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Showing posts with label 28mm WW1 in the East. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 28mm WW1 in the East. Show all posts
Welcome to another Troops on Parade feature here at Yarkshire Gamer, regulars will know that the TOP prefix to a post means that you are about to see one of the many of collections in its full glory. At the end of the day this is just an excuse to get a load of figures on the table 😁
This collection represents the Turkish Army of WW1 and is a regular on the table here in our regular Mesopotamia games (see the WW1 in the East tab at the side of the blog).
Our scale is 28mm (of course), the vast majority of the figures are from Woodbine Design Company, a part of Gripping Beast, links to the figures are below.
For rules we use the wonderful If the Lord Spares Us by Toofatlardies
This post contains lots of still photos of the figures, if you prefer a video version, then the link to that is below.
First up with the Photos is the Artillery, 2 bases from Woodbine and 2 from Tiger Miniatures, all 75mm Krupp Guns
After that we move onto a unit of 24 Lancers from the rather obscure if lovely East Ablaze range from Minifigs (yes that Minifigs !), link to the range below
The remainder of the Army is Infantry, consisting of 8 battalions.
There is a selection of High Command Figures
The regular Turkish Infantry, these units have 2 Command Figures and 4 companies of 8 figures.
Then there are 3 Arab Turkish Infantry Battalions, these have 4 x 6 figure companies, again with 2 Command Figures.
And to finish off a unit of Stormtroopers which have 8 figure companies, each unit has an attached Machine Gun base. The figures are all from Woodbine Design and can be found on the link below.
Hope you have enjoyed that little trip round my WW1 Turkish Army. Hopefully it will be on the table soon for our delayed Christmas Game. If you missed it first time round the video of the opposing British and Empire force is below.
This time of year we would normally be bigging it up large, as the kids would say and playing our traditional WW1 Mesopotamia. We are due to continue a series of games covering the attempts to relieve the Siege of Kut, next up was the Battle of the Wadi.
Unfortunately the Rona has done our legs again so no Xmas game this year. So with the table empty it was time for another Troops on Parade feature, this time with the Mesopotamia collection, it might be its only outing of the Year.
So whilst the hobby main stream bang on about big games being unachievable and how everyone wants to replay major battles in 10 minutes on a 2 ft square, Yarkshire Gamer draws the line in the sand as says no !
Don't look at a big battle and say "I can't do that, it will take too long", say "Wow, how impressive is that, I want to work really hard and achieve something similar !"
Start the fight back by watching this video,
Now that won't help the fight too much, but it will increase my views and subscribers 😀
The rest of the post will be stills and ramblings from the video.
The Cavalry are relatively new to the collection, these Indian Cavalry are from Newline Designs which reminds we I need to order some more.
I just love the sight of buckets full of painted 28mm, it took me ten years to put these together and I'm damn proud of the collections I put together, I want to play big games with them on big tables that take days to do so and also include fish and chips !
I shout out to those big battle people who are left, in the attics and outbuildings of the nation, pressured to do an "army" thats smaller than most of your units. Stand tall, stand proud, stand in your local supermarket and shout "I like it BIG !"
And when you get back from the Magistrates Court, get em out on the table and game for hours.
Still with me, nice one - we should have seen off the micro gamers now 😎 above is the first brigade of troops, most units are 34 figures strong. A 2 fig HQ unit and 4 x 8 figure companies. 4 battalions here, Cheshire Battalion, RND, Gurkhas and a Sikh unit. The Yarkshire Tea box is one of my favourites.
The second brigade has Highlanders, Hindus, Ox Bucks and Sikhs. Most figs in the collection are Woodbine Design Company but I also have Minifigs, Empress, Great War, Aritizan and Newline.
The third Brigade features 3 Battalions of Anzac Troops with some Arab Irregulars lurking at the back.
The fourth Brigade is a work in progress with two Hindu units at the moment, I'm going to add a British Battalion with the new Empress Miniatures figs and an as yet undecided 4th unit, maybe more Gurkhas ? Prominent in this photo are two Signallers from Great War Miniatures, I love this set, full of character, a bit Western Front, but who cares when they are this good !
Some detail shots now, 2 x Sikh Battalions, note the British Officers.
The growing Cavalry force, my British Cavalry are early war Western Front figures with Woodbine Design head swaps, courtesy of my mate Harry, painted up by me, horses in oils on white undercoat and figures in acrylic on black. An interesting challenge on a one piece casting 🤔
Irregular Arab Cavalry from Artizan.
Centre of the picture are Woodbine Design Gurkhas with Lawrence of Arabia doing a photo bomb 💣
The Royal Naval Detachment unit, love the caps and faces on these guys.
Who doesn't want to game with masses of troops ?
We are so lucky as gamers today to have so many great looking figure ranges from so many different manufacturers. Each one of the figures in this picture is different and so many have their own little character.
Did I mention that there are Highlanders.
And guns !
