Hobby: Andy Singleton Converting Fallschirmjager Part II

Andy Singleton of Volley Fire Painting Services has caught the Fallschirmjӓger bug well and truly;

Having worked through his first few conversions and provided us with a full painting guide in his previous article (view first article here) Andy has been delving deeper into what he can make of the new plastics with Grenadiers and other kits, from his extensive box of parts, being added into the mix:

Andy: Recently I converted up a few of the new plastic Fallschirmjӓger using other parts of the Warlord Range to give me some unique figures and play around with the different uniforms types worn by the German airborne forces during the Second World War. I enjoyed this so much that I decided that for my growing Fallschirmjӓger army I’d mercilessly raid my bits box for even more parts, and see what I could come up with.

With this in mind I had three considerations that I wanted to use all the way through.

That all the figures must use headgear from the Fallschirmjӓger set to keep some consistency in the force. This is important when using a fairly disparate range of parts, and helps to unify the models even before you crack open the paints
That my squad leaders must be posed doing leader things, so lots of tactical hand gestures using the German training manual of the time as a guide.
That my weapon teams be based together, and each be differently posed.

So in addition to the figures made in my previous article, I’ve now added another 20 models to my force!

Squad Leaders

I have so far got 5 small units in my force, 4 Fallschirmjӓger squads, and the 5th squad will be a Fallschirmpioneer unit, who will be used in game as normal Pioneers. To lead these units I need some squad leaders, so posed them, using the German manual as a guide, as follows

Figure A

This guy is posed ordering his unit to form a skirmish line to his left, with his left arm outstretched. He is built from the body of one of the figures in the Grenadier set, and arms from the Fallschrimjӓger set. When I paint him he will be wearing field grey jump trousers, blue jump tunic and a camouflage helmet cover.

Figure B

This NCO is the leader of my Pioneer squad, and I’ve given him an aggressive pose. The German symbol to attack was to punch the air, and so he is signalling to his unit to attack, whilst calmly and confidently smoking a cigarette and carrying his MP40. The figures is mostly from the Fallschrimjӓger set, however the arms and MP40 come from the Grenadier set again, as I liked the extended stock of the weapon. The right fist is also from the Fallschirmjӓger set, and is normally carrying a grenade. I trimmed the grenadier’s right arm at the elbow, and cut off the hand, before repositioning the arm and sticking the new hand on. This may sound fiddly, but it took about 20 seconds in practice.

Figure C

This squad leader will also be wearing his Fallschrimjӓger tunic and field grey jump trousers, and this time is posed signalling his squad to halt.
I pulled arms from the Blitzkrieg infantry set, a torso from the Grenadier set, and head from the Fallschirmjӓger set. There wasn’t much chopping around required for this, I trimmed the tunic down to the shorter length of the Fallschirmjӓger jacket. And slightly chopped the shoulder joint of the arm so that it would be raised naturally. I’ll go back before painting to green stuff the joint slightly so it’s blended in properly.

Figure D

Figure D is signalling for more ammunition with an ammunition box raised in the air. He was fairly simple to make again, this time body and head came from the Fallschirmjӓger set, whilst the arms came from the Blitzkrieg set. I need to blend the left arm in a little with some Greenstuff, and chopped off the original arms right hand and placed an ammunition box there instead which came from the Fallschirmjӓger set.

Figure E

My final squad leader is signalling for his unit to form a skirmish line centred on him, by extending both arms away from his body. To make him I used a body wearing a Zeltbahn from the Grenadier set. The Right arm came from the Fallschirmjӓger set, whilst the left came from the Blitzkrieg set.
To get is MP40 to hang properly I also bent the sling slightly with some gentle pressure before gluing it onto the model.

Pioneer Section

In the previous article I built a figure in early war uniform carrying a flame thrower, so to keep him company I wanted to add a small pioneer squad. These are mostly made from the Fallschirmjӓger set, however I had some metal parts left over from one of my pioneer squads, and added these straight to the Fallschirmjӓger bodies.

LMG teams

I wanted to make each MG team look quite dramatic, and tie in with the squad leaders as well. This called for a team firing, and two team’s re-deploying. The firing team was made from a kneeling grenadier body, a standing Fallschirmjӓger one, and arms from the grenadier set.
The team in the centre of the picture uses 2 grenadier bodies, with arms and heads taken from the Fallschirmjӓger set. The ammunition belts give the figures a real sense of movement, and I used the binoculars arm to balance the loader against the weight of the ammunition he is carrying.

The final team features a gunner with a Fallschirmjӓger body and arms from the Grenadier set, whilst his loader is made from a grenadier body and arms, whilst the Fallschrimjӓger head ties the figure into the rest of the force.

Riflemen

To finish adding bodies to my force, I’ve continued mixing up the arms from the various German sets, and adding them to various bodies. Keeping the Fallschirmjӓger heads on the models though keeps the image of them being Fallschirmjӓger very visible though.

With these figures, plus the ones I’ve already done I’m up to around 25-30 men. My next plan is to start making some specialists, especially sniper and medic teams, and I may make some objectives as well, and I’ll also add in some figures in more late war equipment, using MP44’s and Panzerfausts, and maybe some using the traditional German helmet. I’m also going to add the recently released Luftwaffe Field Division set as these give a great flavour of Fallschirmjӓger around Arnhem especially.

View in Store

As you’ve seen from Andy’s excellent work the new plastic Fallschirmjӓger are totally compatible with our other German sprues such as the Grenadiers German weapons sprue and Blitzkrieg plastics.

Sprue Options in Store