A Game, More Assembly and Painting!

 The Fates alligned and I ended up getting in that game I mentioned from my last post! Turned out that the host, Stephen asked for 1250 point Bolt Action lists and sadly only me and another local chap, Luigi were able to make it. Stephen elected to umpire and so Luigi brought out his Japanese against the Canadians I had prepared. 

My list had prerequisite officer and pal, 3 small 6-man Vet Commando squads and one 10-man Regular infantry squad, a PIAT team, Light Mortar team, Medic, Sniper team and both a Churchill Mk iv and Churchill Mk i in support. 

Luigi's list was something like, officer plus pal, 4 Gernadier squads full of knee mortars, a couple of Suicide AT Lunge Mine troops, FOO, two armoured transports, a trio of light tanks with howitzers and a third light tank with a medium anti tank gun.

The mission was predetermined from a planned event coming up this weekend (3rd Annual Operation Sweetheart in Sacramento, CA) and was an objective grab meeting engagement. As the game was last Thursday, details are a little spotty, but the following photos should describe the action appropriately. All I do know is that the table layout favoured me greatly and forced Luigi to have to come at me as I had 3 objectives on my side and he only 2. Unfortunately my tanks held down both roadways and did awfully well with ambush fire and Luigi's own conservative play didn't really give him much chance at getting across the table by the end of the game's turn 6 resulting in a win for me.

Really fun game, gorgeous set up and great to play against the Japanese which was only my second time doing so since I started playing Bolt Action.

Stephen had laid out the table prior to our arrival. Those pre-painted mdf buildings are so good. 

both armies declared to start deploying everything in their lists, no reserves. I made sure to take advantage of the firing lines down those roads early with my Churchills.

Commandos moving up with Japanese infantry in transports trying to come down the road but scared to get into the gunsights of that tank at the bottom of this photo.

Light Mortar drops a lucky round first try on that Japanese transport causing all the troops to bail out. They did not survive the return fire.

Commando squad hugs the cover of the building whilst the Churchill provides long range fire support against Japanese armour WAY back down that road. My dice rolling was garbage though and that tiny tank somehow managed to survive.

Churchill Mki with wading gear helping stall the Japanese advance whilst my PIAT team skulks along the wall line.

After a furious trading of fire, my tank finally takes out the Japanese Command tank. 

Host Stephen officiating and probably questioning our generalship. 

Commandos take advantage of their armoured support and move up to claim the objective aheaed (A rock. Very important rock at that,  apparently)

The Sniper team in the woods to the right had taken out the FOO early on in game, so the regulars and Medic that had been in the woods to the lower left head up to support the Comando advance.

Commando squad uses the Churchill's support to move up unmolested.

End game and the Japanese make a mad dash toward one of the objectives, only to come face to face with Commandos armed with two Bren guns. It didn't end well for the brave men of Nippon.

Also late game shot of the second Japanese armoured transport making a mad dash down the road in an effort to get it's sole occupant, a suicide AT nutter, up close and personal with my brave Churchill Mki. The inevitable happend though and that silly suicide fellow perished along with the transport.

My PIAT team crept up to the treeline here to attempt to take out the pictured arnoured transport with a point blank side-shot and missed. Of course. The Japanese Officer in turn charged the PIAT team and cut down both unfortunate PBI's with his katana. Nasty.

It's end game and the Japanese just can't get across the map in time to claim objectives. As the pictures squad rounds the shed here, my regulars mow them down mercilessly.

I included this final shot of my Churchill Mkiv which inspired the next part of this post.

 Playing a whole game with this unpainted beast was just rubbish!

I've had this model tank for a few years now. It's by Warlord Games and is in Plastic. Nice enough detail and simple to build. The included plastic Commander figure was a bit... meh, so I substituted him for a metal Commander sculpt I'd had in my bits box for a long time now. The stowage are mostly metal pieces and the "trophy-MG42" is a spare from an old long-abandoned German Grenadiers project. Simple paint job and marked up as one of the 34th Tank Brigade that I believe would have been present supporting the Canadian push to take the Schedlt Estuary in 1944 during Operation Vitality. There'll be more vehicles to be added to my collection to represent forces used during Operation Vitality at a later date.

