'West Suffolks' on Parade

It took longer than expected, but I have pretty much completed my first 'D-Day Dodgers' battalion, the (entirely imaginary) West Suffolks, in an OOB taken from the Rapid Fire Reloaded rules. The recent acquistion of vintage transport models a la Eric Knowles helped a lot, no need to paint those!  So here they are, on parade back in Blighty and ready  to ship out to Sunny Italy and go into action:

 

On the front row  Battalion HQ with Bren Carrier, PIAT and 2-inch Mortar team, and Carrier Platoon with PIAT team;  middle row A, B, C and D Rifle Companies; back row Support Company with 6-pounder AT Gun and Lloyd Carrier,  3-inch Mortar team with Bren Carrier.   All under the perhaps slightly eccentric but always well-meaning command of equally fictional Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew ('The Legal Eagle')  Phillips*..

Now the plan is that these will be part of the Nth  Indian Infantry Brigade, in turn part of the Nth Indian Division - all of which will of course be equally imaginary, but loosely based on the real OOBs of British Indian units in Italy.  In effect there would be 3 battalions in a brigade, one British and two Indian, and other elements such as MGs, Recconaissance, Artillery and Engineers would be a mixture of British and Indian. This should allow me to mix the vintage British figures I have with the Indians I have more recently acquired  ( perhaps unsurprisingly given the Imperial nature of the force, the senior commanders would have been  be pretty much entirely British ).  Now I can have a bit of fun dreaming up suitably Indian and British imaginary unit names..  This is starting to look like a sensible project - and of course they will need some German opposition!   There looks to be a chance to pick up some more ready-painted troops for both sides, courtesy of David Crook and the collection of the late Eric Knowles, Negotiations are in progress.. 

I would like to have more to report, but I will admit that since my last posting,  'real life' has reduced hobby opportunities - easily summed up in the following  picture..

..fortunately all has gone OK, and things look a lot nicer now.

But there has been some actual gaming, thanks once again to the excellent  Jon Freitag : I was lucky enough to be invited to command the Orsini faction against the Papal ( Borgia ) army at the Italian Wars period  Battle of Sanguetta (1497).  Jon has yet to report our game ( his third iteration of the scenario ), so I won't give any spoilers,  except to show this picture which he passed on after the event: 

 

My mercenary pikemen are on the right, at push of pike with the enemy Landsknechts - you can certainly see how colourful Jon's figures (28mm scale) are. It was great fun, though I confess my dice-rolling was considerably better than my deployment and tactical decisions!  I look forward to seeing Jon's report. 

I am hoping to get some more hobby time in the near future, and I had better try to keep up the momentum on the D-Day Dodgers project, so I will hope to have more to report quite soon. 

Until then keep well, everyone. 

* My imaginary battalion commander is a nod to the biggest character of recent years around my adopted home town -which I also imagine to be the home town of my 'West Suffolks' battalion - the late Lord Andrew Philips . I can't claim to have known him well, but did hear him speak many times, and exchanged pleasantries once or twice.   Whether he would have been a good soldier, or would have  even wanted to be one, I can't say!