With last year’s release of British D-Day British lists, I decided to go through my British infantry collection and get it up to date with version four. I had painted them as Polish infantry (black berets), for playing Polish serving in Italy and later France. I had been waiting for this book and the airborne book to come out, as it would fill in the blanks on any remaining questions I had about how to organize the forces. I wanted to compare these with the previously released mid war forces, so I could cover my bases. Fortunately, the formations are basically the same, so that made life a little easier.
So, sitting down with my new unit cards, I pulled out my painted and mostly painted British troops and got to work. A little remounting was necessary (V4 has far few small command stands and no artillery staff teams), but it was mostly just a case of putting the platoons together in the right sizes and ensuring the support weapons were organized correctly. However, I had pirated some of my beret figures for use as Commandos, so I had a number of gaps and ended up being short a couple small weapon stands. With that figured out, I finished painting another twenty something figures to fill the remainder of my infantry units. I then based them to match the existing troops, so everything would blend together. In truth, I finished the painting a few months ago and just had the stands sitting on my painting table. I finally got tired of looking at them and finished the basing! It did not hurt that I wanted a short break from painting Star Wars figures!
With everything matched up, the army is ready for the tabletop! Well, almost…. I managed to misplace the 6B ATGs, so ordered some and am awaiting their arrival. Until then, the force is ready to go with some infantry to support my Polish armor, at least until I decide to add more dudes….
- Manteuffel