From TeemuL: Winter vignette [Local History] (40 points)

First the map. The nice lady in shiny armour guided me to the Local History topic and here I complete the second section of the Library. Still in the schedule, but it is getting more and more difficult.

Local history. If you have paid attention to my Minion posts, then you might remember two things: 1) I'm from Finland and 2) there's snow in Finland. So here is a group of German infantry in snow. Yes, Germans, not Finns. Well, I didn't have any miniature Finns, but I had this odd box of Germans, which I bought years ago in clearance sale. It is a Zvezda box "German infantry in winter uniform 1941-1945" in scale of 1/72 or 20mm. Painting this box was part of my plan (which you may have read) and some brainwork was needed to fit it into the Challenge map.

Local history of Finland is quite well tied with Germans especially on the WW2. In Winter War the Soviet Union invaded Finland (after making false accusations of first fire by Finns) and after 105 days a treaty was made, where Finland lost some areas, but kept independence. Soviet Union basically won the war, but with great cost (1:10 kill ratio) and needed forces in other parts of Europe. Finland was quite alone, because Soviet Union was part of the Allies and Allies didn't want to fight each other.

After the Winter War Finns were quite pissed off and wanted to get the lost areas back. Finns and Germans found a common enemy and joined their forces to attack Soviet Union. Thus began the Continuation War, where Finns attacked, made some nice progress and then got halted for two and half years. At that time Germans were retreating back to Berlin and Soviets had their factories running and Finns started to retreat, too. There were German forces in Finland all the time, thus German infantry in winter uniforms 1941-1945 is part of Finnish local history.

In the end peace treaty was made with Soviets and Finns, Finland again kept the independence, but had to pay huge compensations and lost some areas. They were also forced to fight the Germans off. Germans were ready to retreat to Norway in peace, but Soviets demanded war. There was some real combats and some phony combats in so called Lapland War.

I guess I have now made it clear, that this little vignette is local history. There were separate bases for them in the box, but I used the vignette base, because I have no intention to use them in any games. Naturally I glued them first and then started to paint. Sigh. Because they are historical minis, I tried to make them look real. I used the cover art and Colours of War book as references. The box has them in green coats, which doesn't look practical in snow, so I went with greenish grey. Grenadier uniform in Colours of War looked nice, so I followed it with some artistic rights. I'd say, when you are fighting in snow, you try to be practical and not follow the guides. Also, during the long war, you get some equipment from enemy (Soviets) and allies (Finns). So green helmets and pants with grey coats. Then several drybrushes with various greys, off whites and finally white.

I'm very happy with the end result, I'd say the miniatures look quite wintery. It is not exactly what I was going for, it is different, but better. And I'm sure I couldn't duplicate the result again, so I'm happy this is a one-time effort. I glued some sand on the base and some blobs of PVA and then painted them on various whites. I tried to make the base uneven and have some texture, to make it look like snow. Not just a "regular" base with some snow on it, but real snow. Yes, I have some first hand experience on the issue.

And the last photo shows the progress of my plan. What is my so-called-plan? My plan is to take unopened boxes from my warehouse department and paint the minis from the boxes. Quite often the boxes take more space when unassembled compared to assembled ones. Thus the idea is to create more space. So far I have managed to empty one box, but I have assembled and primed four others. This box is quite small, so there is not that much space to gain with this one, but at least some. The next box might fit the "snooty" Literature topic in the Rotunda.

That is 5 minis in 1/72 scale (20mm) and they are 4 points a piece, so 20 points and 20 points for Library location.

Sylvain: Thank you Teemu for sharing that part of your local history. Indeed, Finland was (and still is) sharing a frontier with a ruthless military power. I like how you tried to "winterize" the German colors. You vignette almost feels like they are fighting in a snow storm. Excellent work!