I have painted or collected numerous German uniformed forces for Flames of War. Ironically, I never got round to putting together infantry in the 1940 uniform for early to mid war! Almost everything I have is mid-late. Not having Germans in jackboots just seems wrong! I decided to rectify that and build a force. I started by looking at offerings at various HMGS event flea markets for a while and checking out eBay. However, I either did not like what I saw or it was too expensive for the quality. I finally decided to order the troops from Gajo, before they sold off that portion of their catalog.
They had a number of listings in both older metal and newer plastics. I asked for some photos and decided to go with the newer plastics. Mostly, because that selection had much more depth to work from. There were a couple of anomalies on the figures, but I decided I would go ahead and just adjust them, once I got them.
I started with the base infantry and support weapons units for an infantry company. As usual, I got one extra platoon of troops, to give me some flexibility. I also wanted enough flame throwers to field the force as both an infantry and an engineer company. I usually try to do this, if I can get the flamethrowers! Since the infantry units can have two HMGs attached, I got two platoons of MMGs, so I would have enough for that or to field them separately. I rounded off with a mortar platoon and an HQ. The units did not include light mortars or ATRs for early war, but they had some in their older line and I got enough of those for the four platoons.
I was thinking of pimping up the infantry on the sprues they came delivered on, but I decided not to and just do it when they were on the bases. So, I clipped off all the troops and organized them. I sprayed the bases brown and glued down all the figures. I left off the laying down figures, as it would be easier to do the bashing and then add them, then the otters way around.
I then got to work on doing a little corrective action. The first this I did not like was that all the heavy weapons were painted bright silver, I just hit these with contrast black to tone them down. It was an odd choice, as the regular barrels are dark gray, but easily fixed. I then repainted a few items, like tripods and boxes, dark gray. Some were already gray, so I just added a black wash to darken them, which was easier than repainting them completely.
The other stand out issue for me was the helmets and gas masks. The later were painted silver and these were all repainted with Vallejo German Uniform. The helmets were done in a steel blue/gray color. I went back and forth on this and finally decided to go with the earlier dark field gray look. I used German uniform for that too. With that, the color corrections were done. Looking at the photos, I may need to go back and do something about those ponchos…
I opted to go with Muddy Paw for the basing. I used my darker earth mix and finished up all the bases. After all that dried, I glued flocking on all the bases and added a number of tufts to each base for a spring/early summer look. I finished by painting the boarders of the bases with Vallejo Dark Earth.
With that, I finally have the infantry I need for early to mid war. Next, I have to work on the heavy weapons for the force!
- Manteuffel