RoE Hobby Hitler Youth Anti Tank

Our latest release for Rules of Engagement was the first pack in a new range, “Battle for Berlin”.  Right from the start we had decided that this range was going to be something a bit different.  We wanted to create a selection of figures that gamers could add to their current armies.  In fact during our discussions we had decided that we wanted the figures to look so good that anybody with the particular army would feel they “must” have the figures to add to their current collection.  After much deliberation we decided that we would create a “Battle for Berlin” range.  Each pack would be full of character, our aim isn’t to create yet another German Grenadier or Soviet Infantry range.

With this brief in mind we started to consider what the first pack would be.  I have a huge Volkssturm army made up for a vast collection of different manufacturers different figures, each with arm bands attached where necessary.  One of the good things about creating the army has been that I am not tied down to any specific weapons or uniforms.  The weapons that the Volkssturm are photographed carrying are as varied as the clothes that they wear.  So it left me open to look at just about anything from the period.  In each case there are examples in photographs showing similar, if not the same types, of weapons being carried.  I have a large collection of books containing a wide range of pictures of Volkssturm.  There are columns of them marching carrying such a huge range of weapons that it beggars belief, one of my favourites shows a group marching and two have British Lewis guns on their shoulders.  Another shows improvised machine guns taken from aviation manufacturing and mounted on stands made from prams and bed stands.  The best thing about all this is that the sky is the limit, and if you’re willing to put a bit of effort in you can create an almost entirely unique army where no two figures are the same.  The disadvantage is that specialist troops, where they exist, aren’t readily available.  One such example is the Hitler Youth, there are scores of photographs of them being presented with medals, etc. by Hitler in Berlin’s last days but very few models that cut it.  There is a Bolt Action pack which is fine, in fact I have it painted in my army, but I felt it lacks any character.  So that’s where we decided to start, with one of the most iconic images of the final days of the Third Reich.

Once I had a pack of the new figures I wanted to get to work on them.  I didn’t just want to paint them; I wanted to do something different, something to make them stand out.  The figures themselves are fantastic, if you place them with the old guy at the front the rest of the squad naturally fall in behind with the eldest running up at the back.  So with this positioning at the core I decided to do a scenic base, the team moving through rubble and ruin and past a knocked out tank, maybe they took it out, maybe not, I just thought it would add extra detail to the model.

I lined the models up alongside a tank which I had picked up (more details on this later), put the guys in line and then starting looking for a suitable base to put them all on.  The base of choice was an old CD.  A bit of masking tape over the hole in the middle and I was set.  I placed the tank and squad on the base and marked their positions.  I then built up the rest of the base using premixed filler, the type that is used in home decorating.  The area to the left of the miniatures was built up to resemble a mound.  The pictures below show the base after I had applied the filler, all the figures were mounted on my favourite size base, two pence coins - great size, about 25mm diameter and great value, you get 50 for £1!!  Spaces were left in the filler for the figures to drop into, that way I could display them on the base but take them off to game with.

Each of the images below can be clicked on to open a new page with a larger version of the image.

Once the filler had dried it was time to add all the specific base detail.  Initially I covered the entire base, excluding the holes cuts for the miniatures, with a heavy sand/gravel mix; this would form the base for the entire base.  Next I wanted rubble, and plenty of it.  I gathered up my urban basing box and took out a good selection of individual bricks, broken bits of wood, sections of wall and other bits and pieces.  These were then added around the figures and the tank.  The figures and tank are not permanently attached to the base at all so I had to be careful.  The raised area on the left was covered to add extra detail and height.  I wanted it to almost look like a valley/trench that they were walking down, flanked on one side by the silenced beast, on the other the destruction that it had wrought (well something like that anyway).  The pics below show the base with and without the figures so that you can see what I did.  I based the figures in a complementary way so that they looked like they belonged amongst the rubble and destruction.

Next I started to add some paint.

PAINTING