Early War German Specialists

Some might remember the Panzer II I painted a few weeks back. Over the past few days I finally came round to start painting some accompanying Infantry.

 

When I started this project (well it was more an impulse buy than anything else) I went with the plastic Blitzkrieg German Pioniers from Warlord Games. As astute readers of this humble blog presumably will know, I'm not a big fan of the Warlord Games ranges of products.Or better I wasn't.

This fine set of plastic figures has changed it all. While I consider most of the other WG stuff I have as mediochre to good at best these guys are different. Not the usual over exaggerated faces, not the flimsy weapons (ok this issue already was solved after the Late War Germans) or meagre arms I came to expect from Warlord Games plastic. Instead you get highly detailed figures with quite some character.

For my Early War Germans I opted for a city rubble scenery to go with the Russians I did recently. I'm not entirely sure if I'm happy as they are or if they eventually need some fallen leaves and the like.

As I wasn't happy with the Granatbüchse 39 that came with the set I went for it's predecessor the Panzerbüchse 39 anti tank rifle that I had left over from another project. For the sandbags I used the new Renedra ones but I'm a bit ambivalent about their quality. On the one side they're ready to use so you don't have to make your ones out of Green Stuff or the like, on the other side they're not that detailed and fairly expensive too.

The Sniper originally is a metal Westwind model from their Secrets of the third Reich range. As I at all costs wanted to have a Sniper clad in his Zeltbahn I had to do some major surgery in order to remove the odd weapon and head he was sporting. Instead I gave him a new hand with plastic rifle and one of the metal heads that came with the Pioniers box.

Decals again are from Warlord Games and I'm quite pleased how they give that last touch to the models clearly saying "Early War". The only thing about these models I could niggle about is they all are sporting the Wehrmacht gas plane pouch which makes them only really usable till early in 1941 when they were withdrawn from the front and brought into the depots as there were no immediate gas attacks to expect.

Till next week I hope to get some more Infantry done. So thanks for watching and hope you enjoyed.