I have had a Peter Pig BEF army for quite some time, but inspired by reading some good books on the opening of WWI, plus some successful experimentation with Vallejo green brown and green ochre, as well as being impressed with the new 1914 rules, I decided to put brush to metal. Unusually, but I think quite successfully, I based the figures and textured the bases before painting. Someone mentioned that they complete an army before painting the bases so that everything matches, and this seems like a very good idea to me (and helps prevent half finished armies - a crime of which I am guilty). Base sizes given are 25mm x 25mm for machine guns, 50mm x 25mm for cavalry and infantry, 50mm x 50mm for artillery.
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Very nice.
What colour(s) did you use for the MG? Like the effect.
Very nice.
The HMG should have a green sleeve...
It's not a Vickers. Some of the units sent out in August 1914 still had the older style maxim with the brass cooler. Colours for the machine gun are:
Stand - Vallejo gunmetal
Ammo belt - Vallejo beige
Water can - mix of Vallejo military green and olive green
Hose - Vallejo black grey
Cooling sleeve - GW Gehenna's gold then topped with Vallejo gold
Machine gun based on the painting in Osprey Campaign Mons 1914 showing Pvt. Sidney Godley VC holding off the Germans at the Nimy bridge.
Very cool looking guys.
Superb work!
They look storming.
Interesting on the MMG (or is it just "MG or HMG at this point?!), didn't know they still had Maxims in service in 1914!
I sit corrected
good stuff
Great work, Andy !
Cheers - Phil
Thanks chaps; I'm really rather pleased with the way they have turned out so far. Next I'll do another battalion, but with some head swaps for variety, then on to some cavalry, as I plan to have a go at Nery using the 1914 rules.
They have come out well. But then they are a very good subject matter!
I'm waiting for delivery of 1914 rules - I was hoping to be able to use my 30x30mm based troops.
Very impressive work! I like Peter Pig figures and use them a lot in my Weird World War armies because I can usually find everything I need form them. They are also well detailed and paint up nicely. Hope to see more in this effort!
Terry
Quote from: fred. on 16 May 2018, 04:23:43 PM
They have come out well. But then they are a very good subject matter!
I'm waiting for delivery of 1914 rules - I was hoping to be able to use my 30x30mm based troops.
Having read the rules I can see no reason why 30x30 wouldn't work. There is some explanation in the rules about so many this to that in measurement, but it simply boils down to one mm = one metre, so that it looks right with 12mm figures, so I guess 10mm on 30mm frontage would be fine, or 15mm on a square 30mm base. I just went with their suggestion because I was starting from scratch, and to be honest, their 12mm figures are at the top end of 12mm. I also have my 8" squares cloth, so even on bigger bases I can still use them for Square Bashing.
:-bd =D> :-bd
Nery is an interesting action, we did it a while ago with ITLSU
They look rather nice sculpts.
Quote from: Leman on 16 May 2018, 07:09:54 PM
Having read the rules I can see no reason why 30x30 wouldn't work. There is some explanation in the rules about so many this to that in measurement, but it simply boils down to one mm = one metre, so that it looks right with 12mm figures, so I guess 10mm on 30mm frontage would be fine, or 15mm on a square 30mm base. I just went with their suggestion because I was starting from scratch, and to be honest, their 12mm figures are at the top end of 12mm. I also have my 8" squares cloth, so even on bigger bases I can still use them for Square Bashing.
Thats good news. I'd thought the photos on their website looked like square based figures, but perhaps I hadn't looked too closely. It does seem to be a game with very little information about it.
I'll start a thread on it on the rules board.
Very nice indeed
Take care
Andy
I tried a slightly different style with the second battalion, giving the flesh a GW Reikland flesh wash and the rest of the figure a ......... Sepia wash, which seemed to produce a richer tone than Agrax Earthshade (which I tried on one casualty figure). I still used Vallejo satin varnish and then magic was to finish off:
(https://farm1.staticflickr.com/877/41623895594_e6150da0af_z.jpg)
I have also done one stand of Germans, again using GW washes (or shades as they call them). I finally settled on Vallejo Light Grey as the basic uniform colour. When completed the face and hands got the flesh wash again, the buff helmet covers the sepia wash and then the rest of the figure Nuln Oil. All in all not too bad, but when I come to doing more Germans I think I will use the burnt umber undercoat rather than black. The figures were again finished with satin varnish followed by brown Magic Wash.
