Early War British Infantry: Great War Miniatures

Great War Miniatures is run by Aly Morrison and Dave Andrews. I think that they do ranges each as the styles of the figures can be quite different. Like Renegade, they do both late and early war figures. Unlike Renegade they continue to produce new figures at a reasonable rate. They started with the late war and are now moving on to early war. So far the range looks like this. (Why can't they get decent sized pictures on their website?)

B100 Officers and NCOs

B101 Infantry Advancing

B102 Infantry Skirmishing

B103 Vickers gun and three crew

B125 Leach catapult and 3 crew

Gun 1 13pdr Mark 1
B112 Artillery crew

Gun 2 18 pdr mark 1 Gun

Gun 3 British Ammunition Wagon

So altogether they offer 12 poses of infantry including firing and kneeling figures, six command, a Vickers gun with 3 (as opposed to Renegade's 2) crew (actually you needed 6-8 in a Vickers team) and both 13 and 18 pounder guns with ammunition wagon.

GWM have maintained that they want to produce the definitive range of Great War figures and I have to say that you can't fault these. They have addressed some of the problems I have with Renegade (the equipment, especially the pack, is spot on, the rifle more in scale and the hat looks right (the brim to hatband proportions are correct). It's not a perfect range: I'd like to see some prone figures and a maxim gun as well but I suspect these are the ones I will go with. At a push they are compatible with Renegade anyway as this picture shows.

Renegade on the left GWM on the right. Note the differences in hat proportions, the brim should be wider than the peak.

Early War British Infantry: Renegade Miniatures

Firstly, I am going to look at what figures are available for British Infantry of the BEF for the second half of 1914. There are four manufacturers with appropriate ranges: Renegade, Great War miniatures, Musketeer and Woodbine Design Company(Gripping Beast). The Foundry ones are really too old now; with gnomish proportions and hardly any variations in pose.

Renegade

The first ones on the market were the Renegade figures and I already have a couple of dozen of these. They have the following appropriate figures:

WW1B01 BRITISH SKIRMISHING A

WW1B02 BRITISH SKIRMISHING B

WW1B04 BRITISH COMMAND

WW1B05 BRITISH HMGs (VICKERS)

WW1B14 18 POUNDER GUN & CREW

So Renegade have 8 poses of infantry, 4 poses of command, 1 pose of Vickers Gun and an 18pdr and crew. the figures are pretty chunk (sculpted by Mike Owen) and are reasonably accurate. My main criticisms are that the detail of the packs isn't quite right (the distinctive cross straps on the back pack aren't there), the rifles are rather too large and there is something not quite right about the hats. Also there are a lack of firing and, particularly, kneeling firing figures. In fact they do make a firing figure (bringing the total pose to 9) in their WW1B13 pack but only one out of the four is suitable for the early war period becuase of the headgear. Positives are the characterful faces (they really look like WW1 people), the fact that you can buy them in discounted larger boxes and the command set which has some lovely figures in it.

Now I have actually painted 16 of these so going for another manufacturer would be a big jump but the range is quite restricted. Next time I will look at Great War Miniatures Range.

Which figures for The Great War?

It looks like The Great War is going to be one of my major projects this year so I had better start to find out which figures I will use for the various armies I will be building. I'll be looking at 28mm figures only which are reasonably recent (hence no Foundry) and offer a good range of poses and troop types.

Uniforms and (particularly) equipment changed a great deal during The Great War and added to this are the variations for different climates in theatres such as Africa and the Middle East.

For simplicity's sake I am going to divide the war into three periods based on uniforms:

First I am going to look at the Western Front.

BEF troops in 1914

Early War Western Front

The initial invasion by the Germans and the initial battles with the French, Belgians and British Expeditionary Force from August-November 1914. British in peaked caps (Scots in Glengarries), French in Blue and Red with kepis and the Germans in pickelhauben.

Early colour photograph of French Troops in Horizon Bleu

Mid War Western Front

This covers the period of the first trench lines going up December 1914 to January 1916. British wearing the softer cap with flaps, the French moving to Horizon Bleu and the Adrian Helmet. The Germans removing the spikes on their helmets. The need for gasmasks.

