Scenario 5 Rear Guard (1)

For a brief moment, this small corner of northwestern Europe seems calm and peaceful. (My motley collection of buildings makes it unclear exactly which corner. A distinctly Italianate railway station, some oddly Russian huts, a very English looking cottage and, of course, a farmhouse that is forever Belgium. These days the quality of terrain you see at shows and online is infinitely superior, with people going to extremes to reproduce the precise architecture of the particular battle or theatre they are recreating. I can’t even get my basing to match the terrain tiles.)

But the year is 1944, and remnants of a defeated army are clogging the roads as they hurry towards the remaining bridges. Shortly afterwards, a hastily assembled kampfgruppe takes up position to act as rearguard and shield the retreat. For not far off is the enemy's light armour, seeking to turn this retreat into a rout.

The WWII armies are the first I have built entirely myself, from scratch, for this project. I started back in July and am feeling quite pleased with myself, with over 80 figures and 25 vehicles completed. For someone as klutzy as this hound, the PSC kits are a joy to put together, and I even survived the more fiddly Italeri and Caesar sets with (what’s left of) my sanity intact.

World War II

World War II was probably the dominant conflict in terms of the media, toys and other gamers as I was growing up in the hobby. But apart from a brief excursion in 10mm (using the horrible Skytrex Action 200 range) which went nowhere, I had never got into it personally. Then, just when I had decided that I had all the periods I would ever need, certainly for this project, I suddenly found myself launching into 1944 in North West Europe in 20mm. How the hell did that happen?

AB British weapons teams. Even my painting can’t disguise the excellent sculpting