From MilesR: Teeny Tiny German Armored Corps (289 Points)

I may have gotten into 3mm WW2 gaming in a bigger way than just doing the Pacific Theater.  In my defense, the shopping cart at Pico Armor is very persuasive and led me down the primrose path of getting a bunch of Germans and maybe some Russians too.

First up is a 1941/42 German infantry division. 

The divisional assets include an artillery regiment which can be equipped with either artillery or nebelwerfers, a pioneer battalion and a recon Battalion with Panzer II's.

Next are 3 Infnatry regiments - here's the first regiment.  Each regiment has 3 battalions.

Regiments 2 and 3.  All of the Regiments are missing there infantry gun battery (1 each) but the good folks at Pico were more than happy to send those along and they should arrive any day now.

Just for fun, I added a Fallschirmjaeger regiment.

And some Stugs.  I have some earlier model Stug IIIB (short barrels) and will get those painted up in a week or so.

Gotta have Stugs.

Next up is a 1941/2 Panzer Division, which will be modeled after the 11th Panzer or "Ghost Division"

Up first is 1 of 2 mechanized infantry brigades (each of which has 2 battalions).  The one upfront still needs it's transport which will be Opel trucks.

Next is a Panzer jaeger Battalion equipped with Marders, a Recon battalion which a mix of Kradschutzen (motorcycles) and armored cars.  Finally to the right are some towed AT and a 3 battalion artillery regiment

The heart of nay panzer division is it's armored regiment which has 2 battalions of Panzer III's and one of Panzer IV's

Lastly the third regiment of the division - a fully mechanized infantry regiment, plus some 88's just for fun.

In the back are some optional Panzers - 5 companies of Panzer IVH's, 3 companies of Tiger I, 3 companies of Panzer ivD (short barrels) and a 3 Panther companies

A last look at 11th Panzer.  I'm going to be running a East front themed campaign at the club so you may see a handful of similarly scale Russians

As for Points here's my rough estimate

51 Infantry bases / 7 figs each / 0.25 per figure = 89.25

17 Heavy Weapons bases /4 figs each / 0.25 per fig = 17.0

9 HQ's w/ 2 vehicles each / 1 point per Vehicle = 18

18 artillery/gun batteries and lets go with 0.5 points each = 9 points

156 Tanks / Halftracks / trucks at 1 point each = 156

Total Points = 289.25, lets round that to a neat 275 points

Friday Minion: Aha, more teeny tiny tanks! Always pleased to see some of my favourites, stugs and panzer IIs, and it actually makes sense to have nebelwerfers on the table at this scale. Lovely stuff. 

I see no reason to round these down, have the full complement of 189 points (all well earned, and nothing to do with my lackadasical spreadsheet wrangling)

From MilesR: Peleliu odds and ends (126 points)

 Some odds-n-ends for the Peleliu project.  The bulk of the stuff I need to run the campaign is complete and now I'm working on ancillary detail items.  The only outstanding items after this post will be the remaining portion of the US bombard fleet (2 other Battleships and 8 cruisers).

All of the miniatures in today's submission are from the fine folks at Pico Armor.

Lets take a look at the US air assets - there are 8 Wildcat Fighters and 8 F4U Corsairs.  I'm testing different ways to base the aircraft brass wire glued into a hole drilled into the plane or 1/8 inch plastic rod with a tiny magnet glued on the end of the rod and then a magnet of the plane

I like the wire look a lot better but they are a bit unstable.  Still the dive bombing look is pretty cool.  Putting on all of these tiny decals was a bit of an ordeal.  Each one had to but cut individually and then tossed in some water.

I did learn that when working with the decals, it's best to only cut out the ones you need for each plane.  Earlier, I had gone with the production line method of cutting out ALL of the stars and then dropping them in the water as I applied them.  Then I sneezed.  Not gonna do that again!

