Thursday, 5 February 2026

Zoya

And now a Russian partisan!  Here is Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya (try saying that 5 times quickly!).  Zoya was a teenage partisan who was tortured and slain by the German invaders of the USSR in 1941.  She was posthumously hailed as a Heroine of the Soviet Union and her name was used to rally the Red Army in their struggle against the Hitlerites.  


It's unlikely she wore a red scarf, but I took a little creative license both to allow a splash of colour and also to tie her to my Italian Brigate Garibaldi partisans.   



Tuesday, 3 February 2026

Pearl

Next up for Bad Squiddo's Women of the Resistance is Pearl Witherington and her bunny.  Pearl was born to British parents in France, and was working for the British Embassy in Paris when the Germans invaded in 1940.  She escaped back to England, where, after a initial stint with the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), she joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE) which had been formed to support resistance movements in occupied Europe.  When Annie researched Pearl, she glommed onto the story of Pearl's pet rabbit, who spent so much time with Pearl that it became oblivious to machinegun fire.  Accordingly, this miniature of Pearl is joined by her little bunny :)






Monday, 2 February 2026

Truus

Continuing with the Bad Squiddo Women of the Resistance, here is Dutch resistance fighter Truus Oversteegen.  As a teenager girl, the Nazis didn't suspect her of being a danger.  She and her sister Freddie their friend Hannie Schaft would lure Nazis to secluded locales so the Dutch resistance could kill them.  Truus eventually became a trigger-person herself.

Here's Truus with her trusty submachinegun.  I've painted her with blond(ish) hair, although as I squint at B&W photos it's possible she was a brunette.







Sunday, 1 February 2026

Hedda

Continuing with the Bad Squiddo Women of the Resistance miniatures, here is Danish resistance fighter Hedda Lundh.    Hedda became an expert in explosives.  Annie's description of this model indicates that she's checking her bag to ensure her dynamite is ok.  For me, the image is innocuous enough that this figure could easily fit in to any mid-twentieth century setting as a normal person who could be encountered in the street.






Wednesday, 28 January 2026

02 Hundred Hours - Evade

For our Tuesday night gaming, we had another go at 02 Hundred Hours, this time scenario 5 - Evade.  In this scenario, an RAF pilot has been shot down and the local partisans are trying to get him to safety before the Germans can catch him.

The pilot starts in the lower right corner and must leave the table at the upper left. In between, the Germans are patrolling and searching for him.


The pilot starts his journey.


Germans on patrol along the road as their officer plans at the table in the camp.


Partisans move into the orchard as they move to assist the pilot.


The pilot has been spotted by the sentries on the road!


The dog handler is alerted to the partisans in the orchard.



Partisans move up to engage the German officer.



Partisans take out the dog handler with a Molotov cocktail!  Alas for them, this was their only success of the game.



The Germans surround the RAF pilot.


The partisans rush forward to help but it's too late, the Germans capture the pilot!


This game was interesting.  The pilot has a very difficult job, especially as he is rated as a 'trooper'.  In a future game, I might promote him to a 'character' just to allow him a potential of two activations in a turn.  Towards the end, the pilot's actions were particularly limited, as he kept needing to burn his activation to duck German bullets, until he was finally out of luck.


Monday, 26 January 2026

Downed Pilot

 For our next 02 Hundred Hours game, we are going to play the 'Evade' scenario, in which a crashed pilot must avoid capture by the enemy.  For the focus of this game, I finally finished up this downed RAF pilot from Warlord Games.  











Sunday, 25 January 2026

Simone

 This is Simone, from the Bad Squiddo Games' Women of the Resistance kickstarter.   


The figure is based on an image of Simone Segouin, a member of the French resistance.


There is absolutely no way that I could have painted that checkered shirt, so I was very excited to find another image of her in a plain white shirt instead!



Here are a few more shots of my version, including the armband showing loyalty to the Free French forces.