Little Dudes for the Motherplanet!

Hey,

 So back in the mid-90's, we got into a game called Legions of Steel by Global Games. You played a team of space marines who invaded an underground complex to take out malevolent AIs from another dimension. In the process you had to kill off a bunch of Terminator-looking robot enemies. We all enjoyed the game and we thought it was quite a step up from Space Hulk (which we loved so that's saying something).

 Like all good game companies, the line of miniatures was expanded to include other alien races that were hoping to stave off the Machine invasion. One such race was the Fantasians. They were straight up Soviet Aliens. They lived in a Communist dictatorship and it was even hinted at in the fluff that they'd visited Earth and inspired Lennin. I really liked the figures (I liked pretty much all the figures for this game) and I liked their panache and so I had a small squad painted up. Later on, when the game expanded to more wargame-y open terrain skirmish battles, I got a number of their regular line troopers and painted up a force for them.

 Then Global Games disappeared down a black hole and were never heard from again -- or rather there were rumors of a reboot that never happened. I was very pleased to see that Legions of Steel was released as a game for PC, Android, and iOS.  The implementation is quite good, but there's been almost no support for it since release and they only have Humans vs. Machines and not my beloved Fantasians.

 So I'm going through the scree of Lead Mountain and I came across a few packs of Fantasians that I'd purchased but never actually painted up. So I decided to rectify that:



Rejoice, Brave Soldiers of Fantasia! The Mobile Artillery Squad has arrived to help you win the day!
I don't believe this is an "official" formation for Legions of Steel, but it's what I had on hand and it makes for a fun little group. You've got three heavies in power armor backed up by a pair of troopers who act as a security detail or forward observers. Definitely a group for open battlefields and not underground bunkers, but they provide much-needed support in the field.

We'll start with the power armor:



Above is a T85/36 with AT-4 (you might notice a Soviet flavor to their weapon system names). The AT-4 is an anti-armor cannon and the main weapon carried by this unit. It's got a machine gun on the other arm for softer targets, but its main job is to kill tanks dead.



Here's a side view so you can see the AT-4 a bit better. Also, you'll notice the design on the shoulder pad. This was part of my "try something new" task when painting these guys up. I decided to experiment with water-slide decals. In this case, I had some 15mm WWII Soviet tank decals and couldn't imagine a better subject. I put markings on both shoulders of the power armor guys and put a star on the helmets of the troopers. I was a bit worried that this was going to turn into a frustrating chore, but I was pleasantly surprised and how smoothly it all went. It was a little fiddly getting the decal properly sited on the mini, but eventually it got where I wanted it and then I carefully removed the excess water and everything turned out ok. I'm not looking to do this for every mini, but I can see where it'll be helpful for some projects and I'm happy I got a chance to practice it.

Now for the big boom-booms:



This is the T85/43 with K2-Shaw rocket racks. Yeah...the designs are very heavily influenced by WWII Soviets. What else can I say? Power armor with rocket artillery and the arm-mounted machine gun. I don't have the rulebook in front of me so I have no idea how good those rockets actually are. The Fantasians generally worked off a "quantity has a quality all its own" so high rates of fire, but less effective at actually killing things. I suspect the same would be true here, but if you caught the enemy out in the open, this would do a number.

Rounding out the squad, the troopers:



Standard Fantasian troopers armed with spray-n-pray PPSH and a bandolier of Gauss Grenades. Not as heavily armored as the troopers of other races, the Fantasians are faster and they do get the lead down-range in a hurry. Honestly, they're probably better suited to open battlefields where they have more room to maneuver. Still, I love my little alien Commies.

Finally a couple of photos comparing paint jobs:





So we have power armor and troopers. The figures on the far right were painted by my friend Chris who got me (back?) into miniatures gaming in college. I don't think Chris actually won a Golden Demon, but he has placed in several GD competitions so he was the gold standard of painting we all aspired to emulate. Eventually I figured out that was a mug's game and that I should be looking to paint figures well enough to please me and get stuff rolling on the gaming table.

