Odette

Et maintenant, voici Odette Samson.  Odette was a French member of the SOE.  She was captured by the Nazis while working undercover in France - she managed to survive her imprisonment and after the war, she was the first woman ever to be awarded the George Cross.

Helga

Much as I love Annie's Women of the Resistance, it's also necessary to provide them with some opposition!  So from Grey for Now Games, here is Helga from the Guards of Facility 9 expansion set.  To be honest, GfN simply call her 'the Adjutant', but I decided to name after Private Helga Geerhart from 'Allo, 'Allo.

German Wehrmachthelferinnen or 'armed forces helper corps' were barred from combat roles, so rifle-armed Helga here is a bit more fantasy than reality.  Her skirt should really be the same colour as her tunic, but I gave her a grey skirt to match the grey trousers of the Wehrmacht soldiers I've already painted.

I also painted some German casualties - what one might call 'good Nazis' - along with a sleepy soldier pulling on his tunic as he moves to respond to a late-night alarm.

In the Last Ditch Again

Last night Doug and Legion came by to try out Through the Mud and the Blood.  Doug recently  finished converting some Renegade Miniatures early war French into Belgians and wanted to try them out.  So I looked up Too Fat Lardies' 'Play the Game' compendium of WWI gaming resources, and picked out a scenario entitled 'In the Last Ditch Again' featuring an allied delaying action against the German onslaught.

This is a fairly simple scenario - as written a British platoon has deployed around a farm, as a German force advances along the road toward them.  We substituted the Belgians for the British and got on with things.

The table is pretty flat and open.  As it turns out, a bit too open.  If we try this again I will add more hedges to break up line of sight, and rate the crops to make it a bit harder to spot the troops on blinds.  Note the blinds on either side.  The German flags are fine, but since I didn't have any Belgian blinds available, I provided the Russian blinds instead.  I figured these would be ok as Russia and Belgium were allies in WWI!

In addition to his Belgian infantry, Doug also brought this fancy truck to transport their ammunition!

German infantry appear after the Belgians spot their blinds.

Having identified the Germans, the Belgians opened fire, revealing their location in the process.

German forces take hits, and their numbers are quickly depleted.  Note that this group started with 19 soldiers!

Behind the Belgians, you can see Doug's shock marker.  Depending on which edge is aligned with the section, it signals how many shock that unit is carrying, from one to six.

More Belgians deploy and rain rifle fire on the Germans!

I needed a way to show that one of the Belgian sections had quickly dug in, so these gabions represent that.

Meanwhile, Legion's Germans shelter behind the hedgeline as they return fire.

The central German section was forced to fall back, as the number of shock points exceeded the number of remaining soldiers!

Shock also accumulates on Germans behind the hedge.

Another couple of glamour shots of the Belgian truck!

The game ended up a bit one-sided, as the Belgians easily spotted the Germans, taking them off blinds right away.  This meant that the Germans started taking shock, which ended up stopping them and allowing the Belgians to continuing whittling them down.  One of the reasons for this is that I'd made a mistake when I assigned Legion his command - each of the four German sections was meant to be 2 groups of 9 plus an NCO, but instead they deployed as 18 men plus an NCO.  Probably would have been better if they could have deployed with separate 9-man units, so that the Belgians would have had to slow down each of the half sections. Sorry Legion!  Another factor was the tiffin card that kept showing up very early each turn, keeping many of the German sections from activating.  As units that didn't activate could still shoot, this meant that the Belgians had no trouble pouring fire onto the stalled Germans, while the Germans were not able to rally or reorganise.  

At any rate, it was nice that Doug was able to field the Belgians, and that they were successful in their first outing!  

Elizabeth

No, not another of Annie's Bad Squiddo women, this is from Grey for Now Games, makers of 02 Hundred Hours.  This is HRH Princess Elizabeth (as she was in WWII), in her uniform as a member of the Auxiliary Territorial Service.  This is my second miniature of the late queen, as I have previously painted a version of her from Bad Squiddo.

Eva

This is Bad Squiddo's version of Norwegian Resistance fighter, Eva Klovstad. She worked her way up through the resistance, eventually becoming the leader of a unit of 1,200 fighters.  The photo that this figure is based on (it can be seen here) shows her with wearing socks with an Argyle-style pattern.  There was no chance that I'd try to duplicate that pattern, so instead she's got striped socks.  She's lucky that I painted the Norwegian flag on her arm!

Slightly blurry but here's the flag!

 

Cartagena de Indias

There is a thread on LAF at the moment that includes a discussion on "pirate buildings", or more broadly buildings that could be found in the Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy, roughly 1650 to 1720.  This has inspired me to dig out these photos from my visit to Cartagena de Indias in Colombia, back in 2007.  These photos are all from the historic town centre, which is a UNESCO world heritage site.

Lots of pastel coloured buildings throughout the old town.

The Puerta de Reloj - gateway into the old city, which dates to 1738 - so, regrettably, after the end of the Golden Age of Piracy! 

Here's a detail of the cobblestones!

The next series of photos are of the Castillo San Felipe de Barajas, overlooking the old city.

Blas de Lezo, one-armed, one-eyed and one-legged Lobo del Mar, who led the successful defense of Cartagena through a 67-day siege by a British fleet during the fantastically-named War of Jenkins Ear.

Back to the city walls!