World War II Project - British Airborne - reboot prep

I have done all the initial prep work and the everything is ready for primer (or re-priming in some cases).

What you see is a British Airborne Platoon based on the organization in Chain of Command. I admit that I was unsure of the composition of Section 3 as it has two Bren gunners. After haunting some forums and digging deep I found that there was a spare Bren gun issue to the platoon. It makes sense that rather than waiting for one of the three assigned guns to break to assign it to a section and create a section that could serve as a base of fire for the platoon.

Everything is from Warlord Games. I started this platoon when all you could get was metal. The issue is there are way to many Sten guns and not enough rifles. I have a stash of Sten gun equipment soldiers now. I also built up as many of the support units that I could. That is why I have a fourth section of Airborne troops, there are 3 Vickers, 2 3" mortars to go with that. I still need to build a section of regulars that I is another support option. Hopefully I can use that as a nucleus for a British motor platoon.

Not sure when I'll have time to start priming but everything is sitting in the booth waiting for the fun to begin.

An overall look at the platoon with the supports. This is before I finished putting everything on 25mm bases.

I needed 8 more figures so I turned to the plastic Airborne box to flesh things out. Overall I'm pretty pleased with these, but they are definitely a bit bigger and bulkier than the metal troopers.

A look from the Back

Platoon HQ section

1st section.

2nd Section

3rd Section, they have the extra Bren gun and the sniper.

The extra Airborne section

Support weapons.  These are support weapons and crews. Within Chain of Command these need 5 man crews. Typically some kind of counter is used (a die or something equivalent) to count down casualties. I'm thinking something right on the base itself or maybe just go with kill rings.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

World War II Project - British Airborne - reboot

I have been more than a little distracted lately with work and Christmas projects (I may have over committed on puzzles this year). Not to mention that after developing a window solution for the Church I have run out of steam. So in order to try and get back on track I pulled out my British Airborne to figure out what I have and what I might need.

In theory I have one section finished and second section getting close. However, I thought I should just work it out from the beginning again. My rule set of choice for platoon/skirmish level actions is Chain of Command (CoC) by Too Fat Lardies. All the miniatures I have on hand are from Warlord Games. I would love to replace these as there are some much nicer options out there now, but this is what I have in hand. In addition to a much of metal I have box of their plastics which means I could probably put together a second platoon.

After the initial sort I have all the components of the HQ section, all three sections and most of the support options (including an additional section of Airborne). All of this in metal, although the extra Airborne section will need some plastics to fill it out to full strength. I also wanted to use different figures for each section leader so three of those will be made up from the box of plastic minis.

I put one section leader together last night, he is definitely a bit bigger than the original metals. Shouldn't be a problem once everything is painted and based. And speaking of that I'm going to repaint everything to ensure that its all consistent, even the finished troops that are based. I'm not going to strip them just re-prime over what is there. I'm going to change my painting philosophy about this and go the army speed painting route.

At the moment I just plan on getting everything prepped and ready for priming. I still need to finish the church and the group of HO scale minis I have started painting.

In this shot, three full sections for the 1st Platoon, two Vickers supports, 2 mortar supports and most of a 4th section (way to many sten guns in the metal packs, I need more rifles).

Here is the platoon HQ section and some additional supports; medics, 2" mortar team and another piat team (in addition to the ones in the HQ section

There are still some support units that I need to get my hands on, most of which are engineers which may need to be converted from my box of plastic British infantry. I also need to put together a section of regular infantry as a support.

Cartoon Wednesday

 

Cartoon Wednesday