Comrade! (Part 25 - 2 more members for my veterans squad)

At the Ogre's Den LGS in Orangevale this Saturday, there's going to be a Stalingrad theme'd Bolt Action game event. Of course I'll be taking my Winter Soviets along and have been drawn to play the Volga Crossing table, attempting to get my reinforcements across the river and head in to back up the beleaguered brave defenders in the city proper.After choosing a list on EasyArmy, I realised I was two soldiers short for one of my squads, so after a wee search, found these minis that fit in perfectly with my Winter Onesie squad of Veterans. They are produced by Annie Norman's Bad Squiddo Games and turned out to be very straight forward to paint up.

They'll provide a 2nd LMG for my Fanatic (Stalingrad selector allows almost all your troop choices to add "Fanatic" to your units.) regs, making the squad rather nasty on the table at range AND in close combats.

Trooper on the right looks a bit surprised/googly, but I figured I'd leave her that way seeing as her helmet is down so low that on the table, no-one will see her features anyway.

Bad Squiddo is a minis company that specialises in ranges solely of female figures, but in more realistic/practical attire/armour. These WW2 ladies were originally part of a kickstarter prior to regular release and are sold as "Soviet Scouts", though they blend in perfectly with Warlord's Winter range and so will just be regular troops for my purposes

Next up the only other oustanding units from my army list, two Anti-tank Rifle teams. No Panzerfausts in Stalingrad, so my poor boys are going to have to try to tackle and German armour with these things. They'll also double up as psuedo-snipers too, which will be extra annoying, I'm betting. :)

Am pretty sure the bipods are incorrectly placed, but they'll do. I have yet to use Anti-tank guns in-game and always pass them up when choosing units for some reason.

Comrade! (Part 23 - Soviet Veterans Squad WIP) [And a wee distraction]

Not had much energy for painting of late, so these have sat in a "mostly done" state for a while, until this last weekend.

These are the first five of Warlord's Soviet Veteran metal sculpt squad. A nice set with some crisp interesting design elements. The only complaint about these minis is that there is no obvious loader mini for the LMG team. I sorted that out though by lazily sticking a plastic LMG magazine pouch onto one of the most likely of them to be the loader. (He's being painted up right now though)

Lighting's not great, but you get the idea.

The distraction was this cheeky impulse buy, a see-thru green plastic Reaper Bones mini called "The Summoning" (I believe). I just liked the sculpt and knew it'd be a fun exercise in Slapping on washes and harsh highlighting. I think I got the look I was aiming for. No idea what it'll be used as, but it looks cool in the display case so that's enough for me. :)

The sculpt is supposed to depict three nude ghostly girls/ladies all entwined in spirit smokes or fire, etc. 

Cheers!

3rd Confederate Infantry Regiment

This weekend I got the finishing touches and basing done on my third Confederate Infantry Regiment. I also painted up another General a couple of Sharpshooters markers and constructed and based a set of 4Ground "snake fencing".

I've not enough regimens painted for a fully painted Force to be able to play in a Longstreet Grand campaign. It's been awhile since I have been able to claim to have a fully painted army! Saying that, there are additions sat waiting to be painted but they don't need to be done just yet.

As with the other two infantry regiments, no flag for the standard Bearer and in fact I'm waiting for them to be delivered sometime this week and will preview a full Army shot once I have them glued to the flag-poles.

I've also started work on the commission I mentioned in my last entry and I'll post up on that next.

Lighting's a bit shite in these pics as I was working on the dining table.

Fencing. Very exciting. Not really.

2nd Confederate Infantry Regiment

This week saw me putting the finishing touches to my 2nd ACW Confederate infantry regiment and getting a 3rd regiment to around 60% completed. I also got started on a small painting commission for a work-mate (I know, I said I wouldn't do commissions anymore *sigh*) that I'll stick up in a future post.

Once again, a flag will be added once all regiments are painted.

These pics were taken with real sunlight (Not the daylight bulbs I normally use). Seems to have washed out some of the colour...

Splendid looking bunch of misfits if I do say so myself.

For some reason I was under the impression that I'd need 4 infantry regiments painted up to be able to start playing in a Longstreet campaign, but I was corrected by Stewart who informed me I only need 3. Far more palatable and paint-able. (Is that even a word?) Hope to have that 3rd regiment done and ready for pictures before the weekend and then it's back to painting Winter Soviets as Densmol just got some German Fallschirmjager and is furiously painting them up ready to play some more Bolt Action!

1st Confederate Infantry Regiment (And other stuff)

This weekend I was lucky enough to play three small games of Bolt Action and finish up basing and painting my first 15mm ACW Infantry Regiment.

The Civil War minis are by Blue Moon 95% and other unknown manufacturers 5%. No flag on the banner bearer model as I plan to get some printed once all my regiments are painted and playable.

Finishing these prompted me to paint up another general model. This fellow is waving his saber about in an enthusiastic fashion tho I fear he'll be biting Minie ball sitting so high in his stirrups.

