselessly at his side, pointing as if to ask, "are we supposed to be over there?  Sergeant?  Sergeant!?"

Good look at the helmet cover, MP-40 slung on his back.

The German Sergeant, kneeling down to stay out of the Leutnant's lie of sight.

Helmet hung from his belt, MP-40 lying beside him.

The Corporal Steiner-type character.  He's actually from the German Engineers pack.

Reverse.

This guy is also from the Engineers pack, rushing ahead with an MG-42.  He's the only guy I did in full body camo.

Reverse.

The first walking MG team; these guys are the Afrika Korps dudes I told you about.  The 'regular' mid-war Germans have MG teams where they're prone, firing.  They're pretty cool, but I just love this pose, the classic movement pose.  The only issue is that the assistant gunner, humping the ammo cans, isn't wearing a German steel helmet, he's wearing a sun helmet.

Here you can see the A-gunner is also carrying a spare MG barrel.

Here's the other time, looking from the side.

And the other side.

A German rifleman, firing.

Reverse.

And his counterpart.

Reverse.

And the other German rifleman pose.  That bright green on the helmet is supposed to be foliage he's attached.

Reverse.

His counterpart, coming at ya...

And running away.  I hope to see this a lot ;)

The MG-42 team with gun on the tripod.  This is three pieces: the gun, the gunner, and the A-gunner.

From above.

Opposite view.

Up above.

From a little behind.

And lastly, the Panzerschreck team.

A little higher.

Opposite view.

And from a little higher.

Well, that's them, let me know what you think.  I'm pumped to play some games, gotta figure out what I'm going to do about terrain...

V/R,
Jack