German soldier at Verdun 1916

Late War Western Front

February 1916 to the end of the War. British adopt the Mark I Brodie helmet (October 1915 but not generally available until early to mid 1916), and the Germans introduce the Stahlhelm (for Verdun in February 1916)

Mark IV Tank 2

I've now spray undercoated the Mark IV. As I did it outside in the dark I need to touch up a few little bits which the paint missed in good light and then it will be ready for painting. I still have to undercoat the beam for the rear (stern? they are His Majesty's Land Ships after all!).



The tank now sits properly as I weighted the inside with a stack of steel washers.

Gamburd commented on my previous post that the battle around Fontaine during the Cambrai offensive in November 1917 would make a good scenario. This is very true. I am attracted to the Cambrai assault as the British troops were largely Highlanders and these would make interesting looking infantry (and no tartan to paint, thank goodness, as the kilts had a khaki cover). The only problem with depicting Fontaine is that many of the British tanks were destroyeded by lorry mounted German light anti-aircraft guns and I have no idea how I would model this accurately!

Tank!

My interest in World War 1 wargaming has always revolved around the early war period, partly because of the Airfix plastics I had when I was little. I wasn't interested in the trench war period, partly because of the requirements to acquire, or more likely, build trench systems. All this may be about to change as I bought this Great War Miniatures Mark IV tank at Warfare in November.

The reason I did this was becuase of a complete impulse buy. I was walking around our local Tesco's and my little boy pointed out a paperback with a World War 1 tank on the cover. I had a couple of business trips coming up so bought it as it was at a very good price. Disaster! Band of Brigands, by Christy Campbell, is a quite wonderful book, telling the story of the development of the first tank from its origins in agricultural caterpillar tractors which were later employed to pull artillery in the Great War. Impeccable research means that a lot of the story is told through the viewpoint of the men involved in this pioneering form of warfare as they struggled to persuade the generals of the worth of the tank whilst having no idea themselves as to how to use it.

There are some great pictures and they brought back the images of massed tank attacks from the Warhammer Great War book. Bad news as now I will have to start some late war armies!

Over Christmas I put the kit together. It consists of a (beutifully crisp) resin one-piece body with metal accesories (machine guns, 6 pdrs and the metal cage which supports the fascine (which isn't included and which I will have to make). There are no instructions and it took me a little time to work out what goes where (helped by some photographs). The metal bits were in a pretty poor state in the kit I bought. The metal girders were very bent out of shape and I never did get them straight and one was missing about 4mm which involved some gap-filling with metal flash and filler. There is one other problem with the model, and that is that it is front heavy so the tracks don't sit flat on the table. The underside is hollow so I will put some weight inside to counterbalance it.

Tomorrow I will spray undercoat it. I have never used a spray undercoat before but I bought a couple of cans of Citadel's black spray for my Battleboards which I got for Christmas. Just as an experiment I sprayed a trio of Norman knights with it and was very pleased with the results. I know that everyone else does this but it's a new thing for me! It should work well on the tank.

Prussian Guards: Second Platoon

I finished the second platoon of my first Prussian Guards company during my holiday last month. However I have changed the colour of the uniform compared with the first platoon I did. The first platoon has a more greenish grey uniform which is more a WW2 field grey. On my visit to the Military Museum in Brussels, where they have a lot of WW1 stuff, I saw that the uniform was not a green-grey at all (although it went that way during the later war period).

The Guards uniform in Brussels.

This example doesn't have the piping on the cuffs (guards had red piping at the top and at the bottom of the cuff) but as the war progressed uniforms became more utilitarian. Only guards had litzen (the two white bars piped in red) on their collars; painting these was a challenge!

The big question now is whether to repaint the first unit. If I paint carefully I shouldn't have to do anything except the piping again. I suspect I will change the first platoon to match the second.

The third and final platoon of the first company is under way. They are now all based, undercoated and the basic flesh tone has been added. I have now painted the base uniform colour on four figures and hope to have the other eight done this week. After I have finished the first company I will paint some British and try out the Great War rules using three companies for each side. I have already painted 16 British, although the bases will need upgrading. I have decided not to repaint them and will stick to the greener uniforms as the ones in Brussels were a green khaki not a brown one as I thought they were.

New Figures

I went to the To the Redoubt show at Eastbourne at the weekend and bought about five packs of the Great War Miniatures figures: German jaegers and infantry and some French. They look very compatible with the Renegade figures and I wouldn't think they would look any different once painted.

I am currently working on my next unit of Guards infantry but this time painting them in the greyer uniforms of the early war period. I may have to go back and repaint my green-grey ones, grr!