Forged in Battle Afrika Korps Rifle Company for Flames of War

It's all very well and good painting tanks, but in my opinion, if you want a proper WW2 game, you need infantry. Such it is with Flames of War. A couple weeks ago I finished the 8th Army infantry company for my upcoming birthday game, so now it's the turn of the Afrika Korps models to go under the brushes.

The models are mostly from Forged in Battle with a few from Peter Pig in the command stands. Above are the two company command stands. The models on the right-hand stand are Piggies, I might've swapped a head on the pointing Major.

The rest of the FiB models are quite good - albeit after a complaint about the ones I initially received being terribly miscast and horrible. But to their credit FiB sent me a new pack from "new moulds" and they were pretty nice models.

Unlike the 8th Army dudes there's quite a bit of contrasting detail to paint on these models. The uniforms are Vallejo Khaki washed Agrax, the helmets are AK Light Earth likewise, webbing and straps are Light Earth, wool covers on the canteens are AK Dark Brown or New Wood, rifles are Leadbelcher, Dark Brown and New Wood, slings are Doombull Brown, shovel handles and boots are New Wood. On the officers and some of the men I randomly lightened the DAK caps, tunics or trousers just for a bit of variety.

 

In the FoW list each infantry platoon can have an MG34 machinegun base, so I painted one for each platoon (partly to compensate for the lack of the 2.8cm sPzB41 squeeze-bore antitank rifle that FiB doesn't make). As for the sPzB41... honestly I don't really understand why BF made one an organic part of each DAK infantry platoon. I didn't think they were that widely used (fewer than 2,800 were manufactured during the entire war) and one rarely comes across a mention of it in histories of the desert war... but I stand to be corrected in the comments.

ANYWAY... part of the DAK infantry company list is a platoon of 5cm PAK38 antitank guns. These are from FiB and come two in a pack with crews. The model itself is only two pieces (the barrel is separate) and the trails have the same "wide stance" as the 8th Army 6-pounders, which requires custom-made bases. But they are pretty good models nevertheless, although I think I had to replace the head on one of the crewmen as the original model came wearing a pith helmet (!). The Peter Pig pack of German heads has come in very handy in this project.

 

All in all a very nice set of DAK infantry from FiB. Anyway with the DAK infantry from Battlefront being AWOL these are recommended. The other great thing about this project is using up the spare Flames of War medium bases I've had in a box for well over 10 years!

Here's the entire German contingent I've painted so far. There's still some to paint - more Pzkpfw IVs and some 88mm Flak 36 AT/AA guns - but the impetus for those is reduced somewhat now that I've gotten the infantry painted. Looking forward to the game next week, on which I will duly report!

Heia Safari!

Forged in Battle 15mm 8th Army Infantry

I've now (mostly) finished the infantry company for my 8th Army in the Western Desert project. I do have some Vickers MMG teams and 3" mortars, as well as a couple stands of Boys AT rifles and 2" mortars, yet to complete but I wanted to post these models up.

 

The great majority of the models are from Forged in Battle, a UK manufacturer you might know better as West Wind - why the name change I'm not sure. I say "the great majority" because a couple Peter Pig models have snuck into the company (the pistol-armed platoon commanders). More on this later.

 

You'll notice that the models are based for Flames of War... so you might well wonder why I didn't just use Battlefront infantry. I sure would have liked to do that - but they are unavailable. From anywhere. I even emailed BF directly to ask when they would be back, and I was told that there were no plans but my request would be "passed on to the production team." Take that for what you will, but my experience with BF is that they're a hot mess.

 

There are a couple other options for 15mm 8th Army infantry - Peter Pig, Command Decision - but I chose FiB because the painted models on their website looked absolutely gorgeous. I was happy to paint these models, I think they look pretty great, but while it came good in the end, getting this order from FiB wasn't exactly straightforward.

I put in a large order of both British and Germans - a large infantry "platoon pack", a pack of MMGs, a pack of mortars, and a pack of two AT guns, for each side. The FiB shipping caluclator led me to a workaround as adding one more pack doubled the shipping... so I ordered one pack of AT guns as a separate order. That's additional hassle for the retailer for sure but a poor customer experience when the shipping doubles by adding one pack of models. Anyway...

  

The models arrived in "reasonable time" (I followed up with them once IIRC) and while many of the castings looked quite nice (including these 8th Army infantry) some of the castings were absolutely appalling (the German infantry and MMGs). I did communicate this back to FiB and their representative was very apologetic (apparently the molds were worn out and due for replacement). She offered to replace the bad castings and I heartily accepted that offer.