The figure in the middle were all painted by me a year or two out of college I believe. A basic three-color scheme with a hint of inking and that was pretty much it. Still, I've got three squads of those troopers waiting to prove Fantasian superiority.

And obviously, the figures on the left are the ones I just did. I went all in on the Russian theme and used appropriate colors. There were washes, highlights, and decals. The overall effect is more muted (though I'm not opposed to more colorful sci-fi minis), but I do like how everything came out. I was even able to do a bit of detail work that didn't leave splotches all over everything.

So that was my little Legions of Steel project. It was a lot of fun and I'm kinda hankering to see if I can score any more figures off eBay or something. I am also reminded of just how nice those minis were. Not too much flash, weighty metal, fun designs...it's really too bad those designs went out of print. Nothing new on the horizon, although I've got some small projects left in lead mountain. I also have a heap of plastic WWII vehicles that need some sort of paintjob, but I need to track down some Army Painter spray paints in appropriate armor colors. We'll see what happens.

later
Tom

Far Future Little Dudes

Hey,

So a year ago I got really interested in Gates of Antares by Warlord Games. I liked the figures. I basically liked the games system it was built on (Bolt Action) so I picked up the starter box.

Then I read through it and I was reminded why sci-fi rulesets are so problematic for me. Each race uses a different technology (or a different application of the same technology) to do stuff. But in the crucible of war, especially between two forces of relatively equal technical sophistication, either one type of technology would turn out to be better (a laser gun is always better than an automatic rifle) forcing both sides to use the same tech or there'd be no functional difference between them (so both laser gun and automatic rifle would be the same stats-wise from the game's perspective). This means there are potential balance issues and, of course, you're locked into a particular manufacturer's minis (unless you proxy them). I dunno...I got it and then kinda lost interest.

But I had a pile of plastic and felt like the minis were interesting enough to paint up so over the past couple of months, I have been. Let's look at what I've done.

First up, we have the forces of the Ghar, vicious little goblin-like creatures that wrap themselves in powerful, slightly unstable battle suits and wade in for the kill. You get six the in the starter kit:



These battle suits come in two configuration. You have the Scourer Cannon:





For close-in work, you've also got a group equipped with a plasma claw:



The fact that a power claw is a viable choice for a military force, kind of underscores my point about wonky sci-fi rulesets. I'm not saying that close combat won't be a feature of combat in the future, but no one's going to have major formations of guys equipped with a can opener. Maybe if you're fighting in a space unfriendly to projectiles such as a ship in space. But then, assuming the suit fits in the hallways, you're not likely to think a plasma-powered claw is a good idea either. Still...they look pretty cool, I do admit.
So that's the evil aliens. How about the humans?



These are the basic Strike Troopers for the Concord (human) force. Each squad is composed of five guys that includes a leader and a heavy weapons trooper with plasma lance:



And three Strike Troopers:



But because this is the far future, these squads get some robotic assistants (and this, by the way, is one of the things that really drew me to the game initially, most forces have or can have various helper drones). These primarily consist of Spotter Drones helping to find enemies and direct fire:



Your squad can also pick up some heavier Combat Drones with a plasma cannon for a little more support:



Oh and the second one on the left has a subverter matrix to hijack enemy drones (and again, this cyber-war component was another draw to this game for me).
Anyway, a typical strike squad will have the troopers and their spotter drone along with a combat drone and its personal spotter drone:



A rather nice looking group even if I do say so myself.

I took this opportunity to try and practice a couple of different painting techniques. In particular, I normally use a dip shader to shade/shellac the mini with maybe a hint of highlighting after. Here, I used some colored shades (black and green) and then tried harder to do more highlighting afterwards. I need to work with this technique a bit more, but I am pleased at the way all these guys came out. 

The Ghar probably could've used a bit more highlighting to brighten them up a bit, but again, it all came out pretty well.