So thats all folks, at least the collection saw the light of day this year. I will do a similar feature for the Turkish forces soon.
Those in the know will be aware of my deep dive into the world of the obscure when it comes to my search for suitable figures for Cavalry for Mesopotamia and Palestine in WW1. With Brigade Games a very expensive postage charge away in the US my search has finally hit gold.
God knows how I found these, some random tinterwebnet search during a bout of insomnia probably. So these are from a Company called Newline Designs and they are hidden away deep in the depths of their website. I struggle to find them now and I've bought some in the past !
But if you can negotiate the minefield in the drive, beat the dogs and cheat the cold electronic eyes, make it past the shotguns in the hall, dial the combination to open the priest hole, you too might find these figures to by on the Newline Website.
Newline (to me anyway) are better known for their 20mm Napoleonic range, these Cavalry sit will a couple of packs of late colonial infantry all on their own. I bought and painted 6 of them a few months ago, liked how they looked and bought another 18 to make up a unit.
So if you are new to wargames and are more used to the modern skirmish style of gaming, this is what a proper unit looks like ! 24 figures is bigger than most armies these days 🤣
The figures come with metal Lances but they looked a bit small to me, I also prefer the steel wire pikes for strength and the sharp pointed ends deter anyone from picking them up in a hurry, so I cut down some 100mm pikes I had lying around. I also used a couple of sword hands I had lying around in my Crusades spares box for the officers.
I've not been able to find any pictures of these troops with lance pennants in Mesopotamia so I have left them off the models. Likewise I have left the rifles off the side of the saddle, I found that (with no pin and guide hole) the connection was very fragile and interfered with the position of the lance on a number of poses so I left them off. If it's going to break whilst I'm building it, it's definitely going to break when being moved around in game action.
So with Covid still around and us Northerners remaining in Tier 3 despite massively reduced infection rates there will be no Xmas Game this year for these guys to make their debut in. Things will be going very ancient here very shortly but I've seen that Newline are having a 25% sale in January, which could well mean another unit !
A quick review post today of some more contenders in my search for 28mm Cavalry for Mesopotamia Palestine etc. Regular readers will have seen me try out a number of different companies figures over the last year or so in a search for more options for our WW1 games.
These cavalry come from a company called Tiger Miniatures, I found them on some random Google safari looking for new dealers for my lead habit, link below for details
The figures are for the Balkan Wars which occurred between 1912 - 13 just before our WW1 games, but there is nothing on these figures my untrained eye can see that would rule them out for Mesopotamia.
The figures are reasonably priced at £5.50 for two. Detail on the figures is reasonable, however there is not a lot of detail that could be added to what essentially is a featureless uniform. I do like the faces, lots of nice character in them. Size wise they are quite large, much bigger than the Minifigs East Ablaze Turkish Cavalry I looked at earlier this year.
The horses work well with the Yarkshire Gamer oil wipe method which is a big bonus. So the big question is whether I will get any more ?
The answer is yes, I have 6 so far so another 18 to make up a full unit of 24 is a must and the order will go out very soon. Very happy with these as another option for my Cavalry. Empress Miniatures have brought some new 28mm British Infantry suitable for the period and there is a whiff of some Cavalry too.
Next up in the Cavalry search will be some Newline Designs Indian Lancers due sometime before Xmas.
With gaming still on hold the new units keep rolling off the production line and this month I've added to the 28mm WW1 Mesopotamia collection, it looks like our Xmas 20 game will be off with Pandemic so it could be a long while before these see any action.
I've added a battalion of Indian Infantry (2 x HQ, 4 companies of 8 figures with an MG) a couple of Artillery Pieces and a 4 figure Brigade Command.
The figures all come from Woodbine Design Company and mighty fine they are too, once I've added the cavalry I've got in the to do pile I'll definitely do a Troops on Parade feature on my Mesopotamia stuff, probably in lieu of our Xmas Game.
The HQ section for the battalion consists of one figure from a British Officer set whilst the other is a spare from the gun battery. The guns come with 6 figures which is too much for my basing so the extra figures always come in handy for extra commanders.
The machine gun base forms a nice little mini diorama.
I drop my flesh tone triad down a step for my Indian Infantry, base of Hull red, mid tone of Flat Earth and a highlight of a 50 50 mix of Flat Earth and Biege Red. I've also used a very selective wash of Strong Tone on the turban, weapons and leather kit, I find that a complete figure wash dulls the colours down too much.
I'm really happy with the gun crews, I have some of these in the existing collection but always seem to run out of models for games and end up having batteries "off table", these will give me more on table options.
Some nice posing of the models gives a really good sense of a battery in action.
On the paint table at the moment I've got some 28mm Italian Wars, some TAG figures for a Borgia Shot unit to go with my Borgia Pike Block. I am also trying a few different things with some 15mm WW2 German Infantry trying to get a look I am happy with before I go full out on the stuff I need to do.
