World War II Project - Brigade Games German Infantry

There was a little time to get some work done last night, after we cleared up the back porch from all the debris of fall. We were fortunate in that the one plant that Phoebe likes to chew on is the one plant that we have to cut down in the fall. She has taken care of most of that work for us!

I gave my wife some airbrush lessons and while she was busy painting things black and getting used to the dual action controls I pulled out the WWII miniatures that I received from the Brigade Games Kickstarter. I haven't really had a chance to look at these since I got them. Since my wife is learning how to use the airbrush what better excuse to prep some minis so that she has something to practice on. I pulled out the platoon bag of Germans and managed to prep G003, G004 (x2) and G005. From the website that would be the MG42 teams (three teams of two), Riflemen advancing (two packs of six in this case) and Riflemen Firing. A total of 24 figures, I still have the bag of NCOs and Platoon HQ to go.

Overall I am please with these minis. The sculpting has a rougher style than I'm used to seeing but I think they will look really good when they are painted up. For bagginess of the clothing combined with the rough sculpting style remind of the old Willie & Joe cartoons by Bill Mauldin. Ostensibly these are 1/56th scale minis, so at some point I'll do a comparison with the plastic ones from Warlord Games.

I'm going to try something completely different from my normal style on these. James Wappel uses a technique he refers to as the shaded basecoat and then finishes off the minis with a series of washes and glazes. James uses Badger's Stynlrez primers to create the shaded basecoat and I'm eager to give it a try. I would like to get these ready for the table as quickly as I can.

So here we have a first look at the Brigade Games WWII German miniatures:

G004 Riflemen advancing.
The heads are separate so you can change the look. I think the faces could have been better sculpted and I'm less than thrilled with a vent coming right out the chin.

And with the heads attached. I had eight heads in the bag so I will be accumulating a few extra as I go through the process. You should definitely test fit the head to the torso before you glue. I trimmed most of the "necks" shorter to get a good fit, the depth of the hole in the torso is not the same across the board so how much you have to trim off varies a lot. There are also a couple of heads with very wide "necks" and there are only a couple of minis those fit with.

The second set of G004

G005 Riflemen Firing
I feel that some of the firing poses are a little awkward. They do look better with the heads attached though.

And now with heads! Again there were spare heads which allows you to change the look a bit.

G006 MG42 Teams
I'm not thrilled with the look of the MG42 itself but I really like the poses of the standing minis. The ammunition carrier is really weighed down with equipment and spare ammunition. You three variations here, deployed and firing, walking and running.

And now complete with heads

I had the Warlord Games PzKfw IV sitting nearby so I grabbed that for a quick comparison shot. I think the BG minis look pretty good against it.