My first three games of Bolt Action were learning games, so small and few special rules to worry about.
The first was played Friday evening versus new gaming pal, Travis. We met at our LGS and he brought all the terrain and both armies for the game. (He played German Grenadiers and I British infantry.) Each force was comprised with a 2nd Lieutenant+Adjutant, 3 infantry squads with LMG's, two lorry transports,  Medium Machinegun, Sniper team, a tank each and Medium Mortar team+Spotter for the Brits and Infantry Support gun for the Germans. The lists were played were of Regular quality and the mission we played was Demolition - where we each had to try to reach an objective in our opponent's deployment zone before turn 6. (I think)

Per usual, here are some pics to indicate how the game went.

Here's the set up showing terrain, etc. My objective was placed in the trees to the right with an infantry squad ahead of them, my Medium Machine Gun (Vickers) in the beige crop field and 3" Mortar team in the bottom left corner with their spotter in the center next to my Sniper team. Travis plonked his Infantry Gun (Artillery) in the rear most beige crop field with an Grenadiers squad ahead of them, ready to enter the nearest house, his Sniper team all the way in the back corner hiding in the the trees with a great view of most of the board and his own Medium Machinegun team (MG42) in the trees in the center-rear of his deployment zone next to the objective marker also hidden in the same trees.

Bloody German Sniper takes out one of my poor infantry before they can even react.  I rally don't think that snipers are as effective as they should be in Bolt Action. Their effect on infantry was as suppressible as a machinegun support weapon, yet they only create one pin marker when they hit and kill. Maybe a house-rule is in order here?

My mortar spotter on the left (Yes, with Piat pack...) just misses on relaying the Infantry Gun's coordinates.

German Hetzer Tank-Hunter rolls forward after a glancing hit from my Sherman causes a pin. The Sherman is not made for this kind of fight though....

In turn 3 or 4 the mortar finally hits it's mark!

On the right flank, we both get reserves who drive in on trucks and dismount! Thus ensues a fierce firefight where I took the early upper hand then then.... 

Got swiftly whittled down by Assault Rifle and Hitler's Buzzsaw (Squad MG42) fire. My poor Brit rifles and crappy Bren Gun can stand up to that kind of firepower. :( Here's my Lt and Adjutant wondering why they turned up to this Machinegun fight armed only with rifles?

Hetzer kills Sherman....

And is then assaulted by my infantry squad from a building out of shot....

Who are in turn shot at being out in the open and then sucker-punch-assaulted by Grenadiers from the house in the picture. 

Knowing that the game was really almost over for me, my last ditch attempt was to try to outflank a truck out of reserve with my last infantry squad in the bed to rush Travis' objective. I was hoping wieght of numbers would win out versus that pesky MG42. Boy, was I wrong...

In the end I threw in the towel. All of my infantry units were dead or pinned beyond usefulness and I had no way to stop the rampaging Hetzer. I had a lot of fun though and even though the Bolt Action rules seem almost “cartoony” in how they go about wargaming, they were fun and it was cool to push 28mm World War 2 units about the table. The rules set does need a few tweaks though and I am aware of the WWPD Bolt Action Alliance unofficial changes to the rules that are being used around the world at different tournament venues that sound like they address quite a few of my issues, so maybe once I have the rules down more-so, I’ll affect some of their changes?

The morning after this game, my good mate Densmol come over so I could show him what I’d learnt the night before. I convinced him to get into Flames of War and now I’ve convinced him to join me in my Bolt Action endeavours. He of course, has chosen to play Germans again….

We played two small games on a 3’x4’ set up in my garage with two mostly equal forces of two squads each plus a 2^nd Lieutenant+Adjutant, he took a Medium Mortar and I a Medium Machinegun. (I was now playing Soviets, so with their National rule, I also got to play with a 3^rd squad, though it was Inexperienced in quality level). Both our forces were rated Regulars otherwise.

Sadly pictures for this game were not so exciting as I was proxying most of my Soviet force and Densmol’s own Germans were primed black, so only the one picture to just show you the table setup.

Both games were hotly contested and resulted in me winning the first and he the second. I think both were just played as plain old Maximum Attrition mission which is pure versus with no objectives involved or special rules.

Densmol liked the game so much he went and purchased off Ebay some large Fallschirmjager (German Paratroopers) army so now we’re both fully invested. This means, expect some Bolt Action reports posted up in the future – well, once we paint up enough stuff to be able to play a game worth looking at!

Last fortnight of the 6MMRPC!

Of course I slip up and forget to get my post up in time for last week's submission. Guess it'll mean that this post will be longer then, so make sure you're comfortable.

No games played since last post and I won't be able to get my FoW game in for Cameron's campaign in before the deadline of... tomorrow either. Which is poo. Ah well, real life schedules and all that.

Lots of painting done though and all over the place topics-wise at that.

