German Late War Squad

I finally made up my mind and have decided to reorganise my 20mm minis, to play with I Ain't Been Shot Mum.  This has involved some planning as I had plenty of early and late war Germans based for Blitzkrieg Commander in 6 x 3 cm bases with 3 minis each. As IABSM uses a 1:1 scale ratio, each platoon has 3 x 8-men squads plus an officer (Big Man) and also you need to keep an accounting of casualties, I had first to resolve how to base them.


After much consideration I decided the following:

• Rifle squads: square 4 x 3 cm bases with 3 minis; and 2 x 2 cm bases with 1 mini.
• Big Men: round 25mm diameter 
• Special weapons (tank killers, flamethrowers, ATR, etc): round 25mm diameter
• Other (HMGs, Mortars, etc): shape and size as needed

The photo above shows a mid-late war German squad with 8 man and an officer. The basing system allows keeping accounting of casualties by removing first the singles, and when a third casualty is made, removing a 3-man base and bringning back the 2 singles on the table. This structure also facilitates moving the little men around much easier than having everyting in single bases.

Big Man and Sniper Marker

The round bases also help to differentiate between normal rifle and special units when on the table. The photo above shows for example a Big Man and a sniper.

My new "problem" is that the higher scale ratio of IABSM versus BKC menas that I need to paint more minis ir order to be able to display a Company-sized unit (the standard in the game) on the table. Having a quiet weekend in front of me (my wife most of the day at the hospital with my in-law) I started by unshamelessly stealing a box of  Italeri's "Elite German Infantry"  that I bought my son some time ago.

The photos in this post are the first batch of paint, with the relatively easy models wearing long coats. I'm now in the final stage of pasinting a second squad with camouflaged uniforms (expect some photos over the next days).