I also requested some missing poses from the British MMG packs (I only received one gunner figure for the four MGs) and the reply was somewhat puzzling... basically I was told that packs contained a random assortment of models. I get that in an infantry pack you might not get identical numbers of every pose (I didn't), but surely you need to include four actual gunner models in a four-machinegun pack!

In due course the replacement Germans arrived but FiB had forgotten to send the machinegunners. They eventually did send them but from start to finish the order took several months.

ANYWAY... I really like the British infantry (with a couple exceptions - the Thompson sub-machinegun carried by the NCO (photo below) is terrible-looking, and the Christ-like officer (all he's missing is a cross) is just strange and was left unpainted - hence the Piggie replacements. However the rest of the infantry models are all quite good, the equipment looks great, and the poses are all really useful. There are three prone Bren-gunners and number twos included, plus a prone Boys AT team and 2" mortar team. All really good stuff. 

Painting: helmet and uniforms AK Light Earth, washed Agrax and re-highlighted. Flesh Doombull Brown highlighted Cadian Flesh, socks Steel Legion Drab, rifles Leadbelcher, AK brown, highlighted New Wood. The webbing was left LE with the Agrax wash and the contrast obtained by highlighting the uniform around it, if that makes sense. Rifle slings are Deck Tan which I may tone down a bit as it's pretty light. For the groundwork I mixed Medium Brown into the basing gel and wet-brushed it up with AK Khaki and finished with a Deck Tan drybrush.

So my goal now is to get the rest of the infantry painted in the next month, with a target of having a game on Thanksgiving weekend. I'll keep you posted on progress. As for Forged in Battle... well it was an experience. The models I got were pretty nice but it took a lot of effort to get them - something I'm not really used to as a customer of an established business. The FiB representative was very friendly, responsive and accommodating of requests but honestly, most of the requests shouldn't have had to have been made in the first place. Worn out molds should be identified and replaced before miscast figures are sent to customers, and packs of special weapons should contain all the figures needed to crew them. Thankfully it all worked out in the end.

Toodles!

Forged in Battle 8th Army 6-pounder AT Guns

Another update for the Western Desert! Having seen models from Battlefront, Plastic Soldier Company and Peter Pig, I'm taking a first crack at some 15mm castings from Forged in Battle.

As Flames of War people will know, Battlefront's retail operations are a bit of a mess. There's lots of unavailable product, with no plans to bring it back into production (according to my email from BF themselves) and unfortunately this includes lots of Western Desert stuff. So this prompted me to find an alternative supplier, which led me to Forged in Battle from the UK. The models look great on their website and I duly put in a large order of Akrika Korps and 8th Army infantry and AT guns. There's a bit of a story behind what arrived but I'll leave it till it's resolved to lay it all out here. Suffice to say that they have promised to sort it out.  

Anyway I've started in on the models with the 8th Army 6-pounders, you get two in a pack for 15 pounds. It looked from the pics on the site that I got sent different crew - my pack had nine crew models (one bonus I guess) but I didn't get the SD-capped officer at all. In any case these are fine.

I like the shirtless chaps, really gives you the desert vibe.

The castings are "OK" but show quite a bit of flash around the wheels and some lumpiness and lack of crisp detail on the inside of the gun shields. Didn't bother me too much.

The models were painted mainly with AK Light Earth, washed with Agrax Earthshade and re-done with LE. I just left the webbing alone and it contrasts OK with the Light Earth uniform. Socks are Steel Legion Drab. The gun was done LE, washed and re-highlighted. For the groundwork I mixed some SLD into a blob of basing acrylic texture gel and this worked well, as I had glued the crew down and just worked the gel in around the bases. The groundwork was then drybrushed up with AK Khaki and Rakarth Flesh.

Here's the British force so far.

I have to say that the FiB AT guns aren't ideal for Flames of War as they don't fit on the Battlefront bases! They're about a quarter-inch too wide and there's no way to narrow the stance as the gun trails are cast solid. 

Anyway I have plenty of 2mm plasticard so I made some new bases and I think they're fine.

So that's my first foray into Forged in Battle. I enjoyed painting the models, the crew especially were superbly done, really nice detail. Not sure why the crew in the pictures were not supplied with my models but they were ok nonetheless.  The guns look a bit tired as noted with some detail lacking but were generally good. It would’ve been good if the models fit on FoW bases but you can make your own if you want to use them in FoW.