The Pity of War

I sat down on Friday and Saturday night and plowed my way through these latest additions to my Peter Pig British World War One army. I previously made some casualty/morale markers for the Second Edition of the game but then when Ninjasaurus Rex and I played a tester game, quickly realised these were actually inadequate in the game except as morale markers.

When a unit takes damage one of their bases is halved and it got confusing during the game working out what was a half base marker and what was a morale marker, so I was puzzling how to show a half base without cutting all my existing bases in half. Then I had a brainwave, as I have twelve battalions, I'd only ever need one half base per battalion, therefore I'd only need to create twelve half bases! So before I knew it, I'd ordered enough figures from Peter Pig to make the half bases, twenty four figures in total, or three mixed packs. I then added some spare casualty figures, to show they were damaged bases, and Ta-Da:

I used the following Vallejo paints over an undercoat of black: Tunics/trousers/puttees: Brown Violet, highlighted with English Uniform. Packs/SBR: Khaki highlighted with Buff. Helmets: Bronze Green, highlighted by adding white to the base colour. Rifles: Chocolate Brown, highlighted by adding white to the base colour. As these are 15mm I rarely paint more than one highlight, it's the two foot rule; if they look good from two foot away, they'll look good enough on the table.

And here are two battalions advancing under a barrage, one has lost one and half bases, the following unit; half a base.

I'm happy with them, they retain the aesthetic of my original battalions and I didn't have to cut anything up!

Speaking of casualties, today is the 97th Anniversary of the Battle of the Somme. That particular Black Day for the British Army saw 57,470 casualties, of which 19,240 men were killed as they advanced towards the German trench lines on a front 12 miles long. Despite some victories, mostly in the south of the battlefield, the attack was a costly tactical failure. This said, the larger campaign on the Somme marked the beginning of the hard slog to victory for the Allies in 1918 and was an important and necessary step in the learning process of successful fighting on the Western Front.

Remember these men today and ensure their deeds are not lost to history.