Norwegian Platoon and 2025 Gaming Plans

My last partially completed figures, that I wanted to complete by the end of 2024, were my Norwegian platoon for WWII Chain of Command ruleset. These figures are almost all 3D Printed in resin. You can read about their manufacturer, organisation as well as painting scheme in 2 previous posts. I had painted almost 2 squads but I had all the Leaders, Supports and two more squads to paint to complete the platoon. I finished these on December 31st but by then the New Year festivities were starting to catch up with me, thus the delay in putting them on the blog.

Complete Platoon, the newly painted figures have yet to have snow on their bases.

Colt M29 MMG Team

Medic, Forward Observer, Sniper, 2 Senior Leaders and King Haakon!

Well it has been a pretty successful painting month, I have been isolated in the United Sates for the last month with another 2 weeks to go before I can get back to my native country. I am working on various playing aids/terrain pieces now, including for CoC, WaC, Midgard as well GdA.

2025 Aspirations

I usually do not do this, as really I play too many different rulesets now, have too many armies and warbands and have too much terrain. I have been really starting to thin things out so I basically have been subtracting rather than adding but there are some forces I would like to paint and rulesets I would like to add.

Vietnam

Still have not decided on a ruleset here, I already have several but I am looking at 2 that are still in development or I have yet to receive. A Vietnam version of CoC is being developed by John Savage, the author of What a Cowboy. He really does first class work, I am not sure if this version will be ultimately official but it looks like a lot of fun. I am waiting to receive Battle Group's latest ruleset Nam 1968. It sounds interesting and I have a sense that it is aimed at squad actions rather than platoon sized games. I am more attracted to the smaller actions but I will have to see. I still have to paint maybe 15-20 figures for a Platoon sized force for Vietnam but it is a nice project.

Midgard

This is an exciting new game which covers both historical and fantasy battles from the Classical Period to the late Middle Ages. I have a lot of figures that I can use for this including the Dark Ages in Europe as well as the Crusades. My LoTR figures which will be good for fantasy. I am also putting together a Sengoku era force for the game. Semi-official force list are presently being developed for Warring States gaming with the ruleset. This will be a long term project, as I have quite few figures to paint but I am attracted by the uniformology and well as the tactics of the period. I have printed off quite a few movement trays which the ruleset requires and am just terraining them now. 

SAGA Age of Chivalry

We should be receiving the rulebook within the month. I still have not decided on a warband or painted any figures but I see many of the players in our club already have several armies, so I am hoping to borrow some in the short term for gaming.

Gaming

I am going to try restart some games with rulesets I have not played for a while, almost exclusively from the TFL stable of games. These include Picketts Charge, Kiss me Hardy as well as Algernon Pulls it Off. 

I will of course continue CoC, GdA, WaC , M&T, Congo and SAGA as well as the Alternate History games I play including Pulp Alley, Draculas America and Carnevale. 

That should keep me busy for 2025!

3D Printed Norwegians

As I was not 100% with the EWM for my Norwegians, I had a search around and there seemed to be a nice set on Cults3D, these are free but the designer has several other sculpts that are for the Narvik campaign, this includes some German sailors and I believe some French. What is nice about these figures is that they are scaled originally at 1/72 which is a little unusual for 3D STL's. Most are 28mm with a few 15mm. These were a little taller than the EWM and maybe a lot of my other 20mm miniatures (1/72 is I believe a little bigger than 20mm), and certainly thinner (more anatomic). I played with the scale and went with a 96% but this was probably not necessary. You might be able to see the difference as the King Haakon figure has not been reduced.

3D Print on left, EWM on right

I went with the same colour scheme as the EWM and am quite happy with the result. Although I have some reluctance, because of the concern of durability with resin wargaming figures, I will go on with these figures for my Norwegian platoon.

Norwegians for Chain of Command

As most of you know, I am really quite interested in the central and Eastern European theatres in WWII. I also like winter wargaming. The Lard Magazine put out a Narvik campaign in the 2023 annual and since that I have been tempted to paint up some Norwegians. Actually, I have been tempted to paint up some Norwegians for a much longer time that that as there is also the Road to Dombas campaign in one of the terrain books put out by Pat at the Silver Whistle. My friend Graham had recently put in some orders to EWM and added a pack of Norwegian infantry for me. I have been quite good recently, in respect to my lead pile, and had no unpainted primed figures sitting around. I cleaned up the figures, primed them black and then slap chopped them with white.

There was a bit of a challenge to discover a painting guide for them but I have found when you cannot find something check the Flames of War site and you will find it. I also got some very useful help from a Norwegian CoC player Olve Kroknes who had written the Narvik campaign for Lard Magazine. 

In photos are prints the Norwegian Infantry uniform looks greenish but most written descriptions describe a grey-blueish tinge to the cloth. Olve suggested a blue wash, and I was quite pleased on how this worked out. I initially did the wash after the first uniform colour application and then dry brushed it but I found that the blue wash should be the final step. Once I got this down it ended up being a pretty simple paint scheme as follows:

• Slapchop
• VMC German Field Grey-Uniform
• VMC Flat Earth-Leather
• VMC Khaki-Canvas Bags
• VMC Green Grey-Anklets
• VMC Black-Boots
• Followed by highlights of the same slightly lightened with VMC Stone Grey or Khaki
• Washed with Citadel Drakenhof Nightshade
• If overcoats you can do them VMC Dark Prussian Blue
• If there are anoraks you can do them VMC Green Grey

In respect to the EWM figures, they were Ok. I am not overly fond of their sculpts but they have improved over the Chasseur Ardenais figures I got from them some years ago. The poses were good and varied in the pack and all the necessary weapons were available for a basic platoon, I also have to be cognisant that EWM does do a great job of putting out figures for minor nations in WWII which no one else does.

Some confusion also about Norwegian platoon structure, but I eventually came to the conclusion that I would go with the following structure. Always happy to be corrected, as I do appreciate that this is not the alternate platoon structure described in the Narvik campaign.

Platoon Structure

Platoon HQ: 2 SL (Captain and Lieutenant) with Pistols + JL (Platoon Sergeant) with a rifle

Sections x 4:  9 men (1 Corporal with a rifle, a 6 man rifle team and a 2 man LMG team with a Madsen m/22 LMG)

Alternate Structure

Platoon HQ: 2 SL (Captain and Sergeant) with Pistol and Rifle Respectively

Sections x 4:  8 men (1 Corporal with a rifle, a 4 man rifle team and a 3 man LMG team with a Madsen m/22 LMG)

I have decided to try to do a better job on terraining. The biggest challenge is to decide to go with "Full Winter" as I have done with the Finns or "Snow on the Ground" as I have done above. I have decided to go with the latter for my Soviets as they have all just been rebased but not yet terrained.