The WW2 bug is still very much around and I’ve now started painting the infantry in the German collection that was given to me. Starting with the Grenadiers, from Warlord Games’ plastic kit line.
I have 2 squads of these in the 1000pt list I’ve written up, both imaginatively armed in the exact same manner! 8 men, two as an MG team, one with Panzerfaust, and the rest with rifles.
I painted these using Duncan Rhodes’ guide, following the steps exactly up until some of the more detailed highlights that I skipped.
These were based with more base ready materials, this time the Scrublands mix. I think it looks quite nice, especially given the low amount of effort required!
I’ve been on a bit of a journey with these models, building and painting models that are evil in fantasy and sci-fi settings is one thing, but these are miniature representations of an organisation that caused harm in an unprecedented scaled to real people. I’ve had serious misgivings about painting and posting about this army, but at the end of the day I think historical wargaming can have a positive role in helping us and others keep in mind what happened in the past.
This is a bit more of a serious tone than usual on the blog, but I did want to address this as I think it’s important. I’ll probably talk some more about all this when I get to the troops of a more political nature…
Lair of the Lagomorph 
I understand your reservations. Mrs. GG is more sensitive to this kind of thing than I am but even I have grown more sensitive to it over the years. With me finding a recent interest in Chain of Command I am having to ask myself if I am prepared to paint and play these troops. I have even toyed with the idea of using these figures painted up slightly different for a fictional alternate Earth, using the setting for 7th Sea but instead set in the 20th Century.
All that aside, you have done a great job assembling and painting these figures. I particularly like how you did the camouflage.
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Thanks! It’s definitely an interesting topic, and really up to each person how they want to handle it. One of the decisions I made here was to not paint them as any particular real world unit, they’re all generic stand-ins. This is in contrast to my allied troops that are all based on units that took part in actions that caught my attention in one way or another.
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Very nice minis! 🙂 Some interesting thoughts on historical armies but in many cases it may be difficult to separate the behaviour of the army from the behaviour of the regime in power behind it. With hindsight few are going to praise Stalin’s Soviet regime but the Russian Army played a (if not the) decisive role in defeating Germany in WW2. I would imagine by the time we get to the year 40,000 (if we ever do) then there will still be some unsavoury characters out there! I find researching and building my historical armies gives me a better understanding of armed forces in a historical setting, remembering that they were a product of their age. However, the good thing about a hobby is that you’re free to do what you want to. I for one like seeing your minis, fantasy or historical.
On a different note, did you get my e-mail on making flags?
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Thanks John, found your email thanks for that, very helpful! I agree with you there, part of what I enjoy about historical minis is the research work that goes into understanding them. If painting a set of models prompts someone to read further into their history, I can only think of that as a net positive. Good or bad, what happened happened, and it’s important to not forget it and learn from it.
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I can relate to your reservations on historical wargaming. I think something as recent as WWII causes you pause even more because there are still people alive who suffered through it. That just seems too real to turn into a game where an Ancient Greek or Roman army doesn’t carry the same weight. I feel lucky to not be too interested in modern historical wargames so I don’t have any moral qualms about gaming in a fantasy or post-apocalyptic setting.
With that said, I really like how these soldiers look! As someone who doesn’t own anything from Warlord, I’m not overly impressed by how the minis look painted on their website. Many of faces look so-so and not very lifelike, for example. In these pictures, they look great and the fatigues they’re wearing really pop! Maybe I’d actually want to play in the WWII setting if I’d seen more minis as nicely painted as yours! 🙂
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Thanks! You’re quite right about the closeness of WW2 having an impact here, the Romans were pretty horrendous to a lot of people but that’s so long ago it’s lost some of its sting. Some of my grandparents lived under Nazi occupation in France, so that’s pretty close to me even if I never lived it. That’s part of why I’m so interested in the period, but also why I want to make sure I treat it with the care required.
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These models look rather excellent as well, though I can’t click them to see larger pics. 😦
I’ve been having a bit of the same dilemma myself as I’ve gotten back into building Flames of War stuff. Back when my (old) group started it, I got into it a bit later than others and felt I had to go German as we already had an American and Soviet player as well as more than one British and from memory only 1 German – so I went for DAK rather than something like SS.
Now I’m wanting to move to being able to play multiple other time periods and locales within the war, and my current setup requires me to collect and paint both sides, so I get to do both Soviets and Germans for EF for example, and so that’s going to be interesting once I get to things like SS infantry…
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Thanks! Interesting that you can’t see larger pictures, I’m not sure why that is. I had similar thoughts regarding DAK when our group started talking about bolt action, North Africa being the theatre where I was “OK” playing Germans. We ended up deciding to play late war instead to get started. I will be painting up some SS myself for this army, there were plenty of SS in Normandy and not including them feels a bit too much like rewriting history to hide the unpleasant bits. I’ll just use them as an opportunity to discuss those unpleasant bits.
I’ve been thinking about playing North Africa and using the different theatre as an opportunity to try out Flames of War, how are you finding it?
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I’m not sure – clicking doesn’t do anything to them….
And yeah, I’ll have forces that can represent both SS and Heer – mostly by virtue of them being prety much identical as long as I leave divisional insignia off the armour. Infantry are a bit more distinctive, but I’ll live with it ultimately as the Americans, British and Soviets need someone to fight!
That’s also one of the reasons I went with DAK – as “clean” as WWII got, really – “war without hate”, refusal to execute Hitler’s “Commando Order”, etc…
I’m just getting back into FoW with 4th after not having played since 1st/2nd so I’m still a newb, but I’m having fun so far. I’m finding a lot depends on how competitively you’re playing as it’s been “40k’ed” to an extent in the army building and min-maxing (though not as badly as 40k 8/9th) but like 40k, if you’re playing a low-stress friendly game it’s pretty fun. Have only been able to play a couple of times due to my broken knee, but looking forward to getting in a bunch more games as everything else wraps up for Christmas.
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Sounds great, I’m definitely in the get the game to tell a story camp rather than competitive, so I might look into it!
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It’s like anything in that sense – it really just depends on who ou’re playing with and their mentality. I understand that some people even play 40k in that way, or would have liked to, but they apparently drowned in all of the special rules spread across 14 sources to play their two armies….
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