Pics were taken hastily so please excuse the quality and lack of effort. 

I'm also hoping to get a little more painting done before my vacation is over, so hoping to have something else to post up on before the end of the month.

I also managed to get the remainder of the German Grenadier squad assembled and yes, crumbled and added their gear cos they just didn't look right without. Yay... complicated painting ahoy. :)

These nine plus their planned metal sergeant fig conclude the infantry I need for my Winter German list. Just need to get the pair of Flak 37 8.8 guns and crew (7-men each!) put together and they'll be ready for paint. 

Next week also allows me another chance at gaming with my good friend, Densmol dropping by so hopefully we'll have a good game to post up about here early March. (Imagine that, two games in one month!) I'm also hoping to attend a mini-gaming-con in Oakdale on the 7th March, so if plans work out for that, I'll have perhaps 3 more games to post up on. Crazy start to 2026 after quite the gaming drought this handful of years.

As always, hope all are safe and healthy out there. 

- Dai

Assembling an Assortment of projects

 Another quick post to show off some more minis getting assembled this past weekend. Had hoped to get a little painting done too, but getting this lot off their sprues, connecting areas and mold lines trimmed & filed, resin parts washed in dishsoap and warm water and then painstakingly glued together was a lot more work than I had anticipated!

3D printed vehicles and the resin bits either about to be scrubbed or drying. Damned fiddly business

Starting off there are four WW2 Winter German Grenadiers for the final infantry squad in my planned German Bolt Action army. Kept the builds simple and left off all the gear (Water bottles, pouches, bayonets, etc) to keep painting simple and hopefully a swift effort, but I may come back to this and add them afterall as they don't look "right" I think. Another five to build and basing material applied before I'll prime and then add them to the painting queue.

Couple of riflemen, a bloke aiming a Panzerfaust and an ammo-carrying assistant to the yet to be built squad LMG support trooper. 

Next up are the contents of the Relic Knights starter set by Ignition Core Games - teams from the Radiant (Good guys) & Void (Bad guys) factions. Lovely sculpts produced in a decent resin material (Thankfully not that awful Restic used in the game's 1st edition sculpts.). Details are very crisp and cleanup was very minimal. These are now primed grey and ready for paint.

Radiant faction figs. The tiny guy at front right is missing a rear leg so I contacted Ignition Core Games who are sending out a replacement this week. Great customer service!

Void faction figs. The small 3-man squad was super fiddly to assemble and I spent more time ungluing my fingers from bits than anything else!

And lastly, another Relic Knights sculpt, this time from their 1st Edition range. This model is a large lad, standing at almost six inches tall. (More on him in a later post, I want to get the above starter set figs painted up first before I move on to stuff from other factions in the game.)

If you were a huge Space Oni sporting a massive Tetsubo (Japanese war club), you'd surf on the back of a giant robo-lion too!

I'm soon to have the next couple weeks off from work so I'm hoping to get some opportunities to paint some of the above if my real life responsibilities allow. Watch this space.

Also I have a game of Bolt Action calendared for this Thursday so expect a post on that too thereafter!

Hope all are safe and well,

- Dai

Clever Hans - Part 12 (An Army Re-Org for 3rd Edition Bolt Action)

During the holidays I was able to meet up with a Bolt Action gaming pal, Stephen, gift him my NIB WW2 French minis (Cos I will never have time to work on a 5th army) as I knew he needed an Early War army option and it turned out he'd just gained a new Char-B tank kit - so job done. In turn, he handed over a few sprues of Warlord Games Winter Germans that I have decided to fill out my Bolt Action German force so that they'll be usable for 3rd edition events and tournaments. 

