World War 2 Dutch, part 1

Click here for part 2, Click here for part 3

Being a cloggy I have been ogling the World War 2 Dutch figure range by May ’40 Miniatures for a while now. Three months or so ago I picked up a 12-man infantry squad, just for a fun painting project. For a bit of painting inspiration I also bought the Osprey book ‘Hitler's Blitzkrieg Enemies 1940: Denmark, Norway, Netherlands & Belgium’. This book gave me an idea: What if I bought a small number of models for each of the five armies covered in this book? Luxembourg, by the way, is included in the book but somehow didn’t make it to the cover. I won’t collect an entire army, I lied to myself, but I’ll just paint a couple of minis, just for fun.

I immediately purchased some WW2 Belgians and Danes, so those will eventually show up on here as well. I’m still looking for some affordable Norwegians. The only vendor I’ve found online so far is located in the US, so the shipping costs are actually higher than the prices of the minis themselves. I doubt anyone makes any Luxembourgers.

While painting up the superb May ’40 figures I quickly found that I did, in fact, really needed a little Dutch army. Perhaps for use in Bolt Action? So as I write this, a few more minis are on the way. But only a couple, I promise!

Anyway, to the actual painting. May ’40 Miniatures provide a helpful painting guide, both for beginning painters (without highlighting and shading) and for more advanced hobbyists. For my minis I used the beginner guide with some tweaks here and there. I gave the uniforms a basecoat of Vallejo German fieldgrey, followed by a drybrush of Vallejo blue grey to get the characteristically blue hue of the Dutch uniform. This turned out to be a bit too blue for my liking, so the drybrush was followed by a wash of German fieldgrey to tone it down a little. I painted the webbing a mix of Vallejo blue grey and medium grey. The leather and the gun stocks got a coat of Vallejo flat brown and the shoes a coat of black (any old black will do). Finally, the helmets were painted Vallejo refractive green and the helmet plates were painted black. I then brushed on a coat of Army Painter Quickshade Light Tone and, after letting that dry for three days, I sprayed on two coats of Vallejo matte varnish.

Groupshot of the 12-man infantry squad

Sergeant

Selection of the riflemen

Lewis LMG team

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