n 1940, the British established a new raiding and reconnaissance force. Well-trained and highly mobile, they were to carry on the war against the Axis after the evacuation from Dunkirk. The first commando operations were small, but later they grew in complexity and size. As the Second World War went on, commandos fought as assault troops in many key battles.

Commando recruits were trained at special centres in Scotland. They learnt physical fitness, survival, orienteering, close-quarter combat, silent killing, signalling, amphibious and cliff assault, vehicle operation, the handling of different weapons and demolition skills. Any man who failed to live up to the toughest requirements would be ‘returned to unit’ (RTU).

The evolving role of the commandos saw changes to the training programme at Achnacarry in 1943. It now focused more on the assault infantry role and less on raiding operations. Training now included how to work with larger battlefield formations and how to call for artillery, naval and air force fire support.

Commando units did not have integral artillery support until the establishment of the 29th Commando Regiment, Royal Artillery in 1947. The Bolt Action rules allow for Commandos that are not a “raiding force” to utilise Light Artillery, which i am not sure has any historical validity. Given the change in direction mentioned above where commandos not only took on the role of a raiding force, but one of assault infantry it is possible that artillery was allocated to them for support.

The light artillery piece I have is the 75mm British Airborne Howitzer. This is the most likely to have been used, besides it is the one I have!

If anyone has any information to support or deny the use of artillery, I would appreciate a comment with a point in the right direction.

A lot of the information in this post was obtained from here. Tomorrow more Commando support teams.

I have built this small unit up to be dual purpose. Either as another platoon officer with its own dice, or as an Intelligence Officer attached to the Platoon HQ, or as an Intelligence Officer with their own squad of six to ten infantrymen.

The advantage of the Intelligence Officer, from a game sense, is that once per game, at the beginning of any turn before the first die is drawn from the dice bag. Roll a D6 and apply modifiers: Inexperienced -1, Veteran +1. On a 4+, the player activating the Intelligence Officer may choose a die from the bag for the first activation. If both players attempt to activate this ability simultaneously, each must roll 1D6. The higher score wins and immediately uses this ability, but the losing player may attempt to use his ability on another turn instead.

Intelligence officers were not only attached at higher echelons such as a divisional HQ, but were also deployed all the way down to platoon level. Their duties would not only be to glean intelligence, but to to act as subject matter experts on enemy units, tactics and weapons.

I have borrowed the support figures from other units and hope to glue together and paint the extra figures for the squad over the next few days. See below.

Tomorrow more bang for your Commando buck.

PS. Phew! Just made today’s post with 45 minutes to spare!

I have started painting the Spanish army to go with my French and Russians for Silver bayonet. The real plus with this game is that you only need to paint a dozen figures max!

Here are the first four:

The “Champion of the Faith”.

Guerilla

Native scout from the “Americas”.

This one is not from the “official” set.

The “dapper” doctor from about town. Again this one is from a different range (?).

This leaves me only six more to do.

It has been a long time since my eldest was interested in gaming. I still have the trophy on the shelf from when he and I came third in a DBM doubles tournament with Old Kingdom Egyptians and Sumerians. The first army he painted was a 25mm Seleucid army using mainly minfigs. I still have this army in storage for him, as well as a large WFB army of dwarfs.

His interest has been re-sparked by his eldest son who enjoys painting figures.

Here he is painting the Warhammer Quest doors. Today I was shown the Reaper Sharkman he had just finished painting which I only gave him over Easter (no pic).

Over the last few weeks SOG (Son of Guru) has been painting again and he has really improved. Figures from oldest to latest.

With highlights still to add.

Still in progress.

His latest figures, some large Orcs and Boromir, have come out even better.

It is a great thing when your son and grandson start painting figures because when the eyes dim and the hand becomes unsteady you have you have your own built in figure painters, and what’s not to like about that!

These are the last four of my thirteen sample figures. The detail suits my quick painting technique and I will definitely buy some more when Nic at Eureka miniatures is back from Long Service Leave.

I am not sure how I will use these four but at least they are finished

Not sure what will be next. At the moment I am working on finishing the British Commandos and have started the Kanga force of Australian Commandos and the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles.

The second unit of nationalist scouts is now finished.

Regular follower will notice that I have ignored the cap badges as I just couldn’t get them right. I tried a more realistic approach with the blue background and red star trimmed by gold, but this just didn’t fit either. In the end I just eliminated them on all figures painted so far!

Here they are! I have another four sample figures to paint and then I will wait until some other projects are finished. Anyway Eureka Miniatures are closed until mid-may for Long Service leave so no more new recruits are available until at least then.

Most importantly is getting a whole lot of figures ready to sell. I have created another tab on the website front page called “figures for sale” which will be continually updated as I sort stuff out and put them up. Regular readers (followers) can ignore the prices and contact me with an offer (there is a link on that page). Generally prices have been set at less than the unpainted figure cost.

Tomorrow a battle report on a Test of Honour samurai skirmish game.

Australia 2 England 0

Go Matildas!

Just four days after England were crowned Finalissima champions, the Lionesses suffered their first defeat under Sarina Wiegman.

Goals from Sam Kerr and Charlotte Grant proved decisive in putting an end to England’s 30-match unbeaten streak in what is expected to be their last match before the World Cup gets underway.