"15mm WWII US Airborne - Temperate" Topic

All,

Greetings, yes, it's been awhile. Man, I feel ill, I haven't played a wargame in… well, I can't even remember when! But don't think I haven't been working, I've been spending all my wargaming time painting up new 15mm forces. As previously, I've bought quite a bit off of Ebay, Gajo Minis, my buddy AJ, and TMP Marketplace, in addition to painting troops up myself, and although I've made great use of already-painted troops, I generally still have to spend a considerable amount of time touching things up and basing them. In any case, I'm starting off with these guys since I painted them all myself. I actually bought them painted from four different sources, but since they didn't match, I decided to just completely re-do them. So, what are we talking about?

Well, we're talking about my 15mm U.S. Airborne force based for temperate climes, i.e., Normandy, Market Garden, maybe even Varsity.

Here it is, the entire force. If you're looking at it as one stand = one squad or weapons team*, then I have:
-Commanding Officer
-Executive Officer
-Five Rifle Platoons (three squads + Platoon Commander -PC- and Bazooka team)
-An MG Platoon (three M1919s and a PC)
-An Anti-Tank Gun Platoon (two M1 57mm guns and a PC)
-An Artillery Platoon (two 75mm pack howitzers and a PC)
-A Mortar Platoon (three 60mm tubes and a PC)
-A Heavy Mortar Platoon (two 81mm tubes and a PC)

*I say it in those terms because lately I've got a hankering to play some higher echelon games, where one stand = a platoon, or even a company! We'll see how I get on, more to follow.

Some hardcore para command stands, Battlefront plastics.

Some riflemen advancing.

A pack howitzer in action.

To see a boatload more pics of these guys, please check the blog at:
link

I couldn't be more happy with how these guys turned out, a good looking force ready to drop on the unsuspecting Krauts and wreak havoc. Or Japanese; I suppose I could use these guys for Burma, New Guinea, and the Philippines, too.

In any case, this is the first of MANY posts I"m going to make in rapid succession in order to show you what I've been up to.

V/R,
Jack

Really nice work. Any idea how they'd match up to Peter Pig minis?

Good to see you back and are well! As always good looking troops. A versatile and formidable force. You definitely have been busy, detail and breakdown on the unit was dead on. Gonna be great
following your future posts. What rule set did you decide
on or are you doing a homebrew set?

Semper Fi,

Sam

Nascati- Thank you, and it's your lucky day, I've got both:

Forgive me as I've not quite finished the Peter Pig paratroopers, and they're based singly for a skirmish project (which is why I stacked them up in the second picture, trying to get them the same base-level height) but you can see the PP figures are a bit shorter and slighter than the Battlefront plastics. Or more realistically proportioned, depending on your taste ;)

Sam – Semper Fidelis, glad to see you're still kicking! As always, I appreciate the kind words, and negative, I have not yet settled on a set of rules. The aggravation with that has helped to keep me at the painting table, rather than the gaming table, unfortunately, but I hope to see that remedied soon.

V/R,
Jack

Jack, thanks for the photos. I'm a big fan of Peter Pig minis. Mine are all singly mounted for skirmish games. I don't generally like to mix, but I'm always on the lookout.

Yes, me too, got lots of Piggies and I love them, but I've pretty much only bought them for my singly mounted skirmish games for some reason. And I'm definitely not a fan of mixing; it's not that it looks that bad on the tabletop, it's just sort of a mental hangup for me…

In term of when I started doing 15mm element-based troops, my wife bought me some Battlefront, so I've been worried about keeping it uniform, and then when I look to buy stuff I'm usually looking on Ebay, and while there are always tons of large lots of Battlefront stuff, I pretty much never see large lots of Peter Pig stuff. Guess everybody that buys Peter Pig finishes their projects and loves their minis! ;)

Happy to help!

V/R,
Jack

Those look really great, Jack!

Jack, these look great. I think you can mix piggies with battlefront. People come in various sizes.
For rules have you looked at battlefront with a couple of mods? That is what I am going g to use. Hope to start working on battalion forward this year!
Got your email, you have been busy! Will respond today or tomorrow.

Joe

Thanks, Cap'n!

Joe – I appreciate it. Regarding mixing, you're free to do whatever you want ;) And:
"People come in various sizes."
You must be short ;) In any case, yes, people come in various sizes, but weapons and gear don't. It looks strange when you have different sized M-1 Garands, to me.

No rush on the email.

V/R,
Jack

Jack, 6'3'' and up to 250 unfortunately. :)
The size of the garand is small stuff my friend at 15mm. Not even a full 1mm. That bothers you but not ridges from 3d printing?

Joe

Joe,

Oh my, you officers are soooooooo prone to exaggeration ;)

Regarding the size differences and striations on 3D printing, well, we all have our own curiosities and foibles. I didn't say it had to bother anyone else to have Battlefront and Peter Pig guys mixed together, I just said it bothers me ;)

And you may notice that since I bought those handful of 3D printed vehicles, they have really seen the table, whilst I've purchased over a hundred non-3D printed vehicles in the interim. So, maybe that kinda bothers me, too ;)

V/R,
Jack