Next up some 20mm Volkssturm!

 Having finished another 36 figures for John this week (French Line and Guard pikes and Austrian musketeers by 'Mars') I'm having a bit of a change by starting on these lovely 20mm metal figures for new customer Alister. The link Alister sent was to Simon's Soldiers (click). I am totally unfamiliar with this range but I must say they are some of the best 20mm WW2 figures I have seen, far better than even the AB 20mm's in my humble opinion which simply failed to inspire me to paint them. These of course represent the late war Volkssturm called up for the last desperate defence of Berlin consisting of older men and younger boys, equipped with whatever could be found, many of them trained in the use of Panzerfausts which seems to have been a very common weapon judging from the number of them that appear in photographs from the time.

I have around 75 of them to paint and there are a wide variety of uniform types, greatcoats, civilian clothes, a couple wearing the distinctive French helmets others in trilby type hats and forage caps, the only issued item in many cases being the red/white/black Volkssturm armband. Most carry rifles, some assault rifles and there are a couple of machine gun teams, MG42 or possibly the older MG34, not had a close look yet. I'm very much looking forward to painting them.

Reference images give a good idea of what these units looked like, 

Crimean war 6mm - phase 1 done!

Eight bases per side plus the little command stand. Really enjoying painting these little figures and I have more on order to expand the armies. Also have some suitable 6mm buildings on order from Battlescale so I can give them a test run on the trusty folding card table which I'm looking forward to.

Each side consists of 4 units of infantry (1 is designated as 'Guard' identified by the red flags), 1 unit of skirmishing infantry, 1 heavy and 1 light cavalry, battery of guns plus the command group base. All figures by Irregular Miniatures.

Some Turkish Delights & Schombergs Horse.

Latest off the painting desk are the 9 figure 20mm Schombergs Horse of the WSS for Tony and the 15 piece Turkish Command set for John. The Cavalry are Les Higgns/PMD and the Turks are from a plastic box set by Mars. All were a joy to paint.  I once again splashed the colour on the Turks in line with the box illustrations, lots of lavish gold etc, giving them slightly stronger highlights than usual to enhance the impression of rich colours. French line and Guard pikemen next up for John, 12 of each.

Delighted to say that I will have the 20mm Volksstuurm on the way to me shortly for painting which will ring the changes.

The 6mm Crimeans continue to hold my interest and I'm close to finishing the phase 1 armies for a trial game but I'll save the photos for the next post when done. To begin with I'm going to make use of the trusty old folding card table (2'6" x 2'6") to get me started as I work slowly on the planned terrain tiles. I have more on the way from Irregular to reinforce both sides.

First the Cavalry for Tony, dark brown horses were requested for this regiment with a grey for the trumpeter. Gloss varnish as requested.

The Turkish HQ set by Mars for Old John of course! A harder plastic these, akin to Warlord figures.

1st Regiment of Foot Guards.

There is something special about the British Foot Guards and I was delighted to be able to paint these splendid castings for Tony. Les Higgins and PMD (Phoenix Models Development) 20mm figures.  Finished in a Gloss varnish it was the first time I had applied Gloss in many years and was a little nervous as I applied it (Valleyo) but it dried very quickly to nice clear coat. Tony will apply a second coat of his 'house varnish' when they arrive home. Photos below include a couple of 'before' images, the Gloss really does bring out the strong colours. For information the red coats were built up from the black primer coat with Cavalry Brown (my go to dark red  with excellent coverage over black), Flat Red mid tones then pure Scarlet highlights. The mounted and foot officer then had a final touch of Aramanth Red which is an Orange Red for that slightly superior quality cloth look. As always I ask myself if I would be happy to have them in my own collection (if I had one these days!) and that is quality test for everything I paint.

Schombergs Horse coming next for Tony.

Below shows them 'in the flesh' as it were pre gloss varnish.