12 November 2013

The Great War Project #1: Over the top!

"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time"
Sir Edward Grey August 3rd 1914

I know I'm a bit late for remembrance day (not beeing celebrated over here in Germany anyway) but painting and especially basing took longer than anticipated.

This small Vignette (Pinmarker or similiar) of a fallen German soldier of the later period of the Great War is intended to be the start of my next big project. Gaming the Great War in 28mm.




The casualty is from the superb range of 'Late War Germans' by Great War Miniatures. On the pics the bricks unfortunately look a bit out of scale.

Somehow this project is on my mind for quite some time now and following great blogs like 'Roundwood's World' by Sidney or the superb 'Analogue Hobbies' by Curt didn't make things easier to resist.
Lately I decided to give in and aquired a bunch of particular well painted Germans. These will form the core of my German Army and later will get some touch ups. This way I can concentrate on doing some heavy weapons etc. and then go on to the opponents.

At the moment I'm torn between doing the eastern front using the formidable 'RJW Russians' by Tsuba Miniatures and the 'WW1 Russians' by Musketeer Miniatures.  Or I'll follow more beaten tracks and go for the western front. There I'd like to do some French but haven't found suitable Miniatures yet. Neither Great War Miniatures nor Renegade Miniatures (not beeing available atm.) do some and the Scarab Miniatures ones don't really appeal to me.
Maybe the WW2 'Defenders of France' Set from Warlord Games is the way to go but first I have to figure out how much conversion would be needed.

For the rules I'm aiming for a mix of 'Bolt Action' by Warlord Games and 'The Great War' and it's supplement 'Over The Top' by the now unfortunately defunct Warhammer Historical. Both rulesets in my eyes have close enough resemblances to Warhammer 40k to be merged together.

Ok, now enough of my rumblings for now and thanks for viewing!

12 comments:

  1. Beautiful stuff Nick!

    For French you should check out 'Forgotten and Glorious Company of Art' (a bit of a mouthful there). Very nice castings. I've had very nice luck with my Great War Miniatures French, but they are all in their early war uniforms.

    http://forgottenglorious.blogspot.ca/2012/02/secure-online-payment-available.html

    That being said, the Eastern Front would be very interesting as well (and quite unique). Looking forward to following your progress (and this reminds me to get some more stuff done for my own collection).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ich grübel ja schon seit Ende letzten Jahres, 2014 da müßte man...aber andererseits...noch´n Project ?
    Auf jeden Fall sieht das schon sehr schön aus und ich verfolge das mit Interesse...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great looking casualty base Nick! Next time we meet you need to bring along a few of the figures to check them out.:-)

    Christopher

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great work, and an interesting project ahead of you!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Man, you beat me to it again! Actually, I'm way more interested in WW1 than the second round – if only the Perries hadn't gone for Desert War first…
    I share your thoughts on the several ranges, and I seem to have similar preferences as well. The Tsuba minis are gorgeous, however, they are dwarfed by Great War.
    I like the Late War French by Brigade Games best (some Hicks sculpts in there) – if expensive to come by in these parts, unfortunately. There's also Woodbine/Gripping Beast (reportedly good quality), and I thought about using some of the separate heads with Adrian helmets provided by them and by Empress for conversion work.

    Oh well, you see, so many ideas there… Good luck with your project!

    Cheers, SG
    mountainsoflead.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great start up post for your new project and very well painted casualty mini !

    Like you idee of going for the eastern front, the western front have been made so many times...

    And if you go for a late war approach then you can run the spin-of to the Russian Civil war and all Freikorps and also the German Civil war thet followed ww1. Back in 2009/10 we had a small Red Action! project running at the club. You can find some pictures of the minis at my old blog: http://metrobloggen.se/dalauppror/red_actions_/

    I will follow your project in the east ot the west with greate interest !

    best regards Michael

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a beautiful vignette! Fantastic details, great paintjob and basing...and very nice project.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Super vignette :)
    I've also contemplated adapting Bolt Action to the Great War...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Bin gespannt, was du da auf die Beine stellst. Und auch, wenn du deine ersten Spiele machst, was du über die Regeln sagst. Ich hab seit kurzem noch ein Great War-Regelbuch ergattern können und bin gespannt, was du hiervon berichten kannst.

    ReplyDelete