My 10mm Basing Solution, Ready for Operation Barbarossa!

All,

I've been hard at work getting Kampgruppe Klink, fresh from their victory in Greece, prepared for Operation Barbarossa.  On the one hand, I needed to pick up some additional vehicles, troops, and buildings, while on the other, I wanted to re-base my Germans and Soviets as I was tired of them looking shabby and not uniform.

Along the way I stumbled a bit while looking for a basing solution that would allow me to use the same vehicle models for both summer and winter (snowy) fights.  I had based my vehicles and was looking for the best way to transition back and forth; I'd posted earlier asking for help, and I appreciate everyone that chimed in.  Here's what I came up with.

Here's what they look like at 'normal' gaming distance.

A closeup of the German stands, consisting of an MG squad, a Pz IVG, and a Flak-36 88mm ATG.  Astute observers will note that the infantry and guns are based differently than the vehicles; this is because I have separate infantry for summer and winter, but the vehicles will pull double duty.  The only change I made from my previous pics of the vehicle basing was that I put a dark inkwash on the vehicle's base and I added some clump foliage.  I think (hope?) this makes the vehicles blend well enough with the infantry and guns, but then for winter all I have to do is pop the clump foliage off and paint them white.  We'll see...

The Soviets, consisting of a rifle squad and a T-34/76.

A closeup of the '88'.

And the panzer.

The MG squad.  Yeah, not sure why I decided to go this route, putting two MGs on a base, but I did...

The T-34.

And the Red infantry.

The panzer taking fire from the T-34.  I think the basing scheme blends well with the mat, road, and different types of stands.  Tell me what ya think.

So let's take a look at the whole, big mess.

My forces for Barbarossa, with Germans on left and Soviets on right.  I haven't finished the winter infantry and guns, but when I do these forces should be able to take me all the way through the 'gray' period, up to about summer of 1943.

The forces are a mix of Pendraken and Minifigs, with Minifigs making up about 90% of the infantry and Pendraken making up about 98% of the vehicles and guns.

A company of trucks for ze German Schutzen.

A couple '88s' with prime movers.

Four German rifle platoons, with Colonel Klink at top right.

PaK-38s, PaK-36s, and 7.5cm infantry guns.

Two platoons of engineers/pioneers, as well as platoon support weapons (bottom left): 5.0cm mortars, anti-tank rifles, and panzerschrecks.

Platoons each of Marder Is, Stug IIIBs, Marder IIs, and Stug IIIDs.

Recon, with a platoon of Panzer IIs, a platoon of armored cars, and two motorcycle platoons.

A couple platoons of halftracks.

An 8.0cm mortar platoon.

A machine gun platoon.

Some platoon command stands.

A Panzer Company of Panzer IIIs and IVs.

Which will be upgraded in the spring of '42 to long-barreled Panzer IVs.

On to the Soviets: for the real early war they've got two companies of tanks: one is entirely composed of T-26, while the other is a mish-mash of other types: some T-60s, some Ba-6 and -10 armored cars, some BT-5s, and then two KV-1s and a T-34.

Some Soviet cavalry.

Looking at the hodge-podge tank company.

Continuing with the BTs and KVs.

The company of T-26s.

Two platoons of combat engineers.

Four rifle platoons and an SMG platoon, with some ATRs and 50mm mortars at bottom right.

Another look at the ATRs and 50mm mortars, now adding the Soviet 82mm mortars and machine gun platoon, with the Soviet CO at top right.

A platoon of Ba-64 armored cars, and another of Su-76 assault guns.

An entire company of T-34s.

Some 10mm buildings from Pendraken.  They'll not win me any awards, but they were a cinch to paint up and look nice (at least to me!).

Some closeups.

Again.

Another.

Keep going.

And one more.

So, there they are, all set for Barbarossa.  Let me know what you think.