This was also the first time I tried painting figures on flight stands. Honestly, I should've white glued the drones to a stick, painted them on that and then transferred them to the clear flight stands, but I was feeling lazy and masking the flight stand worked out pretty well.

The biggest experiment was detailing the lenses. The Ghar suits in particular have those glowing blue plasma cores and a face full of lenses. Usually, I paint those kinds of things black (or one other color) and let it go at that. I still can't paint eyes to save my life. But this time, I wanted to give the lenses a shot and I'm really happy with the way it all turned out. I'm hoping to keep working on these detail bits and improving those a bit. It doesn't take much and it really makes the model pop.

Anyway, these guys are unlikely to hit the table (at least not in a game of Gate of Antares) but I'm glad I got them painted. I got to practice a few different techniques and I really do enjoy painting these little dudes even if I'm not a Golden Demon.

Next up: a blast from the past.

later
Tom

A Big Little Dude

Hey,

 So it's been quite some time since I last got any projects to the painting bench. Trying to sell the house meant everything was packed up. Now that things have settled down a bit, we can get on with some long-overdue projects.

 I'm in a gaming group that cycles through RPGs/GMs and last summer we started a game of Shadowrun 5th ed. We stopped after one or two sessions because the math involved in trying to work out whether or not your shot hit someone was so cumbersome it wasn't fun anymore. So that went on hiatus but we're going back to it and this time we're using GURPS as the sub-system to run it on. Of course, I always like to have a mini for my games, especially ones where the position matters. Not much in the way of Cyberpunk Trolls out there. This model by Reaper (Caine, Cybertroll #50287) was pretty much the only thing that fit the bill. So I picked him up, started him, put him down when the game went on hold and only just now have resurrected him to finish off the paint job.

 Here he is, front and back:
 



Pretty standard fair for me. Base colors, dip shade, and a bit of highlighting. I also found a bunch of "shell casing" miniatures that I clipped, painted and glued to the base. The casings aren't "to scale" with the mini-gun, but it would've been a real pain to clip, paint, and glue the smaller casings and this makes him look like more of a bad-ass anyway. The good news is that I'm also painting up some more figures so hopefully this blog will see some life again this year.

later
Tom

Long-Delayed Little Dudes

So over the past couple of years I've been painting up boxed fantasy sets by RAFM in their old Shadows and Steel line. It was a lot of fun, but I finally worked through all the sets. It made me interested in trying to put together my own fantasy warband -- not for D&D or anything but just as a little project. Maybe adapt them to Song of Blades or something.

I knew who was going to be the core of the group. For about a year, I played a wizard by the name of Adjo -- who was, to put it mildly, kind of an asshole. He wasn't specifically trying to antagonize the other party members, it's just he was a wizard and a human and that made him better obviously. But part of being the better man is not to be too hard on others who can't help their unfortunate lot in life and these other yahoos were really helping to further his goals so...

Anyway, a super-fun character to play and I had a reaper mini that really captured his look. A co-worker of mine was big on painting minis and his stuff was really good (he liked Napoleonics). I gave him my mini and then it never got painted and then he was laid off and we lost touch and...blah. I never got around to getting another copy of the mini before the game ended.

But after the Shadows and Steel stuff, I decided to put together a warband centered around Adjo. Reaper minis has a wide range of interesting figures so I picked out a bunch and put them together.

And here they are: Adjo's Assholes!




Obviously, they don't call themselves that. Adjo, when he bothers to think about it, generally puts down Adjo and Company on any legal forms. For the most part, Adjo has things he wants done and these are the people/constructs/extra-planar beings he brings along to help out. Saving people, righting wrongs, dishing out justice...these are usually happy coincidences not a specific goal the group has.

Adjo has put together a group of competent, pragmatic specialists who got that way through questionable life-choices. They've (sometimes grudgingly) gained a respect for each other's talents and if they aren't all best friends, they work together like a well-oiled machine.

