Fallschirmjäger in Crete

Like many wargamers around this time of the year I make plans for projects I want to undertake in the year ahead. One of these is painting some Foundry Fallschirmjäger I bought, in September 2006! Many at the two clubs I game at are getting into Bolt Action, so I'll organise them for that system.

The army is designed to be flexible, by being both a generic Reinforced Platoon and also themed to be a Fallschirmjäger platoon as per the '1941 – Operation Mercury' theatre selector. Hence why some of the squad selctions aren't the best (terrible AT and no armoured vehicles). It also uses everything I have in my lead mountain (I bought Artizan DAK for the Gibirgsjägers and a Bolt Action PaK 36 over Christmas). I initially had bodyguards for the second lieutenant and medic, but decided to drop them and the AT grenades in one of the Fallschirmjäger squads to squeeze in a motorcycle with an MMG sidecar as I also had an unspent 10 points.

Operation Mercury Reinforced Platoon - 999pts
Second Lieutenant (Veteran) - 65pts
1 Second Lieutenant with Pistol

Fallschirmjäger squad (early war) (Veteran) - 149pts
1 NCO with Submachine gun
1 Infantry with Light Machine gun (requires loader)
7 Infantry with Rifle
Entire squad is Stubborn

Fallschirmjäger squad (early war) (Veteran) - 149pts
1 NCO with Submachine gun
1 Infantry with Light Machine gun (requires loader)
7 Infantry with Rifle
Entire squad is Stubborn

Captain (Veteran) - 138pts
1 Captain with Submachine gun
1 Infantry with Submachine gun

Medic (Veteran) - 30pts
1 Medic with Pistol

Gebirgsjäger squad (early war) (Veteran) - 153pts
1 NCO with Submachine gun
1 Infantry with Light Machine gun (requires loader)
8 Infantry with Rifle

Medium Machine Gun team (Veteran) - 65pts
1 Medium Machine gun team

Light Mortar team (Veteran) - 46pts
1 Light Mortar team

Sniper team (Veteran) - 65pts
1 Sniper team (rifle)

Anti-tank rifle team (Veteran) - 39pts
1 Anti-tank rifle team

37mm Pak 36 (Veteran) - 60pts
1 37mm PaK 36 gun

Motorcycle with Machine-gun sidecar (Regular) - 40pts
1 Motorcycle with Machine-gun sidecar

I'll need to purchase the motorcycle with the sidecar... or I could convert something. After searching for images of Fallschirmjäger and Gebirgsjägerin Crete, there was a few of pack mules that gave me an idea.

This picture was enough for me to mock up this planned conversion of the last Gibirgsjäger miniature I have with a Eureka Miniatures donkey. Most people shoudl be able to figure out what it's a proxy for.

The plan is to post updates on painting as the year progresses. We'll see if I stick to that plan or if I get distracted by something else.