Regarding Panzergrenadier Brigade Klink's (AKA, "KG Klink") route, I'm looking at Minsk to Smolensk, then getting called back to Kiev, then back up through Smolensk to Vyazma, which should take me all the way to Zhukov's counteroffensive in December 1941.  What I have to do now is make up campaign maps and counters, and that's proving a bit difficult.  I don't have detailed maps or unit data, so everything I draw up is way out of scale; hell, it's proving hard to get anywhere near to scale!  How do you follow a brigade-sized element on a front that swallows up whole divisions every day!!!???

So I need help; if anyone can help me with simplified maps that make sense to take KG Klink from their starting positions in Army Group Center to Minsk, then from Minsk to Smolensk, then from Smolensk to Kiev, then from Smolensk to Vyazma/Briansk, or can point me at something that helps me do that, I'd be greatly appreciative.

The sooner I get that squared away, the sooner I can get this party started.  Personally, I'm shooting for 29 May to be my D-Day for Operation Barbarossa.  Just gotta get this figured out first!

V/R,
Jack

Need Help/Advice/Guidance with 10mm Basing

All,

Operation Barbarossa is fast approaching.  For some reason I decided to re-base my forces, wanted everything uniform, was tired of the hodge-podge of different colors and flocking.  So I'm almost finished, but I've run into a conundrum: I didn't want to base my vehicles because I plan on playing both summer, verdant battles and snowy, winter battles, and when you base your vehicles you sort of have to commit to either verdant or snow.  But I don't want to commit, I want to eat my cake and have it, too.  So the question is, how do you base vehicles that can be used for both the grassy steppe and snowy winter?

Take a gander at what I've got and what I've done so far.

So, here's the whole mess, Germans on the left, Soviets on the right.  It's not finished; I took everything I had and re-based it, then I had to buy some more stuff.  I had plenty of infantry but needed more vehicles, so I picked up some German halftracks and some Soviet T-34s, T-26s, a Ba-6, and a T-60.  I also picked up some Panzer IVGs (long 75s), Marder IIs, and Stug IIIDs (long 75s), so I figure the collection you have before you can take me all the way through the German 'gray' era, or up to summer of 1943.

Back to the basing issue: as you can see, the infantry are flocked in a nice, verdant mix, while the vehicles are not.  Just so you know, I have separate German and Soviet infantry and guns for winter, they're just not finished.  So I knew I'd need separate summer and winter infantry and guns, but want to use a single set of vehicles.  To that end, you  can see I have not flocked my vehicles, just painted them a nice muddy color on the base.

A closer look at ze Germans.

And the Reds.

A close-up of a Soviet engineer platoon, to show the basing, the painted base edges (which are now a single color for all bases, rather than the 96 I'd previously used).  You're looking at a platoon command stand and three squad-sized stands.  I may add some clump foliage to the infantry/gun bases, we'll see.

So those look good, but what about the vehicles?

Here's my plan: leave the vehicle bases muddy brown in the spring/summer, then paint them white for the fall/winter, then paint them back muddy for the spring/summer of '42, then paint them white for the fall/winter of '42, then paint them brown for the spring/summer of '43.  Do you think that will work?  My concern is that the muddy-colored base is too jarring/ugly.  What do you think?

Here's what the muddy bases look like on the table at 'normal' tabletop distance.

A close up of the Panzer IV.

A closeup of the KV-1.

The KV-1 taking a shot at the Panzer IV.

So how does that look to you?  Can you stand it?  Should I?  Is there another alternative?

Let me lay some ground rules: I'm not going to buy another set of all those vehicles and do them again in winter colors.  I can't see flocking the vehicle bases for summer and then scraping it off and painting the bases white, I think it would be too frustrating trying to get all the flock off, would probably damage the basing gel I put down, and may even end up stabbing, scraping, and damaging the paintjob on the models.

I have thought of having two separate bases for each vehicle, one summer and one winter.  I lay on the basing gel, then pull the vehicle off, let it set, and flock for summer and paint white for winter.  Then I attach the vehicle to the appropriate base in a non-permanent way, so that I can put them on and take them off as appropriate.

So what do you guys think?  What would work best, or do you know of another idea, something I haven't thought of?

Thanks in advance!

V/R,
Jack

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