Ruperts on the way to the Rhine and other WWII British (Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge entry #5.1)

Today I finally get around to show what I did between the second and third fortnight goals for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, namely the beginnings of my WWII British Rifle company. Well not really, as those who have followed this blog since the beginning, since I already painted all but one of the NCO´s, three medics and two snipers in 2012 (you can find the post here). Again the Miniatures are a mix of Victory Force Miniatures [VFM], pre-Warlord Games Bolt Action [BAM], Warlord Games (metal only) [WG] and Artizan [Art]. These were painted as three batches, but I wanted to varnish and base them in one go, so it took me a while longer to post them to Curt.

Up first are the Officers (Ruperts as most British soldiers call them… hence the pun in the title). Left to right these are BAM, WG, VFM and two Art. I feel that usually all lines mix quiet well (if you discount the Warlord Games minis having slimmer faces). In this case the WG officer is noticeably smaller, but I liked that mini too much not to paint him. All officers are from the infantry, except the one to the far right, who is painted to come from an armored formation.

British Officers

Next we have a radio operator [WG] and the remaining NCO [VFM].

British Radioman and NCO

While I will tackle the riflemen in another couple of batches soon, I already did the section firepower, namely the Bren teams. The one to the far right is BAM, all the others are VFM. What always irritates me about the old Bolt Action British are their faces. If you look at the other work from Paul Hicks, they are so immensely detailed when it comes to the faces. I could never understand why these are so featureless. Probably part of the reason, why Warlord replaced them with new sculpts (thank god without those cartoonish faces sported by some of their other WWII ranges).

British Bren teams

To complete the rifle companies heavy fire power, here are the PIAT teams. The first one is from BAM.

British Piat Team on the move [BAM]

Up next the first in firing pose from VFM.

British PIAT team [VFM]

And last another one in firing pose from BAM. One of the few sets in the old range that had decent faces. The German Panzer in the photo was not painted as part of the Challenge and is just there for the atmosphere.

British PIAT team [BAM]

Now we have some serious firepower. While not part of the company level assets, a scenario can always require you to have a Vickers or two and looks wise, this has always been one of my favorites machine guns of WWII, So I could not do without. The first one is BAM. The gunner does not look as nice as he could, but I still had it lying around and if you want two Vickers, more variety looks better on the table. The loader for this one gave me no joy. When I was doing the sand on the bases (always do that after painting and varnish) he slipped my fingers and dropped into the open can with brown paint. I pulled him out before he could go under and put him under running water,  but the damage had been done and I had to paint him once more. 😦

British Vickers team [BAM]

The other Vickers is by WG. All around a lovely set and maybe my favorite from their whole British range.

British Vickers team [WG]

British Vickers team [WG]

Now some of you may have spotted some should flashes in the previous photos. All these men are meant to be from the 1st South Lancashires. 3rd (British) Infantry Division was an easy choice for me, since they landed on D-Day and saw action in many of the major operations of the war. So there is a lot of milage in them. The Regiments are distinguished by the bars under the flash (one in case of the 1st South Lancs) so they can easily pass as one of the other regiments on the tabletop. And I can live with patches for the wrong unit in case I want to replay something where troops from a different Division took part. The choice for the 1st South Lancs is actually a little more obscure. There are some things about the D-Day landings I absolutely want to replay and one of them is Sword Beach: Queen White (Brèche d´Hermanville) and this was their landing beach. If you want to know more about the Regiment, you can find a very good summary of their actions on the website of the Lancashire Infantry Museum. 

Anyway, here is a picture showing the unit flash. These were painted freehand on both the left and right arm of all the minis. Again this gave me some greif, since I managed to paint the colors of the triangle in reverse on both the 2nd and 3rd batch and I had to go back to these.

1st South Lancs shoulder flash

So to give an idea of them all, here is a group shot. 28 minis in total.

British group shot

Up in the next post there will be some German armor, although from the early war period. So stay tuned!