British Airborne Pt.12- Characters & Objectives

Characters

I've got a couple of HQ additions to share today. Now that the majority of my British Paras are complete, I can focus on some little additions that I've got lying around.

The first is what was originally going to be my force's First Lieutenant. One of the Perry sculpts from Foundry, he looked the part with his pose and bearing. He is equipped with the unpopular plate armour that was issued to airborne troops on occasion with chest and 'gooly' protection, as it was called. Not many troops wore them, apparently, they were cumbersome, especially if you were jumping out of an aeroplane, I expect. It tended to be worn under the Denison smock, but I like that the Perrys included it over the top. Clearly this is an officer who values his personal safety, so with that in mind, I will promote him to a more senior rank, making him either a Captain or Major when I use him in Bolt Action.

Speaking of Majors...

This Artizan Designs model depicts none other than Major Allison Digby Tatham-Warter DSO, famous for his bravery and eccentricity during the Battle of Arnhem. Commander of A Company, of the 2^nd Parachute Battalion, part of the 1^st Parachute Brigade of the 1^st Airborne Division, Digby’s company was one of the first to reach Arnhem and secure the famous bridge.

27 years old at the time, Digby was known as an aggressive commander- what would be labelled in 1940s officer parlance as ‘having dash’! He did not trust the reliability of the radio sets issued to his company for Operation Market Garden, so drilled them in communicating using calls from hunting bugles- a visionary move as the radios failure became an increasing problem as the battle went on.

Major Tatham-Warter was seen moving through his men’s positions, checking on their needs, wearing a bowler hat procured from somewhere and carrying an umbrella. The story goes, that Digby jumped with the brolly to use as an identifier, as he was useless at remembering daily passwords, his reasoning being, no British sentry would shoot an officer brandishing an umbrella thinking they were a German in disguise!

There are many stories about how Digby led a bayonet charge brandishing said brolly, ran to save his company chaplainand even disabled an enemy armoured car with it! All of these anecdotes, and more, can be found readily online. He was also the inspiration for the fictional brolly-weilding character 'Arry' in the film, 'A Bridge Too Far'.

I thought I'd try an urban base for Digby, which would suit a character fighting within the smashed buildings of Arnhem. It means he stands out from the rest of my other paras more rural basing, but I wanted to try bricks and rubble, and I think it works well enough.

Objective- Combat Nurse

I like this model from Empress. The character in the face is great. I also liked that proceeds for this model went to the NHS when it was released to celebrate their hard work during Lockdown 1. Go to the Empress website to learn the interesting story attached to the photograph sculpter Paul Hicks used as reference for this model. Lovely...

I have an allied war photographer model rattling around, which I envision working as a nice little vignette with this nurse. She looks like she's relaxed, so could be posing for a pic for the folks back home. I'll use them both as an objective marker in a game sometime, I'm sure...

British Airborne Pt. 11- More Troops

 Troops

This is the third section of British Paras for my latest WW2 army. They've been a long time coming, what with one side project or another, but now, I'm fleshing out the rank and file nicely after focusing on the interesting vehicles, characters and weapon teams., up to now.

Perry models from Foundry again. I love these sculpts, and they went a long way towards convincing me this was a project I wanted to undertake. So, other than the NCO and the Bren team, the rest of the section are all sculpts I've had in the other two squads. I love them so much though (did I say that already?!) that it didn't make painting them a chore.

My fourth and final section will be an Artizan Designs contribution- another manufacturer whose British Paras spoke to me- which will give me some different models to paint. That will be it for rank and file for this force, other than my 5-man Royal Engineer section. Then, my Paras will be done! For now...

Terrain- Livestock!

Livestock

Once I'd got some hedges, I could make fields. Once I had fields, I wanted to fill them with something- and what better than roaming, grazing and plodding things. I'd previously purchased the 'Ramshackle Barn' from Warlord Games. I'd got it primarily for the animals & livestock plastic sprue that came with it, because I wanted to introduce some wandering wildlife to my gaming table. Bizarrely, at that point in time, Warlord's website would not let me buy the animal sprues on their own, but I could get them in a pack called 'McDonald's Barn'! Fair enough, got me a barn into the bargain... 

I googled some pictures of Friesian cows and used these as reference for their markings. I knew that if I just splodged paint on freehand, I'd start doing camouflage patterns out of pure muscle memory.

The four smaller animals are from the Warlord sprue, but the larger sheep are a pack from Serious Play Scenics. They moved into making 28mm (& other) scale animals, so I grabbed some to pad out the flock.

The geese were simple enough to paint. I like having them wandering around the village green or across the cottage garden. Don't think anyone would challenge them, even if they're fully armed soldiers from either side of the conflict!