8 wildcats for Air Superiority work

US combat assets - 3 75mm pack howitzer batteries and 3 companies of 75mm packs howitzers mounted on M3 halftracks.  Each marine regiment had one company of the M3 mounted howitzers which provided very effective fire against Japanese bunkers.

There were 3 companies of LVT's mounting turrets that were used as direct Fire Support.  2 of the companies were equipped LVT A1's which had a M3 Stuart turret mounted on and were completed earlier in the challenge.  There was also a company of LVT A4's which mounted a short barrel 75mm howitzer (it was a M8 Scott gun motor carriage turret).  There was a 4th company of LVT A1's but they were converted into makeshift Flame Throwing tanks and will be one of the most important assets the US players have to bring to bear.

7 Bases of DUKW amphibious trucks and 15 of LVT's. For the game the US players will have a total of 18 LVT bases and 5 DUKWS.  Once they've completed their initial task of landing troops they shift over to supply trucks.  Because of the reefs surrounding Peleliu, the US could get it's transport ships and even landing craft close to the beach to unload and had to ferry everything on LVT's and ducks.  Losses of these vehicles was very high and posed severe supply problems for the US.

Some Japanese aircraft - 3 Val dive Bombers and 8 zero fighters.  Historically, the Japanese had no air support but it was a constant threat so there will be a small chance some of these planes show up.  

I just painted the Japanese insignia and will likely go back and use decals.  I just need a break from super tiny decals for a bit.

Japanese defensive position - 18 caves/machine bunkers, 9 block houses and 3 120mm gun pits plus one HQ bunker in the back

I did pick up some traditional landing craft (Higgins boats and LST's).  I'll likely use them to mark landing zones and such.

As for points. there are:

6 guns at 0.5/each = 3pts

96 vehicles at 1/each = 96 pts

27 airplanes at 1/each = 27

The defensive positions are really terrain so lets just throw them in for free = 0 points

That group totals 126 points.

Lets get back to building and painting ships or is there something else.....

Friday minion: Aha, so glad we see this project almost to completion before Challenge end. I do admire your relentless grind to the objective without distraction, comprehensive approach to a meticulously researched topic and the wow factor you deliver through the project as a whole. My favourite of the bunch here are the US air support, the decals look like they were worth the effort and setbacks.

From MilesR: Teeny-Tiny Hell in the Pacific (330 Points, so far.....)

 My "Big Project" for 2023 might better be described as a "Big/Little Project" as I am entering to world of 3mm WW2 mini's.  3mm mini's have been used up at the club a number of times and were featured in our Invasion of Malta episode.  I really liked the command scope and wanted to give it a try.  As all of the clubs 3mm games were in the European theater, I decided to be different and try the Pacific.  Oh and lets do an invasion.  And on top of that, lets play it out as a campaign and make up a ruleset to go with it.  Nothing like dialing up the complexity for ones first foray into a scale.  I have never been accused of being all that bright.

As with any complex project, its best to break it down into stages and the first step was the mini's.  All of these are 3mm scale mini's from the Pico Armor range and I very much highly recommend them.  Painting is dead simple - base prime, paint your main color and then wash.  Basing is a little more complex - especially with infantry as its very easy to break them and at this scale is almost impossible to repair.

First up is the US 1st Marine Division, with each base representing a company.  The 1st Marine consisted of 3 Regiments - the 1st, 5th and 7th Marines.  Each Regiment had 3 Infantry battalions 

A battalion consists of 3 infantry companies mounted on 15x40mm bases, 1 heavy weapons company on a 20x20mm base and 1 Battalion HQ on a 15mm circle

Each Regiments HQ is mounted on a 20 mm circle and they had a 37mm AT gun battery.  There should also be 1 battery of 75mm pack howitzers, which I'm told are in the post

The divisional assets for the 1st include an artillery battalion (the 11th), an attached tank Battalion equipped with M4 Shermans.  There will also be some engineers added to the mix.  Oh those other 9 bases of infantry in the back - those will form one of the 2 regiments from the 81st Infantry Division who were deployed during the campaign.

