Here come the Polish - Part 1

For posterity's sake, I'm going to hop in my Time Machine, and write about something that's old news, but will tie into the next post after this, my recent trip to Early War nationals for Flames of War.

Many months ago, when I got my copy of Battlefronts Blitzkrieg early war book, I was immediately taken by the Polish as an army choice. They didn't have any of the razzle dazzle that other armies had, like powerful tanks or planes, but they did have plenty of character and chutzpah.

The lists that intrigued me the most were the Polish infantry company and Cavalry company. Cavalry as in 'horses', and not motorized. Poland was a rough place terrain wise, horses were still quite common around 1939, even though their tactical advantages were....limited in real warfare, as well as Flames of War (more on that later). I flipped a coin, and decided that a Polish cav army would be pretty cool.

My target was have this army done in time for the Showcase Showdown, in Media PA. Battlefront was hosting a Doubles Tournament in mid May, and I wanted in!

I started this army around April. It was a simple list, which I'll roughly post here.

Polish Kawalerii: 1750 points
1 Polish Train w/ 2 artillery cars (packing those 75mm)
2 platoons of mounted cavalry (12 bases per platoon)
1 Anti-Tank Platoon (4 37mm guns)
1 Horse Artillery platoon (2 75mm guns, staff team)
1 Cyclist platoon, 12 bases, including 1 AT rifle, and 2 LMG's (14 total)

Little did I know in April, what I was setting myself up for in May. This would be a monumental project, with a lot of hobbying to meet the mid-May deadline. For every mounted horse you make in this army, you have to create a dismounted representation. That means twice the work that a normal army! As a indicator of how long it took me to assemble and paint this army, I used netflix as my clock. Netflix was on every time I was working on this list, and here's that list.

 Season of Spartacus: Blood in the Sand, Season 4 of Futurama, Up, The True Glory, Blade Runner (Directors cut), The Hunt for Red October,  Season 1 and 2 of Sons of Anarchy, Battle for Warsaw, Demolition Man, Super Size Me, Season 1 of Farscape, Hiroshima: BBC History of WWII, Operation Barbarossa, Talibanistan, Ken Burns: The War, Ken Burns: The Civil War, Hamburger Hill, Full Metal Jacket, National Geographics The Battle of Midway, Auschwitz, Layfette: The Lost Hero, and Toy Story 3.


So enter the month of May, and I show up with my Polish cav and a train. Showcase is a fantastic place to play at, they have an impressive store, and even a huge battle bunker. The owner is also a really nice guy, and even cooked for us both days for lunch. My team did well, coming in third, with both my partner and I going 3 and 3 for wins and loses respectively. We also took best armies as well, which was based on hobbying, not playing scores. My army did well in tipping 'best army' to my team, having received quite a few votes. I was proud of that, as a ton of work had gone into it to get it ready for that tournament.

So, here are some pictures from that tournament. All pictures were taken by my teammate, Chris Hecht.

 

The tournament was great, well run and hosted, and fun to play. I got a lot of complements about my army, and it was great to show off all the hard work.

I also wanna give props to the last minute help I had getting everything together. Chris Hecht, Brien Dulaney, and Jon Osborne helped me with some last minute painting to meet my deadlines.