For those uninitiated or ignorant to the changes in this current edition, the accepted "standard points value for a game of Bolt Action is now 1250. My previous German collection could meet that, but would not be very much fun or all that competitive to play, so changes had to be made. Below is a Draxian Paint Chart like the one I have maintained for my WW2 Greeks (See previous posts on that project). 

To that end, I've added and put primer to the Sd.kfz 10/4's (Etsy 3D prints) and glued some of the new Winter plastic Germans together to represent the Rifle Officer's 4x Adjutants. 

3x Platoons - Mandatory Rifle platoon: Officer with 4x Adjutants armed with SMG's, 2x Squads of Veteran Heer Grenadiers, 1x Squad of Volks Grenadiers and a small 7-man Squad of Waffen SS with their Sd.kfz 251/1 Half-Track transport; Artillery Platoon of lone Officer and a pair of Flak 88's; Armoured Platoon containing a pair of Sd.kfz 10/4's sporting 2cm Light Autocannons each. I call this force my late war Holding Kompany and it's supposed to represent the type of ad-hoc Kampfgruppe the Germans might have thrown together on the Eastern Front to try to push back the Soviets during the Winter of 1944.

These four will represent the adjutants for the Officer's squad. Gritty looking blokes with SMG's and no helmets like the standard Grenadiers.

Lots of random gear added to their rear sides so they'll stand out more-so from the Grenadier squad that'll be made from the same set. 

This pair were the last two body-sculpts from the sprue (6-to-a-sprue). The fellow on the left will be an extra crewman for one of the Flak 88 guns and the yelling chap on the right will end up as a spare adjutant should I need one for bigger points games.

Again, with more gear on his rear, including some mittens! 

Per usual, these will see basing and paint as time allows, but I'm glad to have had a little time this weekend to get any hobby done at all, so score!

Be well and safe out there,

- Dai

Start as we mean to go on

 Or at least to try to go on.

2026 starts off with a short post on a small rpg miniature that represents one of the player characters in my current workplace DnD campaign. Britt's character is a foul tempered dwarven barbarian dressed in greens and brown, wielding a large nasty ancestral axe. The sculpt itself is part of a two-pack by Wizkids from their Critical Role "Deep Cuts" pre-primed plastic range with decent enough detail for such an affordable miniature. I had to rush the paintjob a bit as I wanted to get the fig done in time of Britt's birthday later this month. She'll do I think and Britt was very happy with how she turned out, so job done there I guess. 

A dinky little sculpt, obviously 3D designed so facial details are shallow meaning I did not even attempt to paint her eyes. The underskirt is supposed to be chainmail, but Britt's character doesn't wear armour so I painted it up that light lime green to maybe make it look like some sort of lace-like petticoat or something else feminine. 

Britt has dark skin so I tried to emulate that on this fig. Her character also has braided hair, but the sculpt has straight - am hoping the shallow detail and black hair from 3 feet away will create the illusion of this. 

The little sculpt has a sculpted puddle base but like all the Wizkids plastics is very light weight, so I glued her to a 1" steel washer to provide better stability on the tabletop. Basing materials were simple flock and some other floral stuff, not over the top.

Now that we are a couple months into my game, all four of the players have figures to represent their characters, so perhaps I should start working on my own minis to represent the baddies and their bosses my game group might face during my campaign? (I've been using printed paper tokens for these up until now.) We'll see - Too many projects....

I also managed to get a few sprues worth of WW2 Winter Germans to fill out some missing pieces in my German Bolt Action collection AND off-loaded all the WW2 French models I had collected as tournament przes to a friend who had expressed an urge to start an Early War army, so plus-minus my unpainted pile shrank some resultingly! (Cos I really needed to drop a new army project for 2026 - just too much already unpainted on armies I already own.)

Maybe there'll be another post next month and if there is, unsure of what it'll be on at this point in time?

That's it for the now. Stay safe out there all. 

- Dai