Each of the bases has a magnetized name plate so I can affix the unit designation as well as use magnetic map pins to track accumulated losses.  

In the back are 5 bases each of LVT's and LVT4's - there need to be a lot more LVT's!  Those are in the post too!

When one does dabble in 3mm WW2, it's pretty easy to buy more than one really needs for the project at hand - so I built up some ancillary US units

A little armor support, in the form of 2 M4 Sherman Battalions, a Stuart battalion, some M-10's and some M3 Lees plus transports.

Opposing the US is a Japanese Infantry division.  Actually at Peleliu they only field half of these forces but I wanted to build out a full division.  There are 3 infantry regiments and then a bunch of division support assets.  There are 10 "extra" infantry companies for a post Peleliu project that can not be named... yet.

As with the American forces - I built up some "extra Japanese troops - Chi-Ha and Ha-Go tank battalions plus some Type-(7 mini tanks).

As this was a project that was started last year with a handful of test bases, I'm going to be cheeky and submit this as part of the "Under Construction" studio tour.

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Minion interlude to discuss scoring: The scale of this project is amazing. Having seen the Salerno table you ran at Historicon last year, the table size, terrain and masses of bases are hugely impressive spectacle, and your dedication to accuracy for the project as a whole is laudable. And to top it off, your ruleset is both slick to play and great fun. 

We had to recalibrate the scoring matrix for Miles' post, as the scoring conventions for 3mm figures are less mature as a less often seen scale. Examples have tended to be for premodern eras, with a large base representing a mass of troops in formation. For these moderns with fewer models (about 10 on a base representing a company) we've taken a starting point of half the rate for 3mm, so 0.25 for infantry and half a point for each vehicle. 

There are around 775 infantry and 225 vehicles, the mathemagical algorithm outputting 306.5 points, which I'll round up to 310 and apply the Studio bonus for a tidy 330 on Miles' tally. 

And whoa on your accompanying terrain project (below), looks hugely impressive, really looking forward to that coming together. Sadly I don't think I'll see it in person. 

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Some of you maybe wondering what the heck is that cork board in the background.  I usually don't provide in process shots but the terrain portion of this project will take a while.

When one proposes to do a game of the Peleliu campaign, one does need a model of the Island of Peleliu so that's what I'm building.  The scale is 1" equals 100 yards and the total board will be 10x4 feet. Here's a shot of the rough layout and with most of the mountains blocked in:

As you can see A LOT of work remains to be done but the basic outline is in place

Here's a view of the initial US landing beaches (next to the scissors) and how close the airfield was to the beachheads.

The Umurbrogol Mountains are blocked in.  I'm trying to be as faithful as possible to the actual terrain but it is crazy complex and I think I'll get it 80% right.  There is a lot of shaping and sculpting wotk to do.  Depending on my work schedule this could take 3-4 more weeks.

 

The North end of the island - once I finish these 4 boards, I'll slide the over and build the 5th which has the tip of Peleliu and Ngesebus Island which was connected to Peleliu by a wooden causeway and had another airfield.

From GregB: Pico Panzer Regiment Bäke (35 Points)

The Tiger Is of Schwere Panzer Regiment Bäke - 1/600 models from Pico Armor.

Greetings all - sorry to have been absent for much of the past couple of weeks.  I have been busy with work, and the Snow Lord's task has been taking a fair bit of time as well.  But here is a small (haha) project that I have been working on and I thought this would be a good time to share and end my recent blogging drought.  These are 1/600 WW2 German figures in winter kit - and while figures at this scale they could represent almost anything, in this case they are meant to represent Schwere Panzer Regiment Bäke in games of "Spearhead", the classic division-level WW2 rules by Arty Contliffe.

The whole group.

