Warlord Games 28mm Winter Germans Review

Last Christmas Warlord Games release their Winter German range of figures, and were kind enough to send me some. Therefore, and in the midst of a heat wave, I have painted some up.

For the purposes of this review I have 2 sets of grenadiers, the command pack, an MG42 team and a PAK 40, as well as the heavy weapons set which was available as a limited release earlier in the year.

 All the sets were cleanly cast and required minimal prep and clean up, and all contained bases, though I found the base in the PAK 40 a little small so replaced it with an MDF one.

I'll discuss below the contents of each pack individually below:-

German Grenadiers Pack (Winter)

The biggest set contains 10 figures, all in winter garb (surprisingly). The models are armed for the winter of 1944, as they are carrying 3 MP44 rifles. The rest of the squad is armed with 1 MG42 Light Machine Gun team, 4 K98 rifles, and a figure with an MP40 sub machine gun, as well as 4 Panzerfausts.

 Each figure is dressed in either a great coat, parker, or full winter suit. Most have helmet covers too whilst some wear caps. The models in this article were some that I painted for work, and my own ones I'm tempted to do as Waffen SS with the camouflage side of the suits visible as opposed to the white.

Most of the men have separate heads to allow greater variety in posing and individuality. Field gear is also nicely presented on these models. My main gripe with these models is that I'd have liked to see less (or preferably no) MP44, and instead have more models with rifles or MP40's to enable their use through earlier stages of the war, likewise with the Panzerfausts, and then the later war weapons available through either a different pack or individually on the website.

German Heer HQ (Winter)

This is my favourite of the sets, and contains an NCO gesticulating at something important, an officer in a fancy coat and hat, as well as a medic carrying a wounded comrade, with the set being finished off by a prone observer.

I love this set. The poses are straight out of the film Stalingrad (1993) and are full of character. field gear and faces is nicely done, the only one I'm not so fond of is the officers face, and I may replace that with one from one of the plastic sets when I do my own.

German Heer MMG team (Winter)

A 3 man gun group serving an MG42, another good little set with some good poses and open to plenty of fancy basing potential if you're that way inclined. Not a massive amount to say on this one, other than it goes together quickly and looks good!

German Heer PAK40 Anti-Tank gun (Winter)

Another set straight out of Stalingrad (1993), this 4 man team serves their PAK 40 and all are wearing great coats this time. No instructions for the gun are provided, however they can be worked out by looking at photos of the real gun. As stated above, I replaced the base with an MDF one that was a little bigger than the supplied plastic one. 

German Heer Special Weapons (Winter)

At the time these were only a temporary release, with a full release scheduled for later in the year.

The pack contains 6 figures, who break down into a 2 man Panzershrek team, a 2 man Sniper team, and a 2 man flamethrower team. As with most of these sets they wear a mixture of great coats and parkas, and have some unique poses to them. I'm parituclarly fond of the Panzershrek team, but they are all very nicely done.

For speed I painted these with anything that could be white, white, and the rest using field grey. My recipe for field grey is to use Vallejo Russian uniform, with increasing amounts of either deck tan or pastel green mixed in, and use army painter soft tone and green inks for shading.

The white parts of the uniform started off as vallejo deck tan, were shaded with a hit of soft tone, before being highlighted up with deck tan mixed with increasing amounts of Ivory, also from Vallejo.

Basing was done using Forest Ground Cover from Warlord, with snow made from bicarbonate of soda mixed with Vallejo Water effect. The more water effect the slushier the snow is. 

I really like these figures a lot. My only real complaint is that they are very late war, however this is more a matter of taste than real criticism, and I can only hope the range will be expanded with more support and heavy weapons, as well as more riflemen to be used earlier in the war too. A few with PPSH41's would be especially welcome! 

You can order the figures either through your local games shop or direct with Warlord, who also sells the sets in a nice deal package. As ever you can see more of my work, or contact me for commissions at Volley Fire Painting Service.