Comrade! (Part 13)

Here's the spotter mini I painted up for my Soviets, primarily for my Medium Mortar team but also can alternately be used should I include Off-Table artillery in my army list.

As with my previously previewed sniper team, I've tried to illustrate the length of time he's been sat in one spot observing and calculating coordinates to his Mortar team by adding some snow fall here and there. He also has an entrenchment tool that I imagined he used briefly to help create the tiny snow mound that he's hidden behind.

He is infact holding a pair of binoculars in his right hand, but it's hard to see them as the "Snow mound" flumped a little during drying stage. 

Spent far too long on this one's eyes under that helmet and eventually said "fuck it" - not like anyone's going to be able to see his face on the tabletop anyhow!

That SMG may not fire when he needs it most, good chance the workings will be all frozen left there in the snow!

I'm going to assume he is definitely NOT warm laying down in that snow. 

Last night I worked a little more on the Inexperienced rifle squad - trying to paint these a little less "rag-tag" in their uniform colours as I imagine them to be fresh from the quartermaster and outfitted with new togs.

Hrm.... Think there's one man missing here?

And lastly added a bit more green to these two on spots I'd missed previously. Bit silly really seeing as I'm just going to add whitewash over the top, oh well. :)

Comrade! (Part 12 - Tank Riders Squad)

As promised:

Here’s the Tank Riders squad from my Bolt Action Soviets, as mentioned in my last post the squad has been bumped up to 10-men to include a Light Machine-Gun and required loader person, all the other squad members are veterans with SMG's (Small Machine Guns). 

Here they are in all of their warm and woolen finery. Pretty happy with how they turned out.

Rumbling up on the back of a tank, these guys will hopefully jump into the grill of their enemy to provide a great assaulting option ingame.

Army list entry from Easyarmy Bolt Action army builder.

Them on the right and the Squad Lance Sergeant bare-headed leading the way.

Better look at the back row. 

Them on the left. 2nd from left is actually the metal sculpt from the Flamethrower team previously previewed.

Intended to get started painting on the 3rd and final infantry squad of my army last night, got out the green to start on the helmets, which of course was unbeknownst to me clogged and consequently spooged all over the place. So as not to waste the precious paint I proceeded to paint the helmets as planned, then base coat the Gaz-67 (Russian Jeep), Maxim Machine Gun, ZIS-6 truck and ZIS-3 Anti-tank gun. Amazing how far some spilled paint will go! 

Forgot to bring out my freshly painted Mortar team spotter when taking the pics above, so will give him his own post in a couple days.

Comrade! (Part 11)

Things in real life have been bloody murder so energy for hobby has been difficult to muster. Between my marriage heading to divorce, telling our son of impending divorce, my 40th birthday slowly but steadily heading my way and my Grandmother's passing earlier this month I'm calling 2016 a right bag of shite and and I'll be happy to see the back of it.

But I digress, here's the remaining three Tank Rider infantry for my Bolt Action Soviets. Crap pics as they were done last thing before bed yesterday and prior to a spray of dulcote, so please be assured that I will post the whole squad in a group shot in the next couple days and do a better, proper post for them. After reading the new Bolt Action 2^nd Edition rules, I found that I wanted more Light Machine Guns (LMG) to support my army as a whole, but also to keep it more thematic ingame. This meant a quick re-arranging of my planned 1000 point army list and so now my previously painted Flame-Thrower team has been set aside to bump up my Tank Rider squad to 10-men and include the squad’s LMG and loader.

Once again, these are Warlord Games’ plastic Winter Soviet infantry – a very well designed kit that paints up pretty easily. [I also completed a spotter fig for my mortar team, but he’ll get previewed next post as his snow effects weren’t yet dry when I was taking pics last night]

Lighting is a little harsh but you get the idea. Funny how pics like this help you realise you'd completely missed an otherwise VERY prominent mold line - will take care of that! (Chap on the left sporting the MP40)

Added lots of bits to these guys. MP40 bloke got a mag-pouch for his new favourite toy, LMG trooper in the middle a backup pistol firearm and the LMG loader on the right an ammo pouch for the LMG. 

The 6MMRPC challenge that I'd joined to help lessen my mountain of unpainted stuff and pledge to not buy new models has started again for it's 3rd iteration (I think?), though this time only for 3 months so the challenge won't interfere with the end of year Xmas celebrations, etc. Perhaps that will get me painting again? Roll on the 3MMRPC!

Comrade! (Part 10)

A little time to paint last week produced these four minis - two more members of my Soviet Tank Riders squad and a sniper team.

Feeling a little more enthusiastic to get stuff painted for this army what with my copy of the Bolt Action 2nd Edition rules apparently on their way to my house. All previews of new or changed rules really sound like they'll make the game more fun, so hopefully I'll actually have these snowy boys finished up well before the end of the year!

Sniper team, if you didn't already guess. Shooter has a wrap on his rifle, made from medical gauze tape.

Added settled snow on the figs to try to show the effect of these two sat still, waiting for the perfect shot as the elements fall about them.

Lots of bush on these bases so they'll stand out all the more on the table.

Seems the spotter is the more sensible of the two as he is wrapped up for cold weather, though neither thought to bring gloves!? Frostbite - fun for all the family.

Mean and determined faces. Let's hunt some Kraut officers!

Another couple of Tank Rider SMG blokes. The arms I had set up for this squad got all mixed up in an horrible "bits all over the floor" accident! And I'll be damned if none of the arms match any more! My attitude thereafter was "sod it - they'll do".

Uninteresting back shot.

Apparently the danger is on the left flank?

Only two members of the SMG squad left to paint up, though with LMG's getting a nice boost in the new rules, think I'll be picking up another couple of figs to add to the squad for a little longer range support as they advance to assault!

Woof

Whilst painting has slowly been continuing on my Winter Soviets, I need to take a quick break from batch painting uniforms (Especially after the recent bunch of 15mm Confederates) and decided to jump on the Oldhammer bandwagon a bit.

These are some old minis I've had since my earliest days of gaming, some Citadel Miniatures Chaos Hounds and a Dark Elf Beast Handler. They were done pretty fast and dirty and being Chaos I wanted to make each very different from the other which made them a lot of fun to work on as well.

A small pack for sure, but loads of character!

 

This is Layla. She was a desperate human soul who plead for someone, anyone to come to her aid to help fight whichever horrible situation she was suffering and little did she realise, "someone" was listening. And transformed the pathetic wretch into a beast so that she might rend the flesh of her persecutors. 

Layla is supposed to look like a human who has been tainted by Chaos and forcefully transformed into a beast - her skin still carries the tattoo's she had during her human years.

This is Flameguts the Hellhound. I tried to make him look like he gathers unnatural demon fire from within and belches it out.

Hope the effect carries off okay. 

Lastly is Slather. Slather constantly leaks horrid smelling black-brown ichor from all of his orifices all the time and barely walks in straight lines. 

I have pictured his rear end to show the leakage there but the focus was off after review. :)

This is Dougal the Dark Elf. Bit of a git really and far too happy to lay about himself with that bloody great whip. 

Of course, everyone wants to see a Dark Elf bum. (I realised I forgot to paint the edges of his chainmail, so will sort that out later.)

The battle report for my previously mentioned Regimental Fire and Fury game will go up sometime this week. I think.

Ciao.