Arming my G-scale German Heeresfeldbahn train - An easy model you can build

When participating at garden railway running sessions at fellow MRC member's garden railways, I often bring my G-scale WW2 German Heeresfeldbahn military narrow gauge train and run it on unsecure lines and into 'unknown territories'. -unaware of any potential danger of saboteurs or partisan actions. It is a military train after all, so I decided to give it some light protection against ambushes or railway sabotage. It's only for a small narrow gauge train, so nothing big or complex, just perhaps a small armed wagon in front of the locomotive?

I haven't seen any periodic photos of small machine gun trolleys or armed railway cars used by the German Wehrmacht on their narrow gauge lines during WW2 (just standard gauge ones), so this is just some modeler's licence and a product by my imagination. Hopefully it's not too improbable.

I did't want a too large armed wagon in front of my small narrow gauge locomotive, as I think that would make the engine seems small, so I decided to try one of the smallest I got by LGB:

Even if the wagon was lightly weathered, I decided to give it a more heavy weathering depicting a surplus wagon that would be available for this kind of service:

For the German soldiers I sourced some free files at Thingiverse I could 3D-print. They were actually meant for 28mm Bolt Action, so by scaling them up to 1:19th scale they looked a bit more chunkier and 'over-sized' (like many wargaming miniatures often do). Even when 'down scaling' them a little bit more to the right height for sitting in this scale, they still looked oversized due to their larger 'wargame proportions'. Perhaps too much bier and würst? For instance the ammunition for the machine gun looks like it's 0.50 ammo for a M2 Browning machine gun instead of 7,92mm. I don't actually mind that much since I'm not into this scale because it's a 'fine scale'.

The 3D-file comes with multiple machine guns, but I went for the MG42, as I have a soft spot for this weapon after being a main instructor on the NATO equivalent; MG3.

After carefully removing the supports:

This is eventually what the equipage would look like (after some adjustments):

But first some imperfections and layer lines needed to be filled and smoothed on the 3D-printed figures with Miliput and modelling paste:

To make the surface even smoother they were given a couple of coats of car spray filler:

Then they were primed:

And painted:

Finally they were given a light brown- and black wash and lightly drybrushed:

I think they looks less 3D-printed now. I also think the soldiers looked a little bit unprotected on the flat wagon, so I decided to give them a couple of sandbags for protection too. The sandbags them selves were again sourced from a free file on Thingiverse, rescaled to 1:19th scale and 3D-printed. To remove the layerlines and replicate fabric I decided to drape them with tissue paper soaked in diluted white/wood glue:

Finally it was time to tie everything together and give the whole thing a coat of mat varnish. Despite being 3D-printed the surface of the soldiers was so smooth that it was really challenging to get it as flat as I wanted.

It seems like they're ready for some action. Coincidentally a member in our model railway club invited to a running-session in his garden instead of going to the club one afternoon/evening due to very nice weather, so I decided to take them for a day out:

It was a long and heavy rake of wagons the locomotive was hauling this afternoon, and about it limitations coming to the gradients:

All in all this has been a fun little project thus taking a little longer time than expected. Thank you for reading! 

"Lunge, Cut and Stop Thrust" Dueling Game

When trying the "Lunge, Cut and Stop Thrust" dueling game for the very first time, this is how I eventually envisioned  the game. The image was generated by ChatGPT 

"Lunge, Cut and Stop Thrust" Dueling game by Gerard Du Gre must be one of the easiest and most fast playing wargames ever made. -Or is perhaps more like a dueling game. And you don't need more than a couple of miniatures to play it either. Actually you need so little and the rules are so short, that this was actually a game I considered for the 'Wargame in a Wee Matchbox Challenge'. Finally I didn't, but my own entry to the challenge just ended up as a kind of dueling game as well.

This game was brought to my knowledge thorough some excellent blogger posts by Mark at The Man of Tin Blog. By following his links to his earlier blogger posts I ended up at Alan's blog The Duchy of Tredgardland, where Kaptain Kobold suggested how to play "Lunge, Cut and Stop Thrust" with dice (D6) instead of cards in the comment section. All these blogger posts really aroused my interests to try this game myself.

I had no intention to use a lot of time or effort to make a lot of different attack- and defense-cards to just to try out such a a small and simple game, but Kaptain Kobold's suggestion to play it with a D6 was so simple that it could be summarized and captured in a single photo by Mark at his blog. -So finally trying out this new (to me) game became a no-brainer to me! I used the rules as provided in Mark's photo:

Photo by Mark at The Man of Tin, which actually sums up the whole game. Actually it was this photo that gave me the final push to try this game my self.