Adjo's first order of business was securing some muscle.



Dhavar's armor comes from the plates of an adult white dragon he killed. It was his first dragon-kill and he's kind of run with the theme. He has a suite of cold-related magical items, but Dhavar is more generally interested in taking on large-scale beasties. Dragons, remorhaz, giants, purple worms -- the bigger they are the harder they fall. Thing is, if you go around wearing dragon armor you tend to draw the attention of...well, dragons for starters, and trouble, village crushing trouble, tends to follow Dhavar around.

Von Stubben was a Captain of the Black Legion before that final unfortunate battle with The Grand Alliance. Von Stubben got away and eventually hooked up with Adjo who was sailing off to a new continent. Although an empire that has a Black Legion sounds ominous, it really wasn't too different from the various nation-states of the Grand Alliance who opposed it. All that talk about baby-eating and pacts with unholy creatures is just a lot of propaganda. Von Stubben is proud of his service and unwilling to relinquish his distinctive equipment which can be a problem even half a world away.

His real talent is a keen tactical mind and a skill at leading men. Adjo is no slouch at military planning but it pretty much relies on his spellbook and he doesn't have a lot of patience for dealing with others. When magic isn't available or some low-level fighters needs to be whipped into shape, Von Stubben is the man to call on.

But Adjo needs more than muscle and magic, sometimes you need subtlety:



Almah is the public face of Adjo's group. She's warm, charming, witty, capable of dealing with all sorts of people, and handles a lot of the public interaction with ordinary people. As you might expect, she's an excellent spy and con artist. She'd be an invaluable asset to any Thieves' Guild, but she's from noble stock and is uninterested in paying Guild dues or giving them a cut of her profits.

Almah is used to the finer things in life and can be a bit of a spoiled rich kid, but Adjo's at a level where he has Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion on speed dial so "roughing it" really isn't a factor like it would be for lower-level groups.

Callie, on the other hand, is very comfortable roughing it. She's spent years playing Robin Hood in the forests fighting oppressive Elvish overlords and the fact that she isn't a skeleton skewered to an oak somewhere is a testament to her skills. Adjo helped her put a definite end to her problems and she's signed on with him. Needless to say, things can be a little tense when they have to deal with elves, but if Almah can't cool off the situation, Adjo has any number of powerful, mind-altering charms which he will employ and Callie knows that.

Aside from raining arrows down on her foes, Callie acts as the party Scout and has a keen eye for locks, traps and other magical/mechanical devices. Raiding Elven fortresses gives one a knack for that sort of thing.

Adjo doesn't have a lot of truck with gods. For the most part, he thinks of Clerics like some kind of low-level Amway sales reps. Still, it's good to have friends in high places (for now). So he pulled in a cleric:



Aglanda worships...well...its name can't actually be pronounced by human tongues...or vocal cords...or in a standard Earth-atmosphere (not enough Xenon). As far as Adjo can tell, Aglanda follows a truly alien deity. What this means is that there doesn't appear to be any holy agenda. Aglanda's god doesn't care what she does or doesn't do or how she uses its power -- it may not even be aware that Aglanda is channeling its energy. As long as the healing magics keep coming, Adjo is satisfied.

Aglanda isn't particularly unbalanced, but she's had her doors of perception ripped off their hinges. What's real and what's really real can be rather blurry for her sometimes. The real problem is ignorant prejudice. You worship an alien god whose presence makes reality hemorrhage and people aren't interested in joining your cult. Aglanda isn't much of a fighter, but she does have her hound.

Ah yes, the Hound. Adjo has always had rather a bad run of luck with hounds/wolves/canine-creatures. Hellhounds, Frosthounds, Blink Dogs, Dire Wolves and all other manner of dogs have had their teeth (and status effects) on him at one time or another. Although this is surely random chance, Adjo feels that maybe it's best to confront his bad luck.

