The British Sniper Team are here - and they’ll be on sale at Britcon

While the Great War wasn’t the first to involve dedicated snipers (that dubious honour goes to the English Civil War, somehow… Imagine trying to get a clear shot using a musket without rifling…) this was the first war in which dedicated sniper units and tactics were formalised.

The Germans were the first side to realise the benefit of scoped lenses, and their snipers were one of many new terrors of the first few years of the war. Britain and France slowly came to understand the tactical utility of killing junior officers at range, and were soon repurposing hunting rifles using hastily assembled scopes of their own.

Germany maintained the edge in sniping and marksmanship for much of the war - their extensive prewar lens industry providing a marked advantage for years. But by 1918, the Germans were using outdated ‘lone wolf’ tactics, while Britain and France were pioneering the idea of teams, deploying a sniper and a spotter. This proved decisive, and by the end of the war the Germans were lagging.

This British Sniper Team is one of the last miniatures to be released from the original 1918 Kickstarter, and we’re very proud of our boys.

The shooter is armed with a Lee Enfield SMLE using an offset Aldis scope. He's wearing a camouflage robe, which would have been made in the field, usually using painted canvas with foliage and grass attached. They were the forerunner to a modern ghillie suit. 

The spotter has a glass (a telescope) rather than binoculars. This followed the traditions of the Lovat Scouts who were essentially Highland game keepers repurposing their deerstalking skills out on the Western Front. He's wearing coveralls with camouflage material added and a scrim hood. This was the latest camo setup recommended by the 1918 sniping manual, an evolution of the older camo robe setup. 

They're concealed in one of the many shelled villages of the Western Front. Snipers had a key role during every assault: they were tasked with infiltrating into sniping range ahead of an attack to eliminate machine gun positions and enemy forward observers. Once the assault began, they would bound forward into the new no-man's land and slow down any counterattack.

The British Sniper Team are available now on the WarFulcrum Games webstore, and you can pick them up in person at Britcon this weekend!

British Sniper Team (Physical)

From£4.00

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