First up, I went and bought the Frostgrave rules after reading some very good reviews and AAR's in blogs. I also loved the fact that I could use existing minis from my collection, so won't have to purchase new figures just to play. I even managed to get my son interested (Seems more into the hobby side of things than gaming for some reason.) and he's started painting up my odd collection of GW Skaven for his warband - of course, he plans to play them as Necromancers. So I'd like to present his own first members of his warband that he finished painting up over the weekend.

Wizard on the right, and Apprentice on the left. Wizard's right eye had a small miscast and so my son rightfully painted it up as a scar!

Whilst he was happy slapping paint about, I worked on some bits and pieces for the game, some treasure tokens and a boar incase it gets rolled for as a Wandering Monster.

The boar is an old Marauder Miniatures sculpt that had an orc rider. The greenstuff is to bulk out where the rider's legs would have sat. The bits for treasure tokens are random things from my bitsbox.

All painted up and ready to go. My son asked why the skull and femur were painted green - at first I want to say they were made of Jade, then instead told him they were just moldy. 

Squeal piggie, Squeal!

I also got a trio of Jomsviking Bondi painted up. Will do their shields when the whole unit is painted so they are more uniform. Saying that, shield-less, they are perfect candidates for use as Thugs in Frostgrave!

Picture looked just fine on my phone last night... O well, here they are, a bit out of focus. The bloke on the left actually has far more contrast between his gold faceplate and his beard, but this pic buggered that up. Regardless, I think this would count as a Movember entry. 

Bums!

This fellow grabbed my attention, so I worked on him too. He's an old 1980's TSR sculpt I think. Didn't realise until I was painting his flesh colours on that he has pointed ears and tusks(!), so I decided to see if I can include him in my rpg campaign. His background will be as a half- hobgoblin, half human bully-type and due to his mixed heritage, he'll be nicknamed the Ha'penny Hob!

Loads of fun detail on this sculpt, very unlike most of the TSR figs I own. I do love his big bushy eyebrows too!

Sneaky sod is brandishing spiked knuckles, yet hiding his real weapon behind his back!

The knuckles though I think had a dagger blade attached originally, but it must have broken off. His knife sheath was empty so I made a quick knife handle and glued it in on his hip. Also this pic shows his well sculpted ears!

Last up! For my ACW project, I managed to finish and base the command stand and an infantry base for my first infantry regiment.

The base on the left will be the one I stick printed unit details to, hence the Non-Com with the sword to make it easier to track. I'll be printing flags once all the regiments are painted. I think these fellows would count for a Movember entry don't you think?

From Rorke's Drift he came... (Part 2 - Done!) [And a load of other stuff] 6MMRPC

This is the first official posting for the 6MMRPC for me! Let's see if I can keep up this momentum. 

Okay, got this African style warrior done. Decided on a tiger-skin type effect for his shield. He'll be from my own fantasy setting in the rpg I'll be running and... well, I like tigers better than lions, so why not, eh?

I tried to add the club in with the club-head (Knobkerrie for those wondering - thanks Drax) above his fist, but the sculpt just didn't have room, so he's holding it head-down. Once that javelin/spear has been chucked, it'll be easier to swing from a down position that way in my mind anyhow.

Standard simple basing to match my other rpg mini's. Just wish I'd had a better base (Rounder?) for him prior to painting, but I was worried about removing him from this one as the lead is old and brittle enough as it is.

His eyes got a little more work done. Not perfect, but they at least look the same direction and not look like a Japanese anime character.

This is My Saxon Lord for my 2nd Dark Ages faction. He's a lovely command sculpt by Blacktreedesign that fits in perfectly with their Hearthguard range (More on those in a later post).

I wanted him to stand out from the Viking Lord and so gave him a grey beard and mustard coloured cloak.

The cloak got a simple cheeky edging design. Nothing special and highlighted rather harshly - but it looks good on the tabletop and that's the look I was after.

Finally found a properjob use for the flowers scenics I bought yonks ago.

He's heavily armoured for the period, though I'm surprised he cheaped out on a full mail shirt and instead chose a chain-mail t-shirt.

Close up of his face. Those eyes are set so far back into the helmet they wre a right pig to get to, so whilst close inspection shows them as being rather clumsily painted, from arm's length they are just fine.

I also sorted out some basing materials for my dismounted Confederate Cavalry. The bannerman will get his flag after I have the other regiments painted up.

The mounted versions of the cavalry. I was painting the horses and trying to pick enough varying horse colours. I have come to the conclusion that painting 15mm horses is rubbish.

Did I mention "other regiments"? Why yes I did. A VERY kind friend (Stewart - Who consequently was the bugger that got me started on this ACW lark) sent me a very kind care package with enough backs of Cenfederate infantry to make 5 regiments and a bunch of generals. I was very humbled by his generosity. I am also a bit miffed that my paint queue just got 100+ 15mm infantrymen bigger! I've already sorted all these into their respective units and with the odds and sods random loose infantry I already owned have 4x 10-stand regiments and 1x 8-stand queued up. Thankfully this project is not at all a rush job as Stewart is expecting his second daughter and so won't be able to game for who-knows-how-long. Regardless, BIG heaps of thanks go out to him!