We have run early war Flames of War scenarios for a long time. Every so often, we turn to the Norway campaign. So many of the fights require some Norwegians forces in the mix, but none of us had such troops. One of my buddies and myself decided to fill the hole. He decided to focus on the snow fighting in the north and I am fighting on the spring fighting.
With that in mind, I had to figure out what I was going to do to put together a reinforced company. I figured the best figures to use would be WWII Finns. They have a lot of soft caps and the style is close enough (at least in 15mm). So, I figured out what I would need to field a company. The Norwegians had a square structure, so four infantry platoons would be needed. I also wanted a unit of MGs and some Mortars. I wrapped it up with some Artillery support.
I found the old FOW Norwegian pdf and used that as a base. I did some research on weapons options and was able to figure out which Finn figures I would need. I wanted to minimize the number of helmets, as the Norwegians seemed to be short of these (at least they did not like wearing them in their photos). I found the 75mm artillery online at Battlefield3D, so that was covered.
I could not completely escape having helmets, as I needed some of the poses and weapons. However, the Finns have a Stahlhelm, which would not work. So, I had to pull out the exact and trim down the side ridge to flatten it out (It is amazing how varied Battlefront castings are in their helmet styles).
I mounted all the figures on the newer brown hole bases (they all came with the older gray flat bases) and went to work. Once the painting and touch up was done, it was a case of basing.
I got some new pumice from AK that I thought I would try out. It is a bit grainier than the Vallejo dark mud. I just drybrushed it up a bit and added flock and tufts to break it up. I boarded the bases. I then glued the gun models and laying down guys to the bases and added some dull coat to finish them up.
I am all ready the next time the call go out for Norwegians
– Manteuffel