I've still got donkeys, pigs and a few chickens to find a home for. Cats have found their way onto various pieces of scenery, and a cockerel got turned into a church weather-vane. I'll position the ducks along the riverbanks when I finally build those rivers, I think... 

Terrain- Citroen Traction Avant

Citroen Saloon Car

Once I had completed enough terrain and buildings to start playing Bolt Action in a satisfactory way, I turned my attention to buying/ making/ painting some of the 'clutter' that fills up our surroundings and makes it feel lived in. Rubbish, debris, odds and ends left lying around, these are all important things that add interest to a gaming table and make playing a game more enjoyable- and they're fun to paint and build!

I'd had my eye on some burned out and destroyed civilian vehicles for a while, but hadn't come across many. I loved the look of the Rubicon Models Citroen Traction Avant, but it is quite an expensive kit, and I had trouble getting hold of one online. I liked the look of a Traction Avant, so looked for an alternative I could get my hands on. Meanwhile, I looked at possible paint schemes online and found this one that I liked.

So here is the resin Citroen Traction Avant produced by Anyscale Models. It's surprisingly pristine for a vehicle that has lasted until the final stages of WW2- no bullet holes or damage (or vanished after being commandeered by the occupying forces). Hopefully, I will source some other pieces that I can flatten, burn out and generally abuse to look like they've been through bombings and firefights and, well, war...

Terrain- WW1 Memorial

WW1 Memorial

This is a 3D printed piece from Paint & Glue. I had wanted a statue of some sort to adorn the centre of my town square and this fit the bill perfectly. I had some offcuts of Charlie Foxtrot stone walls left over from the Yellow House, so I trimmed them to make a walled surround for the statue and plinth. I raised the whole statue up by stacking it on 20mm square MDF bases, knowing I would fill the inside of the monument space with shrubbery to disguise this.

Terrain- Fences & Barbed Wire

Fences

A long time ago, when I first started to plan getting scenery for my gaming table, I bought a collection of hedges from a seller on eBay. These have done their job superbly for me ever since. Later, I added some walls to this collection- the Italeri 'Stone Walls' kit from Warlord- allowing me further options for lining my roads and lanes and sectioning off fields. But I wanted more options.

I am a unrepentant coffee drinker by the bucket-load- and I have piles of coffee stirrers that I have liberated from the 'one stir and discard' fate of most of their kind. Instead, I have repurposed them for a more permanent and glorified function, as parts of various wargaming terrain. My other posts have shown the rounded ends working superbly for picket fencing. I split them lengthways to make planking for gates and doors. I've also done something similar here to make some lengths of fencing.

The bases are about 6 inches in length. I cut the rounded ends off a coffee stirrer, then slowly split it lengthways down the middle. The uprights for the fences were BBQ skewer lengths cut and glued to the base, to which the coffee stirrer 'planks' were attached.

After painting the fences, flock, tufts and foliage were added. I wanted to create a couple of damaged sections to give a bit of variation. In total, I made 10 fences out of just 5 stirrers and not even a full BBQ skewer- the value is crazy! So cheap and easy to make...

Barbed Wire Sections

I've had a roll of Warlord barbed wire rattling around in my modelling box for a while, so I decided to make use of it, particularly as I intend to paint my Airborne Royal Engineer section soon- at least they'll have something to dismantle!

The bases are the same size as the fences above- roughly 6" long. The ground stakes are lengths of paperclip. I closed up the bend and clipped off any excess wire, which meant I could get 3 stakes from one paperclip! I wound the roll of barbed wire around a thick paint brush and cut to a reasonable length to coil and fit on each base. A full roll filled 5 bases nicely. After adding grass, tufts and shrubbery, these were ready to go. Nice and simple...

Terrain- Ruins

Ruins

This was the first terrain piece I built for my new gaming table, before I had purchased any MDF building kits or any other scatter terrain. It's the 'Ruined Farmhouse' plastic kit from Warlord games that came with the 'Band of Brothers' 2nd Edition Bolt Action starter set. I'd been playing BA since first edition, but bought the set primarily for the German grenadiers, the Sd.Kfz 251/10 with the PaK36, the plastic pin markers and A5 rulebook. 

The ruined house kit had been rattling around whilst I painted my Germans and Russians, and once they were both numerous enough to start using to play games, I needed to start collecting and building some scenery for them to fight across. this was my first attempt at something that wasn't a wall, hedge or a pre-bought tree.

I envisioned this being an old, broken down house that has been reclaimed by nature after being abandoned. I tend to surround it quite closely with bushes, shrubbery and trees. Looking at these pictures, I realise I went pretty crazy with the red berry clump foliage on this one. This comes from Serious Play Scenics, and I have since supplemented them with yellow flower 'gorse' shrub and purple flower clump foliage, alongside my Javis mixed green shades foliage, too.