(https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1734/41623893624_7912d933b9_z.jpg)
Looking good, that man ! :)
Cheers - phil
Very nice indeed
Take care
Andy
Stylish.
Looking very nice indeed - very well done!!!
Terry
Still not 100% happy with them. I think I will go back to the original method I devised for the BEF. Also, I still think the Germans are a little dark and may well lighten the grey further before doing the shade. If that doesn't work I will seriously have to consider commas of light grey as a highlight over the Nuln Oil. On the other hand, I do like the flesh wash and I think the Sepia will work well with brown horses. Next up a British lancer regiment mounted and dismounted with horseholder, mounted and dismounted machine gun and casualty figure to group the 1914 morale markers round.
Been on Holiday, so belated thanks for the painting details for the (H)(M) MG ;)
Bit slow off the mark here as I have already produced the first cavalry unit, mounted and dismounted by Peter Pig with mounted HMG and horseholder by TSS. Also first artillery battery (18pdrs - again by PP). will try and get those photoed and posted later.
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Those are rather good Leman.
Lovely stuff, Andy.
Most impressed !
Cheers - Phil
Like the looks of 'em, Leman. Love the lancers, makes me want to read Forester's "The General" again.
Very nice work and I love the bamboo look to the lances 8)
TBH Steve I was a bit unsure about the bamboo. The illustration in Osprey's Mons certainly shows them as bamboo, but a rather old ex-library book I have on British cavalry plumps for ash. Having reasonably successfully done the Belgian lancers as bamboo I thought I would stick with it. At the moment I know that German lances and Russian lances were painted black and that the Austrians didn't carry them any longer. The French, however, I still have to seek out.
:-bd =D> :-bd
It's nearly 20 years since I did mine, but I'm pretty sure British lances were bamboo...
French lances by 1916 were plain wood, before that, no clue!
Thanks for that Will. I will go for the plain wood for French. I do know that in the FPW the French lances were painted black and the lance pennons were not carried in combat. Pendraken have got that spot-on, unlike some manufacturers. Since I posted I've checked out the Catton-Woodville painting of the charge of the 9th Lancers at Audregnies and again the lances are bamboo, so looks like I made the right decision.
A vignette showing a dozen lions following a donkey into action would be fun. ;)
And we all know Clarke admitted to making that up. The whole Lions and Donkeys thing is very much a product of post-WWI intellectualism written by the kind of people who previously did not go to war, the 1960s with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight and the fact that the generals of all sides were trying to make decisions about a conflict of which they had no prior experience - just one of the many problems caused by rapid technological progress.
1916: You have a largely conscript army, artillery short of shells, no tanks, and an air force largely ineffective at ground attack, no tactical radio.
You face a line of entrenchments from coast to Switzerland, so no flanks.
What do you do?
But the real reason I came on this thread was to post some photos of my first pieces of artillery. These two 18pdrs represent a battery in the 1914 rules and are intended (as in actual fact) to fire over open sights.
(https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1824/42855128422_29aa58ec7d_z.jpg)
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Love those guns!
:-bd =D> :-bd =D>
Those guns look good.
Lovely looking guns. Can one of the gunners be my grand father, bombardier William Sherman Clapham RHA, enlisted before the war, was at Mons and went right through to November 1918. (see picture to the left)
Cheers Paul
Not yet, Paul. These are 18pdrs from the field artillery. However I do have 13pdrs for the RHA on order from TSS, so I will be happy to include him in the crew. Their first outing will probably be as L Battery at Nery. Incidentally, that gunner in shirtsleeves is a TSS figure; everything else is Peter Pig.
Quote from: Leman on 19 June 2018, 09:19:56 PM
Their first outing will probably be as L Battery at Nery.
That's not a very nice way to treat any one's Grandfather
Lovely stuff, Andy.
Cheers - Phil
You are right there Paul. L Battery did take a bit of a clobbering at Nery, but also put up one heck of a fight. It is also the sort of limited action that suits the 1914 rules.
