Azurnerreich Task Force

As anyone who follows Consimworld's Blitzkrieg board knows, I am a big fan of Avalon Hill's Blitzkrieg. I don't know why - the game itself kinda sucks, actually. But for years now, I've done variants, scenarios and even entire new countersets for it.

Mostly, I think I'm attracted to Blitz because of its historical-yet-science-fiction nature. It's a fictional war in the universe next door between two fictional superpowers who have access to roughly 1950s technology. One can thus play a "historical" kind of war without historical constraints.

The reason I originally bought Cold War Commander and Oddizial Osmy 1/600 miniatures was to play Blitzkrieg. I decided I'd build three armies: Red, Blue and a Neutral Yellow. Red would have Soviet style technology and Blue would have NATO technology. Yellow would be made up of both, plus minor nation stuff. I set an arbitrary limit of 1960 for the equipment because I didn't want to deal with the wide-spread use of anti-tank missiles. Therefore, most equipment is ca. 1955.

Blue - or Azurnerreich - uses Centurions for their main battle tank and German SPW250s and 251s as infantry carriers. They also use Chaffees for recon and French AMX-13s for light tank killers. The Blue Air Force flies F-100 Super Sabres for air superiority and prop-driven Skyraiders for ground support.

Unlike my World War II games, I play CWC Blitzkrieg at the platoon level and half-scale (i.e. 10 cm in the rules are 2 inches on my table).

I've been having a lot of fun dreaming up OoBs for the principal armies and I've decided that Blue will have big, well trained battalions while Red will have smaller, less well trained battalions. This means a Blue battalion should be roughly the equivalent of a Red regiment.

My total Blue force, bought and based so far, amounts to two large battalions of tanks and mechanized infantry, two SPA battalions, a battalion of paratroops and an infantry (motorized) battalion. There are also supporting units: a company of mechanized engineers and two companies of AMX-13s. I'm also going to build a Armored Cavalry "regiment" for Blue (actually am over-sized big battalion).

The following pictures are of my first completed Azurnerreich combined arms task force. It is built around a tank battalion with one company of mech infantry swapped in. Here we have two Centurion companies and a mechanized infantry company (three SPW250-mounted infantry platoons, a mortar platoon and a self-propelled gun platoon). Also attached are a recon platoon and an armored engineer platoon (Centurions fitted with heavy support howitzers and bulldozer blades - I also presume that bridgelayers go with them). Another Centurion company needs to be painted up for this unit to be complete, but it's table-worthy as is.

Task Force Kreuzmann, in its entirety.

Mechanized Infantry company.

Tank Company. 

 

Task Force Headquarters    

   Chaffee Recon Platoon

Task Force Kreuzmann from another angle.

Following my normal doctrine for 1/600 miniatures, I painted one color and flocked another. Here, the base color of the tanks is blue-gray with tan camouflage stripes. The base is a terracota wash over tan, with flocking built up in three layers: fine yellow towards the middle, green flock towards the margins and spring green static grass in clumps to make it really stand out. I wanted the whole effect to look vaguely Brazilian or tropical and I think I've suceeded at that.

More Azurnerreich will be coming soon, as will the forces of their arch-enemies, Krasnynorad (Big Red).