10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade.

I'm on a roll this week...

One of my favorite units from WWII is the Polish 10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade.

I have been excited about this project ever since I learned that Blitzkrieg Laboratories and Gorgon Studios were going to release the miniatures for this famous unit. These tough bastards fought the Germans in Poland in 1939. They fought vicious delaying and harassing actions against the 4th Light Division and Gebirgsjagers along the southern Polish border and then in defense of Krakow before escaping into Hungary. They were rebuilt in 1940 in France as the 10th Armord Cavalry Brigade and once again faced the Germans. This time, they fought a tough campaign, fighting almost alone against several German divisions. They somehow managed to escape to Britain where they were rebuilt as the 1st Polish Armoured Division. In 1944 they would find themselves in France for the final drive to Germany and the end of the war. They are a rare unit to have fought the Germans on two fronts and in three campaigns as part of three different armies. The earned their nickname in Poland in 1939 as the "Black Brigade" on account of their distinct uniform of black leather trench coats and Austrian WWI stahlhelms.

These miniatures are all new models from a new company called Blitzkrieg Laboratories jointly released with Gorgon Studios. I had the fortune to be given some promotional models to run a game at the 2012 Fall In convention here in Lancaster, PA. Thanks to Aaron, I was able to deploy a platoon of these awesome models against my Crusader Miniatures early War Germans. Aaron is planning to expand the range and they have also released Gebirgsjagers for the early period of the war. Check them out!

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take pictures of the game I ran. I forgot my camera and my phone ran out of battery power...d'oh!

Here are some pics. They came out a little dark because it was hard to get the settings right to be able to see detail and yet not have the jackets look gray and washed out.

The packs are structured in a way that makes building a platoon very easy. The Anti Tank gun crew are a mortar crew filling in on the job until they release more minis for other support weapons.

The building in the background is from Old Glory. The Bofors ATG an the TKS Tankettes are from Warlord Games.

I plan to do a full, and proper battle report with these guys pretty soon.

Enjoy!

Lieutenant and Driver

Sergeant

Platoon Sergeant and Runner

Second Section

Wz 36 Bofors ATG

Wz 35 Anti Tank Rifle

Wz 36 Granatnik

TKS Tankettes

15mm French & Indian War Project.

At Historicon last year, and again at Fall In, I picked up a sizable collection of Blue Moon/Old Glory's new 15mm F&I line. It is an excellent range if miniatures, and they have done an amazing job of creating a complete range. It includes virtually everything you could think of for a F&I range: British, French, Provincials, Indians, Rangers, civilians, militia, officers, Light Infantry, artillery, canoes...even scenery with a complete range of cabins, forts, and homesteads. I always look for one stop shopping when I start a project. I like to be able to use one manufacturer for a complete range. This allows me to do that and then some. It didn't take long for them to release the range either, which is always a plus.

The miniatures are well sculpted and cast with very little work needing to be done for cleanup and prep. The range has a nice variety of poses with enough in each pack of 30 to do units of 10 without repeating. In fact, the Indians are 30 unique sculpts which is impressive. There are only a few models I did not like and will not be using. Considering how picky I am that is saying something.

Also, they are pretty cheap. Especially if you are an Old Glory Army member which gets you that 40% discount. They are usually 30 minis per pack for $14. Not bad.

My few quibbles are that the faces on the Brits and other Europeans are not as crisp and clean as they could be, especially compared to the Indians. The other quibble is that the Provincials uniform is not the one I was looking for. The cuffs are different and actually look like they simply took the marching models from their British Advancing pack and added some command models to make a "unique" Provincials pack. I cannot tell the difference between the models. But that's ok. I found it was an easy matter of using an X-Acto to cut off the cuffs of the British Regulars Skirmishers and then just paint the correct cuffs on. No big deal.

One minor thing that might be more important to other people interested in these minis: they are "tall" 15mm minis. Probably average around 18mm, so they might not mix with other manufacturers. I haven't compared them to others myself though. But, to me that's no big deal since I will be doing all of my F&I in this scale from the same range.

I picked up the following packs:

1 Pack of Indians.
1 Pack of Provincials.
2 Packs of British Regulars Skirmishing.
1 Pack of Militia.
2 Cabins.

I used the command models (NCOs, Color Bearer, and Drummer) from the Provincials pack and combined it with 2 of the British Regulars Skirmishing packs to make a force of 60 men from the 1st Battalion of the Pennsylvania Provincials. These were the "regulars" of the colonies raised to bolster the forces of the King's Army sent across the Atlantic to fight in North America. Each colonial government raised units of Provincials and they provided them with uniforms, equipment, and sometimes muskets (though many Pennsylvania Provincials were asked to bring their own musket and a blanket).

The quality of these units ranged from good to very poor. I don't think the Provincials get enough credit for their efforts in the war. I have heard someone on my Mother's side (Markey) served in the F&I War in PA, but beyond that I don't know. That is something I really want to research. That is kind of surprising to me, considering most of that side of the family was Brethren and non-resistant (meaning they would not fight in wars or resist violence). Somehow this PA Brethren family from Switzerland who came her in 1732 still managed to fight in every American war but WWI.

Anyway...I love the color of the PA Provincials uniforms: Green jackets and red facings and cuffs. Later this was switched to an all green uniform, and even later to blue. But I like the green and red. Very sharp looking. The buff colored leggings finish off the scheme rather well I think.