Panzer Regiment Bäke

Heads up...here come the big cats...

As catastrophe overtook the German army on the Eastern Front in 1943, the overstretched German forces would make use of "fire brigade" type formations in order to stem the various crisis arising from the Red Army's overwhelming material and manpower superiority and countless breakthroughs along a huge front line.  Schwere Panzer Regiment Bäke was one of these "fire brigades", and a potent one at that, combining a battalion of Panthers, a battalion of Tigers, a battalion of combat engineers and a few other assets (artillery etc) which represented a terrifying concentration of fighting power.

Tiger Is in 1/600 scale and winter paint.

Under the command of Franz Bäke, a panzer commander of some renown, this formation was formed in late 1943, and fought through the winter into 1944, racing from crisis to crisis. Equipped to such a level, the formation is reported to have racked up fantastical kill totals in a number of armoured engagements. I am skeptical of these sorts of kill-total reports, but this formation certainly made a major impact wherever it was deployed on the front.  And yet the Eastern Front was enormous, and in the end formations such as this could not turn the tide or reverse the broader strategic circumstances that would see the Red Army triumphant in the east.

With each base representing a platoon, we have a Panther battalion in 1/600 scale.

As a wargamer I love tank battles, and I very much enjoy painting armour, and I'm drawn to the Eastern Front as a setting (and the middle east, and Team Yankee, etc. etc.).  It's a lot of fun to represent these "fire brigade" type formations in WW2 games.  The trouble is that many tactical-level games provide players on the German side with all of the benefits (veteran crews, amazing kit) while struggling to represent the downsides (ammo and fuel shortages, being massively outnumbered, dire strategic situation etc).  You can try to make allowances for these things of course, and many well-intentioned game designers look to assorted points systems to create some balance or handicapping in a game where Panthers and Tigers are present.  But this is hard to do...don't get me wrong, skirmish gaming with "big cats" is great fun, but I like to find games that give players on the German side the problems as well as the benefits when it comes to these sorts of units.

Play these rules! They are fantastic!

So that is where a magnificent game like "Spearhead" comes into play.  Yes, your Panther battalion is terrifying, and will blow up a lot of sh*t. But the Soviet player(s) will have infantry to slow it down, artillery to blast it, air strikes to hammer it, AND waves of T-34s to send towards it.  You might blow away clouds of T-34s and still end up trapped in a pocket, with half your Panthers out of action, and in no position to seal up the breach in the front lines. No rule system comes close to "Spearhead" for giving players on the German side these sort of up-ended "I-feel-like-I-won-but-I-still-lost" gaming moments.

The combat engineers...a "Stuka Zu Fuss" battery is at the front...

In "Spearhead" each base represents one platoon.  The round bases represent command elements - small ones for battalion commanders, larger ones for regiments etc.  The "Spearhead" scenario book "Where The Iron Crosses Grow" has a scenario featuring Regiment Bäke that I have always wanted to run for our gaming group, and this submission contains the bulk of the German forces for the scenario.

Another view of the engineers - the armoured engineer platoons are at the front - they have their own Hanomags to ride around in.

For the scenario in question the Germans have a battalion of Panthers, a battalion of Tigers, and a battalion of combat engineers.  As units go in "Spearhead", these are all pretty scary...but in the scenario they will face a vast amount of Soviet armour, and they will have a difficult mission: escort the remnants of some shattered friendly units out of a pocket and back into the German lines.  The German players will have fun blowing up tanks with their elite panzers, but the command challenge in the scenario is a tough one...it will be played on a big table, and those panzers can't be everywhere...

Another view of the Panthers.

I had, at one time, a large 6mm collection of WW2 figures based for Spearhead. That is no longer with me...since I was starting from the ground up once again, I thought I would give these 1/600 models a try. I've been experimenting with them here and there for a long time, and have used them for the "Modern Spearhead" variant - they really are fun.

