A few weeks ago, Ian, one of the TOs at Australia’s premiere Bolt Action tournament – Cancon – got in touch with us with a story he thought we might want to run, accompanied by some pictures of an absolutely gorgeous German army. Ian was right: we did want to run it, and we’ve finally got the space for it in a newsletter. Presented below is Ian’s report on and images of Julian Suitor’s prize-winning German force!
Ian – The Bolt Action tournament at Cancon, held annually in Australia’s capital, is far and away the largest and most prestigious Bolt Action event held in the Southern Hemisphere, and has been since Bolt Action’s 1st Edition. Players road-trip or fly across the country, and have even been known to fly in from New Zealand or South East Asia to attend! In short, it’s the high point of the Bolt Action calendar for a very big catchment area of players!
Almost as prestigious as the overall tournament win is the Best Painted award. Previous winners have included such community stalwarts as Bryan Cook, the author of the Fortress Budapest supplement and creator of countless articles for Warlord and the Bolt Action Alliance, and the enigmatic ‘Patchimus Prime’ also of the Bolt Action Alliance and the venerable Ghost Army Podcast. Joining the ranks of such luminaries this year was Julian Suitor, with his magnificent late-war German force, which won the vote by a substantial margin.
Although Julian has been painting miniatures off and on for 25 years, he actually only started wargaming 18 months ago when a close friend gifted him the Green Devils Fallschirmjäger starter army box to try and tempt him into playing Bolt Action. The ploy clearly worked! Whilst that starter box remains the core of his force, after playing a number of games and attending his first tournament (where unsurprisingly, he won Best Painted!) he decided to add Pioniers and Gebirgsjäger for more competitive play.
However, while browsing the Warlord webstore, he stumbled upon the RAUS! Waffen-SS debussing Hanomag set, and an idea started taking shape not only for his force but a display board to accompany the army. To quote the man himself:
I decided to theme the force around a vehicle convoy that finds itself in an ‘ambush left’ scenario, with troops debussing left and running out along the right side of vehicles. This gave an opportunity for a small field at the front with barbed wire for the engineers to breach with flamethrowers and wire cutter ( and there just so happens to be there is a supine model of a Sturmpionere cutting wire in the old metal Pioniers set who I felt would be perfect for the role). There is a small escarpment for the mortars and their spotters to set up on, as officers scramble through their maps, and a forest on the other side where snipers and Spähtruppen take up position.
There are some clever conversions in Julian’s force including several of Pioniers which were constructed from a mix of plastic bodies, heads, and arms from the German Veteran Infantry box with backpacks, satchels, and body parts from the out-of-production metal German Pioneer set.
The Einstossflammenwerfer 46 operators were made from the same plastic veteran infantry. For these, Julian used the LG 34 hand, a rifle sling, and cut down pieces of a plastic Panzer III gun barrel. A piece of wire was then drilled into the barrel and some modelling putty used to form the flame.
The attention to detail in Julian’s force is exceptional. Not only has he mastered the difficult German Splittertarnmuster camo scheme, but if you look closely, there are even tiny MG 42 shell casings modelled falling down the front of Hanomag bonnets and strewn on the floor of the trucks. These were made by carefully cutting 0.5mm brass wire into small pieces and filing one end flat, then washing them brown and dot highlighting with a bright silver. Then, in Julian’s own words:
“If you really hate yourself, get some tweezers and glue the cases to look like they are popping out of the MG 42 ejection port!”
All in all, this is a beautifully painted and characterful example of a late-war German force, created from a starter set and expanded with specialist troops and some creative conversions using the versatile plastic Veteran Infantry box. We definitely thought it was a worthy winner, and we can’t wait to see what Julian comes back with next year!
What can we say but “well done, Julian!”? Want to follow his example with a German force of your own?
