Kallistra WW1 Late British (9)

Eight more stands of the lovely Kallistra WW1 Late War British infantry.
This brings me to 48 stands of infantry - which is what James and I need for the game at Partizan at the end of May.
Just need to finish some additional MGs and artillery and make a command stand or two and my bit of this game is done. So, All Over By Christmas Easter.

Square Bashing - German assault

Another trip over to James' house for a game of the very enjoyable Square Bashing.
After wasting quite some time laying out trees and craters on a a terrain mat and then watching James' daughter perform handstands and cartwheels on it (it's for another game at Partizan - though without the cartwheeling daughter) we adjourned to the kitchen for some Square Bashing.
James has recently created a mat from fleece with craters and roads cleverly "burned" into the surface. He'd made this one for a Verdun game but has plans for another for Arras at Partizan.

We threw down some of the rather nice houses he acquired at Crisis to create a small town and decided that for a change I'd be on the defensive.

 The war ravaged settlement of Abeillesville

 The British dig in

 The Germans prepare their assault

The initial depletion didn't do much damage to the British forces, with only a couple of stands removed and a single unit of reservists forced to pull back

Soon the pinpoint barrages began to crash in and my left flank came under pressure

 The firestorm erupts

Friendly fire

The German forces summoned an aircraft to assist with guiding their own shelling, whilst the rest of the force advanced.

 von Mauritz flies over the battle

And calls in deadly fire

The initial German advance slowed down and fire was being exchanged across No Mans Land to little effect.

Despite throwing up some hasty defences the left end of the British line was under severe pressure, especially as flame throwers were bought up.
Desperately I ordered a suppression barrage - which stalled the advance for a turn but inflicted equal casualties on both sides.

Another British shell falls short!

Inevitable the German assault went in on the British left...

 It's no good lads, pull back

...and the plucky Tommys were evicted from their makeshift defences

Over on the right some concentrated fire for the advancing Germans also forced the other British flank to withdraw

And with that the battle drew to a close with us adjudging a narrow German win and the British forced to cede the town.

These are very jolly and surprisingly quick games. You can pretty much play with just the QRS and the choices, especially for the defender, are quite limited - there's little point in storming out of your defences. Looking forward to a few more games and then putting on a demo at Partizan in May.

Kallistra WW1 Late British (8)

Some Machine Guns

And still more infantry

Game tomorrow night over at James' (dental pain permitting).

Kallistra WW1 Late British (7)

After about a month off - time to crack on with the Kallistra WW1 British for Arras.

Some half bases to show which stands have taken casualties in games of square bashing.

And some casualty markers which you need for suppression/morale effects.

I'm picking up a load more infantry and some extra big guns and machine guns at Hammerhead on Saturday.

Painting Kallistra Late War British Step-by-step

I thought I'd do a step-by-step guide to how I've been painting my Late WW1 12mm British.
Much of what follows is based on advice from James Morris and is done to ensure my models at least make a basic match with his when we use them on the same table.
Also a hat-tip to Over Open Sights blog, who kindly sent me his painting guide for 28mm models last year, which also informed my pass at these much smaller miniatures.
Most of the paints I used are OOP GW ones, but there are various conversion charts out there that should allow you to find an equivalent.

First, glue your models to bases:

Then apply PVA to the base and dunk in chinchilla sand:

Next spray the entire model with Army Painter Leather Brown spray (which I got from Nice Mr Nick at Northstar)
It appears I forgot to photograph this stage. Imagine the same models as above. Only much browner. Or the ones below with less greeny uniform colour on.

Then paint all the uniforms with Vallejo British Uniform. You don't need to be too neat at this point as most of the subsequent stages will tidy up any over-spill onto other areas, but try and not paint the rifles.

Then paint the gas mask case any covered helmets and assorted other pouches with Kommando Khaki:

You can hardly see what I've done here, so it's possibly not even worth it, but I painted the puttees with Graveyard Earth:

Next I added skin with Tallarn Flesh:

Followed by helmets using Orkhide Shade:

Another optional step - footwear with CDA Chestnut Brown and then I painted bayonets with Bolt Gun Metal (not optional):

Finally I tided up officer's sticks and leather pouches and holsters with Bestial Brown:

And painted the Lewis guns in Chaos Black:

Then the final stage was to cover them all over with CDA Dark Brown Super Wash.
Hey presto - six stands painted (though I appear to have only taken pictures of five):

The key, I think, with these small models is to pick out the contrasting bits that will help them pop a little on the table from four or so feet away. So the helmets are probably greener than they should be and the cases and pouches probably a shade or two too light, but at wargaming distance they'll make the models distinctive on the tabletop.

The blank spots on a couple of the bases are created by adding blobs of Blu-Tack to the base before applying the PVA, then removing before the glue has dried. These will be later painted with Storm Blue and given a Black Ink wash and coat of Gloss Varnish to create dark shiny pools in the Flanders mud.
You can see the finished models against blue backgrounds in the post from earlier this week