Part 2 of the Partisans!

As discussed a few posts back, I bought a lovely partisan army from a very talented gentleman over at WWPD.  Now the question... What to do with it?

Now this particular army is not the usual French or Russian Partisan force that tends to pop up.  It is a Polish force based on the Warsaw Uprising at the very end of the european war.  As I previously discussed, the army is made up a people wearing a combination of old Polish gear, civilian clothing, and looted German uniforms.  Weapons come from similar places but it should be noted that prior to their betrayal the Russians smuggled weapons into Warsaw as well to support the revolutionaries.  All in all, this is not build to match... anything.  Uniform it ain't! Back to the bigger question...  What to do with it?  Now, because of the diverse and varied natured of the army, I have found it difficult to match it to a particular national book and remain vaguely historically accurate..

On one hand, I could run it as a German army.  It does have 8 assault rifles (not seen in any other list), a Hetzer and an armoured troop transport.  The only way that I could include both would be to take Ze Germans as my army list as the actual Partisan list is the Armies of France book only allows you to take one looted vehicle.  Now the Armies of Germany list does have lots of inexperienced late-war units that would be perfect in constructing a list of this type.  As long as I limited myself to using the Partisan list from the France book as a selector as to what units I could take (not engineer squads or arty observers for example) I think this could work pretty well.  I don't think it would be be confusing for opponents either as most of the army IS wearing German gear.  Then again, I do already have a huge German army that I am struggling to get done.

Option number two is to use the Partisan list for the Partisan army.  Now you might be thinking...  Duh, that makes perfect sense Brad!  BUT that list is written for Partisans in a variety of countries across the entire length of the war.  It also doesn't really fit.  The Warsaw Uprising took place very late in the war itself and the weapon options of the Partisan lists do not fully match what Warsaw Partisan forces actually had in the campaign.  Don't get me wrong, the national rules for that list fit (setting bombs, surprising German forces from all sides when they least expected it, etc).  That list would also require me to get a large number of additional models painted... IF I wanted to take advantage of the great units that the Partisans have access to.  Pistol carrying inexperienced troops for example.  Anti-tank rifles, mortars, looted vehicles to name a few more.  I think the key will be to play a few games and see where we end up.  In fact the boys are coming over this afternoon to do just that.  I think I will try out the new Partisan list using a army that might look a bit like this:

Since sniper squads were strangely left out of the list despite their inclusion of the selectors at the back of the list I have left them out.  To get some needed sniping power I have included a 2^nd platoon with a 2^nd anti-tank rifle. I love these guys!  I have included a flaming tank as an anti-personal asset that does not need to roll to hit when firing.  Yeah, I know there were not in Warsaw but this is my one concession away from theme.  I tried to build the majority of the army around inexperienced and regular units with irregular sizes and mixed up weapons and I am fairly pleased at the results.  Will it win a game?  Not sure yet.  I will have to see.   

Now to paint some replacement models to beef out the list... You can see my first few below: