More Perry WW2 Desert Rats

In earlier posts, I've looked at LRDG / SAS troops assembled and painted from the Perry Miniatures Desert Rats set.  In this post, I wanted to show some of the miniatures I'd assembled as 'normal' 8th army;

This is one of the 2 inch mortar teams.  I found the helmets on these miniatures sat a little high, perched on the head.  Might be just me, but I wanted them to sit a little lower, so I scalped the heads first (about 1.5mm off), before cementing the helmet in place.

Studying my photographic references, I noted a huge variety among the troops in the Western Desert, which you can't easily replicate with a set which has everyone in matching shorts and shirts.  With future sets, I think I'll sculpt long trousers on a few, and maybe some pullovers too (the officer comes with one anyway) to add more variety.  For these, I used helmet angle to mark out those who did it 'by the numbers', and those of a more casual or jaunty persuasion.  In the case of these two, the gunner is a serious character with very correct helmet placement, but the loader is a little more of an individual, with his helmet canted over to one side.

Mortar team number two, positioned slightly differently and with a small cork rock to break up the flat sand.  Not much different, but enough that I could tell them apart when they went on eBay.

Another angle of mortar team number two.  On the subject of basing, most of my WW2 Western Desert (and medieval crusades) miniatures are based with mostly plain sand.  This is not wholly accurate, of course - there should be patches of scrub, rocks, and more variety of colour (from almost bleached white through to almost black/brown).  The reason for the plain sand is twofold - it's easy, and it can be easily amended.  Because these figures are primarily for sale, and not commissioned especially, I need the base to be simple so that the purchaser can either use them as they are, or add rocks / shrubs / etc. to taste.  Of course, with commissioned figures, I base according to customer-specific needs.

Jobs for the Boyes.  As a kid, I used to laugh at the notion of anti-tank rifles.  It wasn't until I saw a real one in a museum that I appreciated they might actually work.  The round they fire is big and heavy, and I can well imagine that thinner armour (rear, sides) could be penetrated and still leave enough velocity to really upset whoever was inside.  The kit allows you to build several Boyes gunners, and I chose to model these with kneeling poses, the rifle itself balanced on a handy rock to offset its weight.  The chap on the right is clearly posing for the camera.

Bren gunners.  You just can't have WW2 British without Bren guns, and the Perry kit gives you several.  Again, I posed these with kneeling bodies, and use of convenient rocks to change the angle.  I imagined the chap on the left dealing with low-flying aircraft, while the other fellow is doubtless poised overlooking the Halfiya, blazing away at enemy softskins and troop concentrations.  The rocks are just cork, not even painted as it looks pretty rocky in its raw form, in this scale.

Close-ups to finish.  These are painted in my standard 8th army scheme as described in an earlier post.  The Brens (and other metal parts on firearms) are not painted metallic, as it looks grossly overscale on 28mm miniatures.  Instead, they're overall panzer grey - and washed with either brown (for desert dirt) or blue (for a factory-fresh look).