Earlier this year many of the guys in my gaming group began working on a World War I project, focusing on the early months of the war. The plan was to use the 1914 rules from Great Escape Games. Since Great Escape Games only had Western Front figures (German, French, B.E.F. and Belgium), they planned to use Kallistra figures too, so they could do Eastern Front battles.
While I was willing to play a game, I was not planning on painting up any armies for the project. However, after one gaming day, I found a pile of Kallistra Belgians abandon on my doorstep (okay they were really abandon on a table after another game). So, I decided to (or sucked into, depending on your point of view) take in the orphans and work on a Belgian army brigade.
Here is the finished project.
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| My Belgian brigade with 3 infantry regiments, 1 cavalry regiment, and supporting artillery |
The Belgians weren't really prepared for the German attack and went through several different uniforms in the first months of the war. Because of this the infantry figures from Great Escape Games and Kallistra are not compatible. The Great Escape Games infantry wear the long coat and shako available at the start of the war, while the Kallistra infantry had the Yser cap and coat from September - October 1914. The cap and coat are a blue-gray color and I went with gray for their pants, even though there are references to wine-colored paints. I worked with what I had and put together 3 infantry regiments, each with 4 infantry companies (stands) and a machine gun stand. The infantry colors are probably too uniform, since the Belgians were using whatever they could find for uniforms and there were many civilian clothes mixed in with the standard uniforms.
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| 2 infantry regiments with attached machine guns |
The cavalry was painted up as Mounted Rifles (Chasseurs a Chevel), which still have their shakos. The game calls for mounted and dismounted stands, so there is a total of 8 cavalry stands. I used a different blue color for the cavalry to show the difference between early war and the Yser uniforms.
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| Mounted and dismounted cavalry regiment, next to and infantry regiment |
To round out the brigade, I added a couple field guns, and command stand, and a Minerva armored car that I inherited from another person in the group. I'm planning to use the armored car as the machine gun stand for the cavalry regiment. The command stand includes a scratchbuilt table with maps.
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| Artillery, command, and armored car stands |
While the whole project diverted me from my other projects for a little while. It is good to have them done to add to the bigger WWI project. Now it is time to shift back to the other projects.
