Army box labels

With a growing number of Really Useful Boxes full of figures and vehicles, I thought some sort of labelling would be a good idea to avoid having to open each in turn to see what was inside.

Rather than just having text labels, I wanted some pictures. It was easy enough to find images on the web that would be suitable for the Romans, Italian Wars French and 11th Armoured Division but the WW2 Germans were a bit more difficult - I certainly didn't want boxes with Swastikas on the side but nothing else seemed to have sufficient immediate impact and recognisability. In the end, I went for a plain German cross against a 3 colour camouflage - as seen on the sides of vehicles. After a bit of searching, I found a suitable image which I cropped and edited to make sure the colours were bright and distinct then superimposed the cross.

More Late Roman skirmishing bowmen - Sagittarii Venatores expanded to 9 bases.

 

Back in September 2020, I completed a unit of Late Roman skirmishing bowment, the Sagittarii Venatores. https://smallitalianwars.blogspot.com/2020/09/late-roman-skirmishing-bowmen.html At that time I only painted 12 figures for 6 bases but Mortem et Gloriam has skirmishers deployed 3 bases deep and 6 is rather a small unit so I have found myself borrowing figures for each game to make up the numbers to 9 bases. 

As a break from Khaki and Field Grey, I've painted 6 more figures to complete the unit. At some point I'll probably do a couple more bases of horse archers, for the same reason. 

4 KSLI Platoon 12, an 'O' Group Battalion and Support

The 15 figures of Platoon 12 completes my 4th King's Shropshire Light Infantry, B Company in 'O' Group terms. All the figures are from Peter Pig.

It also means I now have the basics of an 'O' Group British battalion plus some supports, albeit one of the companies, the mortar FOO, 6 pdr guns and two Vickers MMGs using bases that I painted years ago for 'Overlord' rules). The Daimler Dingo is also an old one and doesn't match the painting style of the other vehicles (or have the correct markings). 

Next on the list for the British are the carrier platoon, new bases for the FOO, MMGs and 6 pdrs and Lloyd Carriers as anti tank gun tows. Replacing that third company with new bases is well off to the right of my schedule.

Before that though, I need to paint some more Germans - infantry, PaK 40s and their tows. 

Daimler Armoured Cars and Churchill AVRE in 15mm

These models are something of an indulgence, painted when I should have been working on more infantry platoons. They aren't needed for the core of my 'O' Group forces but are models that I've wanted to have for a long time. 

They were bought with half an eye to possible scenarios. In the case of the Daimlers, I imagine them, with a couple of Dingos and maybe a carrier platoon, seizing an undefended bridge and then trying to hold it against piecemeal German attacks as both sides frantically try to feed in reinforcements. For the AVRE it would be simpler - provide an option to blow up some obstacle or fortification. 

At the start of my career, I worked for Jaguar Cars at their Radford engine plant - or 'the Daimler' as it was locally known so I felt I had a bit of a connection to the Daimler Armoured Car (and the Dingo) and there is a good example in the Coventry Transport Museum. https://transport-museum.com/visiting/daimler-armoured-car.aspx

My two models (from Skytrex's Command Decision range) are painted as belonging to the Inns of Court 'The Devil's Own' armoured car regiment. Originally a corps-level asset, elements of the regiment landed early on D-Day, on Juno beach, and were given a special mission of penetrating inland with attached engineer units to block German reinforcements from crossing the Orne by demolishing bridges. They spent the rest of the Normandy campaign scouting for 11th Armoured Division and were eventually allocated formally as division troops. My rather limited markings are meant to represent them after this so would be incorrect for most of the Normandy battle.

The division symbol is a new Skytrex decal whilst the 44 of an armoured car regiment is a much older decal that I over-painted because the colours and definition were so poor.

The AVRE is painted as belonging to the 6th Assault Regiment of 79th Armoured Division. The division emblem and star are from Skytrex and the blue arm of service rectangle is hand painted.