Company A, First Battalion, 1st Pennsylvania Regiment of Foot.

These Provincials will be supported by 30 men of the Associators Militia. These men were raised as volunteers to fight during the days when the Pennsylvania government, dominated by Pacifist Quakers, refused to fund or raise forces to defend the colony. These volunteers were the first line of defense against the French and Indian raids that struck the PA backcountry like a wave beginning in the summer of 1755 after the defeat of Braddock on the Monongahela.



B Company, Lancaster County Associators (my own made up unit).

The Indians I plan on using as some of the few tribal warriors allied with the British. These will be a tough band of loyal Delaware or Shawnee who lived among the British and were nearer to their trade outposts. They could just as easily be a band of Iroquois who took up the hatchet with the British...or if need be, they can double as French allied Indians (also Delaware or Shawnee) from Western PA, the Ohio Country, or the Pays den Haut.



Mean looking Delaware warband ready to loot the dead and pillage the wreckage. I mean, errr, follow their Sachem to glory and fame on the battlefield.

The two cabins I picked up are generic enough to be used as any farm or settlement in the backcountry. The best thing about them is that they have lift off roofs, which makes placing units inside easy.



Cabin with unpainted snake rail fence. Though it could just be freshly cut timber...

I also did some conversions on these models. Besides cutting the cuffs down and painting the right ones on, I also did a weapon swap to make an NCO. I took one of the pointing officers from the Provincials pack and snipped off the musket arm of a British Regular and added it across his chest like the model on the right. The NCO on the left is just one of the models from the Provincials pack but with the cast spear pole replaced by brass rod. This way, I have two NCOs per unit. I can keep two in the unit or use just one and decide whether I want him armed with a pole arm or musket.



Here is a pic of one of the two Sachems in the pack...or at least Indians that look like they are bossing the others around.



And another Sachem.



Hope you like them! They will be going up against my friend Rob's French from Blue Moon/Old Glory.

Hood's Texans.

Here are some painted 28mm Old Glory First Edition ACW Texans I painted. The figs are full of character and have lots of nice details. The molds have seen better days though, and the wear can be seen on the castings. Still, they paint up nice and look good and ragged Reb when ranked up. I tried to paint them in a variety of uniform colors to enhance this ragged look. I know this ragged Reb thing is somewhat overstated to some degree and from what I have read Hood's Texans received new uniforms before heading West with Longstreet, which makes these good for the first part of the war before that. Either way, they are nice figs and I think will look good on the table against my Bluebellies.

Here they are looting Markey Farm on their way through Southern Pennsylvania...



Here's an up close shot:

Polish 10th Motorized (The Black Brigade).

I now have a complete platoon and support, plus tanks for my Polish Black Brigade project. The only thing left to do is finish off some more heavy weapons (mortars and HMGs). I have enough minis to do a second platoon, but that will have to wait until later.

The miniatures are all True North, now owned by Old Glory. They are decent figs, but I am hoping to see Battlefront release their own models of this unit once they start their early war range. The True North figs are slightly too big when standing next to the Command Decision 15mm Germans I have, but that's no big deal.

I had to do some conversion work to get some of the poses I wanted. The packs did not come with any advancing LMGs. I had to take one of the prone LMG gunners, snip off the gun, drill out one of the rifles from a rifleman, add the gun, and the sculpt on new hands with green stuff. Not difficult, just time consuming. I did 4 of them in two different poses. I think the conversion came out pretty well, though part of the reason I am not rushing into a second platoon is the fact that I don't look forward to doing that again...

Now completed:

Command section, motorcycle combo, 4 sections, a truck, 1 armored car, 6 Vickers E 6 ton, 4 TKS (one with 20mm cannon), a 7TP tank, HMG, and a 37mm Antitank gun.

Enjoy!



Platoon (minus 1 truck).



One of the sections of the one squad platoon (their TO&E is rather odd).



Support weapons.



The LMG conversion.



Vickers E 6 Ton.



TKS Tankettes. I love these things. Armored go-carts. Yet one of these little suckers, commanded by Roman Orlik, knocked out 3 German tanks (including a Panzer IV B) in one action, followed by a second run of 3 kills, and a final run of 7 kills in one day.



The 7TP, one of the best Polish tanks. These could go head to head with pretty much the best of German armor in 1939. Unfortunately for the Poles, there were too few. A number of them did some damage in a major counterattack around Bzura before being knocked out.



Armored Car. Fast, cheap, and packs an MG and 37mm gun. Just don't get hit.

So that's it! I just wish someone did this unit in 28mm...

Pennsylvania Bucktails.

Work has begun on my Civil War Skirmish project. First up is a group of 10 Union soldiers of the 150th PA Volunteers Regiment (The Bucktails), known for their distinctive white tail deer tail pinned to their hats. This Regiment saw action from Chancellorsville all the way through Gettysburg, Petersburg and through the end of the war.

This is just the first of my Civil War units. Most of them will be bucktails, but I will also paint up enough generic Union infantry to be used in any theater.

Miniatures are all Old Glory 28mm. They are one of the few manufacturers I know of who specifically make this unit with the tails on the hats (Redoubt is the other). I like these figures. They have good detail, lots of good poses, and a lot of character. Old Glory even produces several packs of casualties so I should be able to put down one casualty per model during a game to give the battlefield a realistic look.

Here are some shots of the unit (plus a wagon).























Cookie and his wagon...



Detail shot.