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! 

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:

Old West Mini-Wargame: Showdown at High Noon - A Wargame in a Matchbox Epilogue

Old West Mini-Wargame: Showdown at High Noon according to my scenario and interpreted by ChatGPT

Last year I attended the 'Wargame in a Wee Matchbox Challenge' with paper miniatures from Junior General and rules made by ChatGPT; Old West Mini-Wargame: Showdown at High Noon.

The rules was really simple, fast playing and easy, and I had to keep everything small to make it fit in a matchbox (which it eventually did). -Since the Challenge I've played the game several times with my oldest son. The game feels perhaps a little too simple, as gamers usually ends up behind cover exchanging fire with the opponents until one of them runs out of health. I wanted to see if it would help to this feeling and make the game more interesting if a little more was added to it than what would fit in a matchbox. So I decided to try out the very same simple rules and scenario with larger terrain and miniatures in 3D as I wanted to use my 54mm -ish Cowboys in a game.  I'm curious to see if a more '3D-game' gives another impression or 'deluxe version' of this simple game.

I had almost everything I needed to convert my 2D-game in the matchbox into a fully 3D one, except for a female hostage to rescue. I found one 28mm scale at Thingeverse and 3D-printed her to match the size of my 54mm -ish cowboys. I guess she can double up and I can use her as a civilian or a missionary in my Congo Crisis games too. 

Scenario: It's loosely based on the scene from 'A Fistfull of Dollars' when 'Joe' frees 'Marisol'; 3 outlaws are holding a woman hostage in the house, and our 'Hero' is there to free her.

Forces: Are dictated by the rules; 3 outlaws with health of 2 and hits on 5+ Vs. 'The Man with No Name' with a health of 4 and hits on a 4+ and activates first each turn.

The Rules:

The Game

The original set up for the game (as in the 'Matchbox Challenge), and my fully 3D set up for this game (which will not fit in any matchbox):

Our 'Hero' approaches the house where the 'Bad Guys' are holding a woman captive: 

The Bad Guys spot him at a distance and it doesn't look like he's gonna take them by surprise:

As soon as a couple of the outlaws leaves the building, they get into our Hero's gun sight:

But at this distance and moving targets the Hero misses, and the Bad Guys manage to get into cover and return fire:

And very soon the firefight develops into a locked position where all combatants are in cover exchanging fire in a very dueling like battle. The Bad Guys are good shooters and our Hero takes a couple of hits. This situation does not look good for him at this stage:

I think our Hero performs best under pressure because when it start to look real bad for him, he gets a couple of critical hits on one of his gunmen:

And one of them are out of the fight:

Then the nameless Hero focus his fire on the other gunman behind cover:

And finally takes him out too:

The Villain did not like this development in the gunfight, as he now has to go out and fight him himself:

Just as the Villain leves the building he doesn't manage to even open fire before the nameless Hero opens fire... 

...and at very long range accurately hits the Villain beside the female hostage, and impacts a critical hit on him with a single shot:

After 15 minutes and 10 turns it look like the nameless Hero saved the day:

Conclusion

So was this game any different than the Matchbox-version of it? - Not really, it's still the very same simple rules that makes battle develop more into static duels where the only modifier is it the fighters are Heroes' and have cover or not. The only difference with this game was that I was able to make even nicer images for the battle report.

And with this game and battle report its perhaps time to finally conclude my entry to the "2024 Wargame in a Wee Matchbox Challenge". It's been an interesting challenge and I would like to credit Alan at The Duchy of Tradgardland for the initiative to the challenge and the entries as follow. Well done everybody!!

• Man of TIN blog
• Grid based wargaming
• Wargame Hermit: Solo Wargaming
• Deathzap
• Projects and Procrastination

I guess some of us has 'leftover matches' after emptying our boxes to join the 'Matchbox Challenge'. At the Model exhibition in Neumünster earlier this year I found this example what you can use your matches for. -At least if you have 3700 of them and 640 hours to spare...

- Perhaps an idea for a 'Challenge' in 2025??