Regimental command - with a SdKfz flak unit on the left, and a 234 recon unit on the right.

These figures are all from Oddzial Ozmy, available in North American from the fine people at Pico Armor. I never thought I would enjoy 1/600 stuff...but the sculpting is incredible.  The infantry is still hard to do, and the bases will need labels so the players know what is what, but these paint up fast and are a lot of fun.  I also really need to up my game when it comes to ground work etc (check out Curt's 1/600 stuff to see what I mean).  But since I had all of the winter colours out during this edition of the Challenge, and Panzer Regiment Bäke was in action during the winter, it was no big deal to crank these out in winter colours "on the side" as I went along painting 28mm stuff.

Another view of the 234 - recon elements are critical in "Spearhead".

Some people who play 1/600 scale will take the opportunity to make their platoons 1-to-1 creations, putting a whole group of three or four tanks on each base.  I experimented with this, but decided against it in the end.  Crowded command bases look neat, but the tanks in the general combat platoons all look too crammed - you just end up with the same "hub-to-hub" look that ruins so many "Flames of War" games, but just at a different scope.  I kept it straight up, using the prescribed base size from the "Spearhead" rules, and used either one tank to represent a tank platoon, or one group of infantry to represent an infantry platoon.  The armoured engineer bases include a group of infantry and some 251 carriers on the same base - in "Spearhead" mechanized infantry is based together with their fighting vehicles.  

I have no idea how many points this is.  The relevant minions will figure it out! But there are 31 vehicles, and about 12 strips of five infantry figures, all in 1/600 scale, in this submission.

Thanks for looking, have a great weekend!



OK, so scoring this is a bit of a poser as I think the points per base for 3mm stuff assumes earlier periods with formed units of infantry or cavalry. 

Tell you what, I'll count the infantry as being equivalent to a "stand" (= 12 points) and the 29 (you seem to have miscounted) vehicles as half a point each (=16.5 points) plus some rounding and general bonuses for the great look to this regiment.

TamsinP

From Curt: 3mm Napoleonic Portuguese Infantry (50 Points)

Hi Folks,

A wee entry from me today, quite literally.

Here are five brigades of 3mm Napoleonic Portuguese infantry. 

These are 3mm Napoleonics from Pico Armor (sourced from Oddzial Osmy out of Poland). The figures are based on 2" x 1.75" MDF bases with a 3mm thickness and rounded corners. The thickness is to allow players to pick them up easily and the rounded corners is simply because I like the look of them (it gives the finished product kind of a wargaming chit appearance).

The common base size for 'Blucher' is a 3" frontage, but I've decided to go with 2" as it allows for very large battles to be played on the 8 x 5 surface which we typically use. To provide a bit more perspective, using my base scale each inch equates to 150 yards, so one square foot on the tabletop is equal to about a square mile. Utilizing this scale allows us to recreate sprawling actions like Wagram or Vitoria on a single tabletop.

Examples of various unit types, left to right: French foot artillery, infantry and heavy cavalry

For my way of thinking, painting these figures requires a fairly minimalist approach to maintain a basic level of detail to communicate what the figures are supposed to be. For the infantry, I base everything up, texture the base and then prime the whole thing black. From that I drybrush everything a light grey and then start applying saturated colours. 

The way I see it is that these figures should simply convey their primary features, first most being their national uniform colour, with only a nod to other physical elements (namely face, hands, trousers, shako and bayonet), otherwise you can easily get drawn into the rabbit-hole of trying to paint fine details which will never be appreciated when they are seen en mass - in fact I find that too much painted detail can make the figure too 'busy', detracting from conveying the main uniform colour: French should primarily be blue, British red, Austrians white, etc. I think of these bases almost as boardgame chits, perhaps more like  three dimensional playing tokens.

Examples of three British infantry brigades moving through a Spanish hill town.

Perceptive readers will have noticed that, since I base and prime everything from the start, I don't worry about painting the middle ranks or any inward-facing detail. In this scale I only paint the front of the front rank, the rear of the rear rank and the top of their heads and shoulders. Early on, I discovered that after painting every figure, the interior facing detail is completely lost once the strips of figures are based up. A complete waste of time and effort. So now I just paint the perimeter of the formations and I find that you can't tell the difference between the 'all-figure-detail' bases and those which are more minimalist . 

The basework is drybrushed two tones of brown with a khaki highlight. I then use a semi-opaque green tinted model railway emulsion to provide a base tone for the light scatter of flock I apply later. I'll often use a brown ink wash to make 'tracks' behind the formations, showing where they have trampled through the terrain. I then paint a mark on the front center which is used in the rules for purposes of line of sight and measurement (it is red here for the Portuguese, but would be blue for the French, white for the Austrians, etc.). Finally, I print off a 3.5mm label and affix it to the rear corner of the base (these are so we can use roster sheets for all the unit information).

As to points. For a benchmark we typically award 12 points for 3mm figures based on 60mm x 30mm bases, but as these bases are a bit smaller (aprox 50mm x 30mm) I suggest pitching them at 10 points each.

Thanks for dropping in!

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You know this scale has been whispering to me for some time now, and you're not helping me resist temptation. I was admiring some similar 2mm stuff in WSS Magazine recently and my wife looked over my shoulder and muttered something derogatory about my mental health!! Doesn't she know it's my eyesight she should be worrying about? 

These bases are absolutely beautiful work. I always love the attention you lavish on the groundwork, and I guess it's even more important in a scale this small. If I were wearing a hat right now, I'd take it off to you. 

Lee

From Curt - 3mm Napoleonic Portuguese Infantry and French Light Cavalry (40 Points)

Well, since I've been riffing on Napoleonics this weekend, I thought I'd just switch scales and keep on rolling. 
 
Here are six mixed stands of figures for use in Sam Mustafa's Napoleonic rules, 'Blucher'.

First up are three stands of Napoleonic Portuguese infantry - the 'fighting cocks' of Wellington's Peninsular army.

I've given them each a screen of brown-uniformed Cacadores and a light gun. They are led by a red-coated British officer.

The colured hash-marks on their front edge are to indicate both their nationality and to aid in gameplay (line-of-sight, movement, etc.). I think I just need four more bases of these and I'll have enough for their entire force during the period.

Next are three stands of French light cavalry. Two stands of Chasseurs a Cheval and one of Line Lancers. 

I organize my light cavalry in two lines, the mediums are in three and my heavies are packed-in with four lines. As an example, below is a base of cuirassiers leading in the center with light cavalry on its flanks and rear (note: the cuirassiers were painted pre-Challenge).

 

In the rules each of these stands roughly represent a brigade. They all have a 2 inch frontage (the cavalry and artillery have a slightly larger depth). At this scale a square foot on the tabletop is equivalent to a square mile in game terms. This allows us to have very large engagements on a reasonable sized tabletop. If you're interested in reading more on the topic, I continue to prattle on the subject here.

The first and last shots are of the stands in and around my 6mm Mediterranean hill town from Total Battle Scenics. Even though the scale is off between the two, the figures and the terrain actually work quite well together. The pen in the picture above gives you an idea to the size of the figures and bases.

As for points, I'd suggest 1 point for a strip of ten infantry, and 1 point for every five cavalry. This should fit in fairly well with our current scoring matrix. Hmm, maybe it's a bit light, but let's run with that for now. So, with this being the case each of these bases comes in at about 6-7 points - let's settle on 40 points total? Does that sound okay?

Thanks for dropping by and I hope you all have a great day!

Great stuff Curt, I look forward to Blustering away with these teeny tiny lads.  Far be it for me to argue points with the Snowlord so 40pts it is.  I've seen similar bases of Curt's up close and they look just as good in person as they do in the pictures.