WW2 gamers looking for something different for their tabletop have a brand new, totally awesome anti-fascist option available to them starting August 27. The Kickstarter for Women of WW2: Resistance promises to offer a ton of amazing minis of women fighting Nazis from many different countries.
Goonhammer has previously reviewed Bad Squiddo Shield Maidens and showcased the Soviet miniatures. Annie is a pillar of the wargaming community and deserves success on this project! Here’s her press release:
For Immediate Release:
Bad Squiddo Games has announced a Kickstarter for “Women of WW2: Resistance”, which will launch on the 27th August 2025 and run for two weeks.
This exciting addition to their successful range of Women of WW2 pushes their reach beyond representation of Britain, USA and the USSR to include a whole heap of territories such as France, Italy, Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Denmark, Germany and even more. There is even promise of more if the campaign is a success.
Established in 2015 by Annie Norman, Bad Squiddo Games has become a well recognised and respected manufacturer of specially femme presenting miniatures, with their goal to increase the choice of miniatures available for the tabletop.
This campaign will cast a broad net across the world to highlight the stories of specific individuals showcasing the many ways that women fought against the Nazis in WW2. This is everything from commanding substantial amounts of troops to smuggling leaflets in baguettes.
Annie says, “If folk love this project as much as I do, we have further plans to expand this much further in various follow-up campaigns. These names and tales need to be known now even more than ever. It’s taken us so long to really get our teeth into partisans and resistance as I’ve been so eager to make sure each figure represents a real person. I find this far more evocative than making generic partisans, which we could have done years ago.”
Alongside these miniatures will be a brand new book by Jon Hodgson of Handiwork Games called “World War Ruins” which will first be exclusively available from this Kickstarter. The ruined cityscapes will compliment these miniatures but also be extremely versatile for many projects across modern eras and locations.
Jon says:
“I’m delighted to be once again teaming up with Annie and Bad Squiddo! These are not only really great figures, (I know, I’ve painted some of them already!) now, more than ever, is important to remember and celebrate these key figures of resistance to fascism, in all their glory, tragedy and complexity. Handiwork Games and Bad Squiddo share the same commitment to delivering for our customers and doing our homework on the history that inspires us so much, so it’s a privilege to be a part of this campaign.”
The Kickstarter for “Women of WW2: Resistance”, will launch on the 27th August 2025. Sign up to be reminded of the launch today.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/badsquiddogames/antifascist
Fighting on the Homefront
Using these minis in your favorite WW2 wargame is going to be fairly easy. For Bolt Action, we chose to create a pretty straightforward platoon with four infantry squads. Three of the squads are more close-up assault squads, with five SMGs in them and anti-tank grenades for when they get really close. They’re built in squads of nine, but you could definitely take them down to seven and add another squad to the platoon to give you more order die and activations.
The other two squads are lighter on SMGs but include LMGs for putting down covering fire. While partisans may not have been nearly as uniformly equipped, we’re assuming they’ve made contact with armies or operatives in the area and been given some materiel support in the form of LMGs, light mortars, and AT rifles.
We’ve also included some local support for our fighting women – a Field Ambulance, which offers a ton of cool opportunities for kit-bashing, a Liaison Officer who is calling in artillery from the regular army, a sniper team (of course), an anti-tank team and a mortar team. You would likely have to kit-bash these from some plastics, or just grab the pewter Soviet women from Bad Squiddo. I think it’d be an excellent opportuntity to do some cross-pollination with something like “these women have trained hard to be partisans and even been equipped with some uniforms from the Soviet army, but obviously not all of them yet”.
For vehicle support this platoon has a regular light tank – a BT-7, a tank which I adore. It’s unreliable as it’s been given to the partisans in a state of disrepair, but something might be better than nothing in this case. I had originally written the list without a tank and made all the squads veterans, showing not necessarily their intense training but maybe their huge support for their homeland – but I think perhaps just regular is fine, and the tank takes up those points nicely.
Platoon Commander (1st or 2nd Lieutenant) Composition: 1 Officer
Regular (30 pts)
Partisan Squad
Composition: 1 NCO+ 8 Soldiers
Options: Additional (wo)men x 4, Squad: Submachine gun (SMG) x 4, Special Rules: Tank Hunters
Add anti-tank grenades, NCO: Submachine gun (SMG)
Partisan Squad
Composition: 1 NCO+ 8 Soldiers
Options: Additional (wo)men x 4, Squad: Submachine gun (SMG) x 4, Special Rules: Tank Hunters
Add anti-tank grenades, NCO: Submachine gun (SMG)
Partisan Squad
Composition: 1 NCO+ 8 Soldiers
Options: Additional (wo)men x 4, Squad: Submachine gun (SMG) x 4, Special Rules: Tank Hunters
Add anti-tank grenades, NCO: Submachine gun (SMG)
Partisan Squad
Composition: 1 NCO+ 6 Soldiers
Options: Additional (wo)men x 2, Light machine gun (LMG), Special Rules: Tank Hunters
Add anti-tank grenades, NCO Submachine gun(SMG)
Regular (103 pts)
Partisan Squad
Composition: 1 NCO+ 6 Soldiers
Options: Additional (wo)men x 2, Light machine gun (LMG), Special Rules: Tank Hunters
Add anti-tank grenades, NCO Submachine gun(SMG)
Regular (103 pts)
Field Ambulance
Damage Value: All soft-skinned vehicles (6+) Special Rules: Ambulance. Medic, Medical Vehicle
Regular (38 pts)
Liason Officer Composition: 1 Soldier
Special Rules: Infiltrator, Liason Officer
Sniper Team
Composition: 2 Soldiers
Special Rules: Infiltrator, Sniper, Team Weapon
Anti-Tank Team Composition: 2 Soldiers
Mortar Team
Composition: 2 Soldiers
BT-7
Damage Value: Light tank (8+} Special Rules: Unreliable
Chain of Command
The excellent supplement Operation Winter Storm provides a Soviet Partizan Platoon selector for Chain of Command. The description for the platoon even mentions regulars being included in the force:
The Soviet Partizans were an amorphous force
which continually harassed the German rear
areas, tying down many thousands of men.Comprised of a mix of patriotic Soviet civilians
and soldiers cut off by the rapid German
advances, they were often supported by regular
troops infiltrated through German lines for that
very purpose. Most Partizan units in 1942 should
be rated Green, with some better units as
Regulars.
For this force, we’d start with a Lieutenant with a pistol, then have three squads of infantry. These squads would start with an NCO with an SMG and then six + 1D4 riflewomen. Love the usage of the D4 there, such an underrated die. For support, I would recommend including LMGs for each squad, some satchel charges, an RM38 50mm mortar, a sniper team, and a PTRD AT rifle. This would amke for a good smaller game of COC vs a rear guard Axis force – such as a Slovak Platoon assigned to that.
Final Thoughts
This release from Bad Squiddo is a solid offering for WW2 gamers. The handsculpted minis are excellent and characterful, providing some great standouts for squads that might be more uniform. While all the minis are from different countries, I feel that you could include them as other ladies in a standard platoon to help makeup a force. I think building a force from Bad Squiddo’s Soviets and adding in these partizan ladies is definitely on my list for the future!
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