2ème Division Blindée – Support Teams

I’ve had plans to put together a Bolt Action army themed around the 2ème DB for quite a while now, and with renewed WW2 inspiration in the past few weeks I’ve made a bit of time to turn plans into reality. While painting my 6th airborne roughly a year ago I was listening to the audiobook version of Anthony Beevor’s “D-Day: The Battle for Normandy”, and his retelling of the liberation of Paris by the division struck a chord with me. Since then I’ve been gathering research materials and reading up what I can find on the history behind the creation and the actions of the division. The 9th company of the RMT (Régiment de Marche du Tchad) “La Nueve”, so called because it was home to many spanish revolutionary exiles, were first in Paris, and are who I’m going to mostly focus on in this army. This will mostly impact the vehicle painting, as most if not all of the vehicles in the 2ème DB were named, and had those names painted on them. In “La Nueve”, those names were based on important Spanish civil war battles and republican leaders. The division being mechanised there will be many vehicles to paint! I currently have 3 Half Tracks and an M8 Scott for the army, and I’m eyeing off some more vehicles.

These first models are the support weapons I’m thinking of including in the army. I assembled these first as they require the most specific poses. I’ll put together the regular infantry next without having to worry about whether I’m leaving the right parts for the support weapons!

The 2ème DB, as all late war Free French unit, were outfitted by the Americans so I used Perry Miniature’s late war US Infantry plastic set and their matching 60mm mortar metal kit.

The paintjobs are quick, done in two sittings, but should look good enough on the table. I’m mostly excited to get to the vehicles! I experimented with the bases some, trying out for the first time something else I’ve had for a while but never used: Green Stuff World’s Leaf Punches, specifically the oak leaf punch they make. I used dead leaves from the garden as the starting point, punching these small leaves out of them. These leaves are a bit out of scale for these models but I’m quite satisfied with the effect otherwise.