Some more British paras

Because I needed them quickly for a game (and was tired of pretending they were lost during the airborne drop :) ), I painted up these paras Sunday evening:



These are 20mm scale Britannia Miniatures. There's two PIAT teams, a 2" mortar team and three AT gun crew.

The game in question was played yesterday. A teaser pic showing these and some of their friends in action in the sleepy French town of Saint-Clair:



More to follow :)

Holowczyn: deployment

Here's the final map for the deployment of the Holowczyn scenario:



Main differences with the previous one are reworked hills (thanks Alan), blended-in terrain and -- obviously -- the Swedish and Russian units at deployment.

Mapping experiment

As mentioned yesterday, I have been experimenting with a new way of drawing maps for scenarios. It basically consists of a mix of drawn features and photos of actual terrain pieces. Here's the first result, a map for the Holowczyn game with the first four Swedish units already on:



It still needs some work, such as (obviously) adding all the other units and blending in the photos a bit more, but it is finished enough to give an idea of the final look. Comments appreciated!

WWII Radar station

My basic plan this year is to put on one 'big new' game every month. This means a game with a new scenario, or revisiting an old period, or something like that. Last month's game was Holowczyn (a new scenario), while this month's will be a WWII 20mm bash whose center piece I have been painting over the last few evenings:



That's the 20mm radar station from Grand Manner, of whose excellent products I have a growing collection (the fort in the Poltava game is another Grand Manner piece, and I have some 28mm scenery awaiting paint for the Napoleonics games). The radar tower and the three roof pieces lift off, providing gaming access to the inside of the bunkers and dug outs.

As you'll notice, the picture above is a top down view of the terrain piece. That's because of something I've been quietly working on for a while now: I'm taking top down pictures of every terrain piece I have (well, not exactly every one, but a representative selection of all types) for use in scenario and battle maps. The first result of this (the map for the battle of Holowczyn) is almost finished and will appear here later.

II/1st Chevauxlegers

After painting their heavier cousins, I turned my attention to the four squadrons of chevauxlegers that were in the 1st Division of the Bavarian army of the 1809 campaign. Those four squadrons make up the 1st Regiment of Chevauxlegers, named _König_ as many of the other first regiments in the army. Here is their second squadron, fresh off the painting table:



The figures are from Wargames Foundry. They are noticeably less hefty than the Dragoon figures (by Front Rank), which I think fits well with them being the lighter regiments - the Dragoons descended from Cuirassiers. Next on the painting table is their first squadron.