A visit to Meaux

I managed to squeeze in a visit to the relatively new World War 1 museum  at Meaux whilst on a family holiday during school half term.

The museum is not surprisingly more French in its views of both the background and progression of the war.

The recovery of Alsace Lorraine being far more prominent than plucky little Belgium.

Here are some photos of what they have on display.

10/12mm Russians and Germans

Hi

Been a while since I posted on this blog.

Well I have been busy with a number of Great War projects.

First up here are a few photos of my 10mm collection based on 3cm square bases.

First up a comparison of some Kallistra 12mm Germans and Pendraken 10mm Russians. The Kallistra figures are noticeably larger but once on the table the difference is less noticeable.

Tannenburg here we come. Russians on the move.

Kallistra German MGs deployed for action.

Kallistra German infantry.

And for comparison here are some 6mm Baccus figures.

Game at Partizan

Hi. Here are a few photos of a game at the recent Partizan show. It  featured home made trenches and 1/72 plastic figures which look to be HaT with a few airfix thrown in. The game was using the Crush the Kaiser rules.

One year to go

With under a year to go until the centenary  I have started rationalising my thoughts on my figure collection.

Eastern Front 

I had originally thought of using 10mm figures for the Eastern Front and indeed had painted up a fair number of figures in this scale - particularly Austrians.  I however decided to get out some old Britannia German and mix of IT/Irregular 20mm Austrians and to use these instead.  I have started re basing these on 2 figure per on 30mm bases.  

I am going to use Russian plastic 1/72 figures from HAT and Zvezda for the Russians.   These provide a cheap way of getting a Russian army up and running.

Here are a couple of photos of some my first Russians based on 30mm bases
and some of old metal Austrian and German figures on new bases.

Images from my archives

I did a quick search of archives and found the following Images 

British artillery - Foundry figures 

Austrians - HLBS figures 

  Some images from a demo game I put on at Fiasco a number of years ago 

My first visit to the Great War battlefields was in the 1980s when I went with my younger brother on an old Russian Motorbike -  I have some photos somewhere which I must did out. 

Here are a few newer ones  

Beaumont Hamel today 

An owner of a cafe near Albert has built his own trench line in his garden. He must use if for fill sclae 1/1 gaming

A scene from a museum near Verdun showing German flats (Zinnfiguren) in action

Pendraken 10mm

I have been asked to post a few pictures of my 10 mm WW1 Serbians. So here we go plus some Austrians and Russians. The figures are based on small FOW bases and the artillery on medium ones.  Each bag of figures consists of 3 poses and have 30 figures in total.  My units are based on 4 stands with 4 figures per stand.  I painted the Austrians and Serbians a  figures a few years ago and have just rebased them.

The figures are easy to a paint and I have used base lighter colours and highlighting to help bring the figures to life.  

More details can be found here http://www.pendraken.co.uk/World-War-I-c17/

Serbian Infantry from pack S1

Austrians from packs AH1, AH2 and AH3. I also use some WW2 Afrika Korps figures firing to add variety (see second photo) 

These Russians are from pack packs RP1 and RP2 and have just been painted.  The basing is part done. I have also finished painting another 32 Austrians. I have found that I can get 32 figures done over a weekend that also includes taking my son to Football training on Saturday and Rugby training on Sunday.  I wonder how many I could do if I had an uninterrupted week end.    

Introduction

I have started this new blog to record my progress in getting ready for and then playing my version of the Great War starting on 28 July 2014.  

My interest in the Great War and gaming it goes back many years.  I have been thinking about what got me interested and have identified these key points.

Firstly there was the classic Airfix German, British and French figures which I got the late 60s

My father collected First World War literature and at a tender age I read a lot of books published just after the war mostly in the 20s. There was one book however that I read and re read many times.

This book was 'War' by Ludwig Renn. I have bought a copy of the original book a few years ago and it is  good read. The style of writing and the story telling is IMHO much better then All Quiet on the Western Front or Storm of Steel.  

Then there was the BBC Series the Great War which was shown 2nd time around in late 60's/early 70s   See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_War_(documentary) for details.  The whole series was given away free with the Daily Mail as few years ago and is available on ebay.  This series is highly recommended   

Whilst at college I started collection WW1 board games and there are 2 that I particularly like. 

Paths of Glory is a classic and I will probably be using this to run my 2014-2018 campaign game transferring some of the board game battles to the ear game table. I am looking to play at least one game a month.  One of my older games is from the 70s - The Great War by Rand - which also uses area movement - and I may use this to generate the battles as it as much simpler game to play  

Another of my classic games is SPI Great War in The East and the Tannenberg game that come out in  the SPI magazine.  I think it was this game that sparked my interest in the Eastern Front.  

My first war game figures were from the old 15mm Peter Laing range and I used these back in the 70s. My inspiration was an article by Stuart Asquith in the old Battle Magazine.  

My current collections are 

28mm British and Germans (Renegade figures) and a few Austrians and Russians (HLBS and Battle Honours figures)

20mm German and British (Britannia) and  I use my B+B FPW French with a few added machine guns. 

I have started painting 10mm Pendraken figures and have a few units completed covering Serbia, Russia and Austria. 

In my next post I will add some photos of the figures and talk more about the rules I have for the period.