Ostfront: Sourcing the WW2 Royal Hungarian Army

Having backed Mad Bob's Hungarian Tanks Kickstarter I have been putting my mind to sourcing a platoon of Hungarian troops to accompany the AFV's when they arrive. I have for a while been planning a 1941-42 Eastern Front project in 28mm as I have a pile of old Harlequin (now BTD) Germans and Soviets sculpted by Nick Collier hiding on Lead Mountain, as well as some plastic PSC Soviets, some of which  have already painted.

Great War WWI Germans (photo Scarab Minaitures)

Of course, as is the wont of the wargames industry, there are buckets of 28mm Germans and Soviets in the marketplace, but very little for major Axis allies such as the Hungarians and Romanians. However digging out my Osprey on the Royal Hungarian Army in WW2 and undertaking a bit of Google fu, shows that the most common approach is to use late war WWI Germans painted brown. Whilst not a perfect solution, and not without problems on the smg and lmg front, it is a reasonable solution.

Brigade WWI Germans (photo Brigade)

Digging through Lead Mountain I uncovered a pack of eight Brigade Games Germans in Stalhelms skirmishing. There are only two advancing poses and one of them has the model sporting the ammunition bandoliers used by the 1917-18 Germans which will need removing for Hungarians, but that gave me a start.

Searching for more late WWI Germans my queries alighted on the excellent Great War Miniatures line and their German Infantry in Light Equipment and Artillery Crew which will soon arriving through the letterbox at Bleaseworld. I also checked out the excellent Scarab Miniatures WWI range, whose Austro-Hungarians are lovely but have most of the figures carry an hand grenade sack that just wouldn't be right for WW2 Hungarians. However they do a lovely looking Schwarzlose Model 1907/12 machine gun that will pass as the WW2 model sans gun shield.

Scarab Austro-Hungarian Schawarzlose Model 1907/12 MG (photo Scarab Miniatures)

All in all, this is starting to look like an achievable exercise...