Quote from: fsn on 19 June 2018, 05:44:35 PM
1916: You have a largely conscript army, artillery short of shells, no tanks, and an air force largely ineffective at ground attack, no tactical radio.
You face a line of entrenchments from coast to Switzerland, so no flanks.
What do you do?
This subject comes up frequently. I was pulling a few legs!
Still, as Monty responded to this question, Cambrai.
Come to think of it, I must throw in an interesting personal experience. I once showed my first wife (less martially-minded than the current one) a 1:3000 model of
Dreadnaught, and asked her if she could spot a design flaw. She looked for about thirty seconds, then remarked "The lookout's behind the funnel; he'll be blinded by the smoke, if not roasted". Before the RN had gone to the unimaginable expense of building a capital ship like that, they might have done well to show a few design specs to their wives for second opinions. A bit like Moliere's cook....
In other words, I think the hindsight charge is made too readily. If you're in charge of millions of lives, you dam' well cultivate foresight and imagination, or resign and make way for those who will.
Ignore.
We usually do... :P
Quote from: mad lemmey on 20 June 2018, 08:41:07 AM
We usually do... :P
Your rank protects you, sir.
For the moment.
Quote from: Leman on 19 June 2018, 06:00:19 PM
But the real reason I came on this thread was to post some photos of my first pieces of artillery. These two 18pdrs represent a battery in the 1914 rules and are intended (as in actual fact) to fire over open sights.
(https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1824/42855128422_29aa58ec7d_z.jpg)
(https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1802/42903195461_859260886e_z.jpg)
(https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1784/42002764585_de17e82b69_z.jpg)
Very nice indeed
Take care
Andy
Thanks folks, it's nice to know they will look fine in an actual game.
Talking of generals moving over in WWI, it is seldom remarked that 58 British general officers lost their lives on the battlefield. In the build up to the Somme, as one example, various assumptions were made at the planning level based on faulty information. It did look possible to break through the German lines before the troops were actually sent in. Only later did it become apparent that the artillery, for one reason or another, had not sufficiently cleared the way, e.g. there are still hundreds of thousands of unexploded shells on the Somme battlefield.
The final battalion for my initial 1914 scenario - the Highlanders. After a bit of book and internet research I decided to go for the front apron only look, leaving the rear of the kilt exposed. As I don't have the steadiest hands in the world I went for an impression of Gordon tartan, but left out the very thin yellow lines in the green and blue kilt. I also accidentally left out the red bobble on the Glengarry, but have rectified this since taking the photos. To illustrate, a front and rear shot of the command stand. Unfortunately I didn't have a piper model.
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Rather nice
:-bd =D> :-bd
Looking good !!
Cheers - Phil
Very nice indeed
Take care
Andy
Last two shots before the basing of the whole force. Boxed this command base off in two days. Took a number of shots but I think these two are the best, the first because it shows up the red cap bands clearly, and the second because it is a relatively clear shot of the whole base.
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Very nice 8)
I really love the command base. Nice!
:-bd =D> :-bd
Should the periscope binoculars be pointing the other way :-\
Everyone seems to be looking towards us but the periscope binoculars appear to be looking away :-/
I hope it isn't to hard to swap it round now
Depends which way the port was passed
X_X
Go and get your coat, Will. ;)
Cheers - Phil
Absolutely no idea about periscope binoculars. There are no lenses in the handle things on the other side so they can stay the way they are. Anyone asks I'll just tell them Pvt Baldrick set it up.
Good answer :) ;D
Very much like the officer stand as well, great staging. As to the periscope thinkee, I thought the group was lookin behind their position, a GS Officer was explaining the layout..."and then next to the horse line is the officer's latrine. Brilliantly positioned, if I may say so sir."
Well thanks for all the encouragement chaps. I have now repositioned the periscope the other way round and at a slightly jaunty angle, as you will see when i post pictures of the fully completed force.
The completed force, minus the Scottish machine gun which is still being painted. Now it is on to the German opposition.
(https://farm1.staticflickr.com/935/41722794140_d37a310e08_z.jpg)
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Those look superb Leman :-bd
:-bd =D> :-bd
Looks great
That's an amazing looking army. Nice!
Lovely stuff, Andy !! :-bd
Cheers - Phil