Preparing the game

Even if Mark suggests a lot of different suitable miniatures and scenarios for such a small game on his blog, I didn't find any usable miniatures at home for playing this as mine are too modern and none of them are armed with swords or sabres. I was at my local toy shop considering to buy some Playmobil Romans or Pirates for this, but the selection was poor and I thought they were a bit pricey as well. So I decided to simply try to 3D-print a couple of miniatures in 54mm for this test game instead:

I also 3D-printed some suitable broken columns as 'periodic terrain' just to set the scene:

Since I printed these in white plastic, I didn't care to paint them, so I just gave them a 'Black Wash' instead.

The scenario

I've arranged this duel as a Roman Gladiator Fight. 

Similar opponents with same weapons, skills and armour getting similar Combat Points to make it easy and balanced. I settled for 5 Combat Points each as suggested by Mark. 

Forces: 

• Attacker: Magnumius the Roman Legionnaire:

• Defender: Polulus the Murmillo Gladiator:

Mission:

• For both combatants; To win the Gladiator Match by killing their opponent.

The Game

Time:    6 minutes (when taking photos etc.) An average game takes 2-3 minutes.

Turns:   8

Result:  Victory to Polulus the Murmillo Gladiator 

The Gladiator match is about to begin:

Turn 1: The Gladiator starts off really offensive:

Turn 2: And the Gladiator keeps on his offensive fighting:

Turn 3: The Legionnaire makes a successful counter attack: 

Turn 4: It looks like the fighters are about getting exhausted and tired now and none of them scores a hit:

Turn 5: The Legionnaire makes a successful hit again: 

Turn 6: The Gladiator regain the initiative:

Turn 7: And keeps aggressively pushing:

Turn 8: Until he finally gives the Legionnaire 'The Coup De Grace'. The audience is cheering:

Pros

• This is a very easy and fast playing wargame
• You won't need more than 2 miniatures for a game, but you could add some few more if you like a more intensive and very small skirmish game.
• This game works well for SOLO-playing.
• This can be a very interesting way or mechanics to resolve close combat in other wargames too. -And you can vary different number of Combat Points for your opponents regarding how well protected with different type of armour. 

Cons

• There is not much decision making regarding tactics in such a simple wargame. 

Conclusion

I would like to thanks Mark and Alan for bringing this game to attention on their  blogs and Kaptain Kobold for finding a way to play an easy game even easier. It made me certainly want to try a game I else wouldn't have tried. This was also my first ancient wargame.

I made some optional rules so the rules also can be used for fighters with different armour (and the ability to take more damage), and allowing for some movement as well.

-And if you haven't tried this game yet, I highly recommend you to do so for a an easy, free, fast playing fun game!

You don't need much to play this game, and is an ideal game to play if you're in a hurry and don't have time for any complicated setups or long games.

Blog PostScript

At the time of posting this 'imaginary action playsets' created by ChatGPT are trending on Facebook. This is how ChatGPT would envisage a playset of an instant wargame reviewed in this blogpost:

Another suggestion by ChatGPT:

It would be cool to see this thing in production and I think such playsets would be salable. What do you think?

Drafting more troops to the Collection

An unexpected and most generous offer from Stephen from the Tunnies Terrain Blog was posted in the comment-section in an earlier post this year. He offered me bags of 1:76 scale Airfix originals for free. Wow! -What an offer!! I humbly accepted.

Stephen's generous gift sent me to the Post-Office today to pick up this exciting parcel. Which coincidentally arrived just before my Birthday as well: 

This is very brief look of what was inside:

Lets take a closer look at the content:

71 American Civil War Confederates:

79 American Civil War Unions:

43 Napoleonic Highlanders:

15 Modern NATO Ground Crew:

50 WWII Australians and Gurkhas:

32 WWII German Mountain Troops:

43 WWII German Infantry:

60 WWII US Paratroopers. Some of them were painted:

52 WWII Italian Infantry:

70 WWII British Infantry:

29: WWII British Paratroopers:

Stephen does not only run the Tunnies Terrain Blog, but he also used to run the business Tunnies Terrain and made terrain and scenic items for wargaming. He still stocks some these items, and if you want to know more about what's still available he can be contacted directly through his Blog or Facebook. So he added to the unexpected surprise by adding some groups of trees he made while running his business. It's a very clever design allowing you to instantly add wooded areas and a small forrest to your tabletop:

I vaguely have some plans how to use these figures and great trees for various projects already. Some of them will go to useful bits and pieces. But I urgently feels like deploying these soldiers in some kind of improvised wargame soon despite they're being unpainted at the time. Time will show, so please follow this blog if you don't already do so.

Thank you very much for the generous gift Stephen! 

Blog PostScript 

ChatGPT-generated images of imaginary 'action figures' are still trending on Facebook, so here is another one related to the theme of this blog-post: