Great War Italian Bersaglieri - part 2

Here are the completed figures. Actually finished some time ago but I’ve been too busy to post anything. 

Conversions include these assault troops - rifles replaced with cut down shovel and pick axe from the Airfix British Support Weapons set. 

 

Great War Italian Bersaglieri - part 1

 Following the apparent success a couple of years ago (where does the time go?) of my Isonzo game, I felt motivated to paint some of the Waterloo 1815 (so HAT) WW1 Italians I had in stock.  So naturally I couldn’t find them. Time passed and they finally surfaced a few months ago - doubtless during a search for something unrelated - so I decided their time had come.  

Next port of call was the appropriate volume of Funcken. I have no doubt gushed on about these wonderful books before and make no apologies for doing so again. 

Painting in progress. The figures have the Italian version of the Adrian steel helmet, adorned with Bersaglieri cockerel feathers. Or to put it in a rather less respectful way, chickens on their heads. To some of the figures I added cloaks made from kitchen tissue soaked in PVA. At the same time I repainted some old metal figures. 

One of my favourite paintings in the Funcken series - a double page spread showing various Italian troops in action. 

SCW Nationalist Regulares - again

 A couple of recent games have revealed the need for more Nationalist troops.  I had already bodged a couple of companies of Moroccans (see this post from far-off 2019) and thus it was off to the unpainted plastic mines to see what could be adapted.  The ever-useful HAT ACW Zouaves sets looked a promising starting point for more Regulares, so a little bodging and painting later, here is the next batch.

I crowded them on to some bases for a quick photo session between rain showers.  There are a few head swaps in there and the standard bearer is my usual adaptation (carve away musket, replace with brass rod flagpole, add paper flag, varnish).  Some of the chaps have cloaks made from kitchen tissue soaked in PVA.

On the weapons front, mostly I cut down the original muskets.  The figures with 'ring hands' intended to carry musket at the trail were crying out to be re-armed.  Some have Airfix Lee-Enfield rifles, others LMGs from various kits.

They look quite a mean bunch. I have a further batch converted and undercoated.

Romanian Mountain Troops

 Slightly better photos of the finished figures. Now read on.....

Despite the disruption caused by Covid-19, I am continuing to plan and prepare for this year’s games. For the Sevastopol 1942 game I wanted to have some Romanians available and as no specifically Romanian figures are available, a gentle ponder was required.

I decided on bodging some mountain troops and used the Hat/Waterloo1815 WW1 Italians as my starting point. I trimmed down the helmets and added Milliput berets. You can find a lot of issues with the result but I purposely kept the figures rather vague as they may be called upon to serve as various other khaki-clad beret wearers. Spaniards and Belgian Chasseurs Ardennais spring to mind.

 A bad photo of the finished figures. 

Work in progress - the chaps before varnishing. 

I’m thinking of doing more Romanians - possibly adapting the CTS Italians.
Brian C has taken a different approach, mining his apparently bottomless pit of plastic figures - see also Brian’s post here.

Staying solemn at Sollum

I ran this skirmish game a couple of weeks ago using A Fistful of Lead rules and a scenario from a Skirmish Campaigns book. Jerry, Martin and Gary were the Italians while John represented the Coldstream Guards.

The Brits had but a single rifle section with part of a platoon HQ.  If front of the dug in infantry they also deployed some wire and a minefield. The white building is one of a batch I bought last year while the others are my recently made high-quality Libyan mud huts.

 Though the Italians looked to have a tough job ahead, things quickly went wrong for the Brits. Their Bren team was killed early on.  Here, the veteran Sgt. Bass takes to the rooftop to hose down the enemy with his Thompson SMG. The Brits were a mix of Airfix, Matchbox and Timpo.

 The photos are rather out of sequence - this one is from late on when the Brits are on the run and the southernmost Italian section is advancing.

 The Italian figures were a mix of CTS and Waterloo 1815 (HAT). Jerry seemed to strongly identify with the bare-chested machine gunner. Worrying.

 Earlier in the game. The northern Italian section (Gary) has neutralised the Bren team while the middle (Martin) lays down a hail of fire.

 Jerry’s chaps rush forward. Eventually...

 Empty positions are occupied.

 The British officer having being wounded, Sgt Bass MM was the last man standing...

 ...but it couldn’t last. Eventually he too expired in a hail of fire. A sad end and an unexpectedly glorious victory for Il Duce’s forces. On to Egypt then.....

1/32 SCW Nationalist Regulares

Continuing with my Nationalist forces are those stalwarts of the Spanish Army of Africa, Moroccan Regulares. As with the other figures, these have been bodged from other nationalities and eras. In fact there’s not a Moroccan or indeed a Spaniard among them!

The chap with the flag began life as a HAT ACW Zouave. His rifle was carved away and a blanket roll added, then his hands were drilled to accommodate a brass rod flagpole.

From left to right (which could be, in itself, a summary of the conflict) : the officer is from the Armies in Plastic 1916 Germans set with a ‘paint conversion’.  The machine gunner is an old hollowcast with a head from a WW2 US figure - the latter from one of the cheap Chinese sets mentioned in previous posts. The rank and file were my starting point and are in fact Replicants ACW zouaves, with their muskets shortened and waistcoats trimmed to look less flamboyant. 

The Moroccans share a box with the Foreign Legion. More on them soon.

Even more Russians

I managed to photograph some of the latest Russians in the open air.  

They are HAT figures with Tehnolog command.

 The gunners were made by cutting about some HAT musketeers.

Austrian Jager - part 2

The Jager regiment is now more or less complete. Here they are - less the standard bearer whose varnish is still drying.

 See - nothing like Brunswick Avant Garde at all...

Austrian Jager - part 1

While there has been an explosion of new sets and ranges in 54mm plastics over the past decade,  there are still a lot of things you can't get.  I see this as a benefit as it encourages a bit of creativity, to the point where I look at a set of figures and think "what else could they be?"

I picked up two boxes of these Brunswick Avant Garde chaps in time for the Waterloo game in 2015 (they were cheap) and painted a set up as God and HAT intended.  They can be seen here defending Hougoumont.  The headgear put me in mind of something else though, so with next month's Leipzig game in mind I rifled through the appropriate Funcken volumes and discovered that a not wholly dissimilar hat was worn by Austrian Landwehr and Jagers.  Here at Megablitz Towers, 'not wholly dissimilar' can be read as 'pretty much identical', so a plan was made.  The Brunswickers would masquerade as Landwehr while the second box would be bodged into Jager.

Step one.  The hats were a bit high, so were cut down with a suitable sharp knife.  I took this opportunity to shave off the hat insignia too.

Trust me, the blokes on the right look a lot more like Austrian Jager than Brunswickers.

Pink Russians

It may sound like the name of a cocktail, but the title of this post relates to another Regiment of Russians for September's Leipzig game.

Like the previous lot, these chaps are mostly HAT figures, with officer and drummer by Tehnolog.