Engreiftruppen and Stosstruppen Brigade, March 1918 in 10mm

One of the projects I worked on a while back was three 10mm Western Front late war brigades for larger scale games based on the "If the Lord Spares Us" set of rules from TooFatLardies.

These rules are meant for battalion and brigade sized games, and involve a greater range of artillery assets than in "Through the Mud and the Blood" (where the effect of artillery fire does not differentiate between different calibres of gun).

Although we have played "If the Lord Spares Us" quite a lot at Lard Island, focusing on the Great War in the Middle East, we've yet to start properly wargaming the Western Front at this level. One of the reasons was the lack of suitable figures - it just didn't feel right proxy-ing Turks and British battalions in tropical kit into The Somme.

As I was pretty keen to look at the next tactical level up from the platoon-sized actions of "through the Mud and the Blood", I started work on a German late war division of Eingreiftruppen with some attached Stosstruppen from around the period of Operation Michael in March 1918. Here's where I got to….

The figures were all from Pendraken. I was pleased with how they painted up. So much so that I ended up buying both a late war French and a late war British brigade this year at the Salute show. I'll post the now-completed opposing British and French brigades on the Blog in the next week or so, just as a bit of a change to the on-going terrain posts which I've been showing of late.

First up, Battalion command with infantry, MG08 heavy machine gunes, flammenwerfers and MG08/15 light machine guns …

… a close-up shot of 37mm anti-tank guns and supporting 150mm and 77mm field artillery…

… an A7V in 10mm scale, and a close up of a howitzer position….

… and finally, a brigade in a box (well, almost - it occupies two boxes)

Hopefully we will be getting a few games in with them before Christmas. When we do, I'll post the battle AARs here in due course.

While I was photographing the 10mm figures, I also had time to have a brief photo session with some of the larger scale German officers and NCOs which we use in our games of "Through the Mud and the Blood". These all use the hexagonal basing which helps the umpire or gamesmaster tell at a glance when running a game where the "Big Men" are located on the tabletop.

Next time (probably this weekend), the final part of the Dead Marshes series of terrain board posts. Hope you can join me again for that.