A Serbian Division for 1914

I think the next major project may be in sight - a Serbian division 1914 for Great War Spearhead in 20mm ... HaT, and Tumbling Dice, figures.

In the new year there will also be an order for figures for the Great Northern War (Volley and Bayonet). Looks as if 2025 has been a good year.

Last of the 20mm cavalry .. for now

In my current flurry of painting I have focussed on completing several boxes of 20mm WW1 cavalry. I am planning ahead to 2026 and the 25th anniversary of Great War Spearhead, and have in mind some epic eastern front cavalry battles. Digging through the plastic and lead pile, I first found three unpainted late war German dragoons.

Strelets late war German dragoons

And then I found some B&B Miniatures Great War Indian cavalry and infantry left over from the initial painting bout. Now I'm not sure when that first batch was painted, but the remaining figures were still in their original postal packaging, and the envelope was postmarked 2005 .. whew...

There were three infantry left over. These days I typically put 2 x 20mm infantry figures on a base, but that would have left one figure left over.. hmm.. a three figure base it is.

That's it. However the next projects are already apparent:  20mm Serbians for Great War Spearhead, and Swedes and Russians in 15mm for Great Northern War played using the Volley and Bayonet rules.

In the jungle...

 In the jungle, the peaceful jungle ... 

Well actually the first outing with my Japanese in a game of Crossfire with Andy, and the first table top outing for Andy's US Marines. Our armies are modelled using 20mm figures.

We got many things wrong, as we play it so rarely (unfortunately). Those errors skewed the outcome to look like a Japanese victory. It actually wasn't. Just a few photos.. we were too busy playing, drinking beer and coffee, eating savouries, and yarning, to take enough photos for an AAR.

Russian Dragoons 1914, and ....

Nearly at the end of the WW1 cavalry .... 'thing'.. 'project'... whatever you prefer to call it .. with the completion of 12 Strelets 20mm Russian Dragoons. The dismounted component on each stand is represented with some HaT Russian infantry. These are not an accurate representation of dismounted dragoons, but with the characteristic blue trousers they will do. 'Rivet Counters' need not respond.

So here is the obligatory 'group photo' of the work of the last month or so as I've painted up the WWW1 cavalry that have sat in that 'TBP' (to be painted) pile for 1-+ years.

Russians on the left, Germans on the right

Given the lower strengths of cavalry divisions, this represents the fighting stands for nearly a complete cavalry division for each army using the Great War Spearhead rules (may 2-3 stands short). Each stand represents a squadron'. There are of course support stands included in the OOB, but these may have to be proxied from an infantry formation. I am eyeing up some fictional divisional level actions as possible scenarios for the future. Watch this space.

German Uhlans, 1914

World War 1 may not be known for its cavalry, but armies retained extant cavalry forces throughout the war, cavalry played an important part in the opening weeks and months of warfare in Belgium and France, and of course played a larger role in battle through the war on the eastern front and the middle east.

These German Uhlan (Strelets, 20mm) are the next step in modelling forces for some possible cavalry actions using the Great War Spearhead rules. The foot figures are the HaT German Jager.. and very nice figures too.

The end is nigh ...

Well, the end of the year, anyway... and so it was a week of lighter games, the first a HotT with Jon, and the second the annual 'Snoopy's Christmas' games night hosted by Keith, in which we play games of Wings of War/Wings of Glory .. both evenings were enormous fun. 

The HotT game saw spiders vs pirates... the spiders were ever victorious

And then ....

Swirling dogfights ...

... and some balloon busting

German Hussars 1914

I bought boxes of Strelets 20mm WW1 cavalry a long time ago .. soon after they first came out. I had some grand plan to paint them up, but was stymied because I had no dismounted equivalents. I like to base WW1 cavalry with one mounted and one foot figure [er base. It's my own slight affectation, my way of visually representing the fact that they tended to fight dismounted (apart from those early months in 1915, and some significant work on the eastern front).The idea then struck me, just use some Jager as dismounted figures.. don't even try to create dismounted Hussars and Uhlans. Righto.. this next batch (after the Russian Cossacks, who will be suitable opponents), is a box of 12 German Hussars. 

Source: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/german-hussar.html

This is all progress, as I continue to think about the sorts of battles we might fight in 2026 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Great War Spearhead. One thing's for sure, they will feature cavalry, something we have not done to any degree in our games (apart from a refight of the Battle of Halen with Robert way back in 2008, when we had to proxy foot figures).