Support Elements

A blessedly quiet Saturday evening with the young master out of the house and the mrs. engrossed in a new book allows me to catch up on my blogging. This is a bunch of figures I had finished about 3-4 months ago but with moving the office and going under the knife, I never had time to photograph. These are the support elements of my WWII German platoon.

These are all on-table assets and include a FAO team (minus their Kubelwagen of course), two sustained-fire MG teams, a Panzerschreck element, a sniper element and a 20mm flak gun.

Here is the FAO team, from SHQ Miniatures. The minis were fine, with good sculpting. Essentially they are an officer and a 2-man radio team. I find the use of anything over 50mm mortars as tabletop assets pointless in skirmish games, so these guys can call down fire from the company or battalion 81mm mortars or 75mm guns.

Here is my sniper element. Sniper and spotter come from Elhiem Miniatures. Lovely figs indeed, but I did not do the sniper's face mask much justice. Still, with a proper amount of cover, these guys can provide good forward intel or do harm to the enemy's C&C structure.

My Panzerknacker team is up next. Although panzerfausts were ubiquitous towards the end of the war, Panzerschreck elements provided most of the platoon-level anti-tank fire power for a good portion of it. These are again Elhiem miniatures.

A tripod-mounted MG-42 team. I have two of these beauties, again from Elhiem Miniatures. They come with gunner, loader and observer. I should paint a couple of Pegasus Models Waffen SS as ammo carriers, but it can wait for a bit.

Here is my final support element; a single-barreled 20mm Flak cannon. This comes from SHQ Miniatures and it was quite difficult to put together. The instructions and attachment points were rather vague (or non existent even), so the gun may not be 100% historically accurate. I don't think I'd get another one of these, not with the excellent Zvezda gun out there. It comes also with the ammo trailer, however this has not gotten painted yet.


In my last visit to IKEA, the mrs. found the perfect boxes for me to store my miniatures. I don't remember the exact name, but they are quite large, not expensive (around 5 euros each), fit an awful lot of miniatures, come with a hinged lid, and are stackable. What's not to like?

That's all from not-unbearably hot (for once) Athens. Have a great Saturday night y'all.

Miniatures of some fame (Part I)

Going through some of my figures, I've come across several that have been "inspired" by movies, TV series and books. Here are some of them:

Indiana Jones: Or rather, the "not-Indiana-Jones" available from Elhiem Figures as the American Adventurer. Elhiem Figures has a whole bunch of interesting pulp miniatures and some great WWII stuff. Plus they are super to deal with. I removed Indie's gun and created a whip from thin copper wire and superglue. The knife on the left hand is sculpted rather awkwardly, so I cut it off at the wrist and repositioned it. Other, than that, it's a great miniature to paint and at a price that is hard to beat. Now, let's go kick some Nazi butt.

Mizz Whip: Again from Elhiem Figures. Although not from any particular movie per se, hot Nazi chicks with whips are a mainstay in the pulp genre. Real easy miniature to paint and an excellent foil/love interest for Indiana.

Flash Gordon: Wargames Supply Dump has a series of heroic 28mm miniatures (essentially 30-32 millimeters tall) set in a "not-Flash-Gordon" universe. This is Dick Garrison, a.k.a. Flash Gordon. The miniatures offer excellent value for money and Roger, who owns Wargames Supply Dump, is great to deal with. One of the friendliest persons I've met on the miniature business to date.

Ming the Merciless: Or rather, Khang the Compassionless. Again, from the Dick Garrison series. For it's price (a bit under 2 British pounds) this is an excellent figure. Great sculpting, tons of detail and clean casting. If you are into pulpy sci-fi, you can do much worse, but not easily better.

Alien Queen: "Seventeen days? Hey man, I don't wanna rain on your parade, but we're not gonna last seventeen hours!" Ah, the queenie from Aliens. Sculpted in 15mm scale by Khurasan Miniatures, its one of their Space Demon line. There are several different sculpts on this particular line, some inspired from the Alien franchise and some from Pitch Black. Highly recommended if you are into 15mm science fiction.

That's all for now from (still unseasonably) warm Athens. Goodnight to all.