Aglanda's Hound (like several other "Hounds" that have worried Adjo in the past) isn't actually a dog at all. In fact, it's not clear what resemblance her trans-dimensional horror has to any known canine -- probably it was the only word that floated to the mind of the first poor soul to see (and survive) one of these creatures. It displays a disturbing level of intelligence and has limited ability to teleport. It can carry party members with it, but aside from Aglanda, no one would do this except in the most dire emergency. All in all, it more than makes up for Aglanda's lack of combat skills and when the two work in concert they can be brutally efficient in clearing a room of foes.

Which only leaves us with the boy and his toys:



Adjo we've discussed at some length. He's now on a plane-hopping journey of research and discovery. He tries so hard to be reasonable but everyone wants to do it the hard way.

The purple whirlwind in back is Nfskr, an astral spirit. The whirling swords come in real handy as does the ability to fly and turn invisible. He really comes into his own when the party is traveling the planes, having a good sense of where and where not to go. Adjo isn't really one for binding demons or the like. Nfskr was basically the first person to join up with Adjo and mostly sticks around because it's interesting (and because Adjo built a magical bracelet that lets Nfskr stay on this plane as long as Adjo is alive -- the astral plane is super boring so it's worth it to keep Adjo alive).

Adjo also spent a short period of time researching the warforged and their construction. As a sort of weekend project, he put together an Iron Cobra which he calls Thrax. Adjo originally intended to use Thrax as a night watchman when he made camp. Over the years, Thrax has been upgraded and can now talk and has a fair amount of intelligence. Thrax still has a number of magical sensors that help identify trouble, but Adjo now uses him much like a smartphone. Thrax stores and curates a great deal of information for Adjo sparing him a lot of tedious book writing. Thrax can attack either by constriction or with a bite that has a variety of toxins with different effects.

So that's it. The figures were a lot of fun to paint. I like modern military figures because they paint fast -- everyone is all one uniform color. I like fantasy figures because they are (or can be) colorful and unique and Adjo's charming band is full of character.

One last photo: The Mage, The Myth, The Legend -- Adjo!



A bit about my process

As you can tell, it's a bit of a rainbow squad. Every figure has some major color that they sport which is different from everyone else's. Callie was interesting in that I used model railroad paints for her greens. She has a dark and light green that were both used by the Burlington Northern Railroad -- the line that ran through my hometown as a kid and which I have a fondness for.

The Hound is my first foray into wet-blending a model. It came out OK, but man...reds/oranges/yellows take for-freaking-ever to put down in an even coat. I mean, I knew this going in and the final result is actually quite good, but I was worried it was just going to be a hot mess.

These photos were all taken with my new iPhone. I think they came out better than previous photos (taken on my iPad). I used the phone's flash because without it the minis were too dark. However, with the flash, the highlights look a bit harsh. On the table they look great, so I'm still working on photographing these guys.

Finally, I still have no idea how to paint eyes. The eyeballs are just so small that all I ever get are bleary smudges. :/

Bonus Figures!

As I was finishing up Adjo's crew, I got involved in a new D&D game and a friend of mine wanted me to paint a figure for her character (in another game).

So here they are:



Tia (on the left) is for my friend. She's a fighter who specializes in ranged weapons. A pretty straight-forward Robin Hood type figure. On the right is Pinja she's the Paladin I'm playing in my D&D game. Reaper has a really good selection of miniatures and a good number of their female figures look like they're actually ready to fight and not just cheesecake (though they've got lots of those kinds of models too). Still, finding a human female with chainmail and a polearm? This was pretty much it. Still, I think she turned out pretty well and she's sporting the colors of her order and that was fun to do.

I'm planning on moving house so these will probably be the last minis I paint for awhile. I really need to start bulking up my terrain collection. I want to start using those 15mm WWII figures I've got but they need something to fight on.

Don't call them "Little Dudes"

So I've been collecting and painting RAFM's "Shadows and Steel" boxed sets. These are boxed sets of adventure parties with a module and some background fluff. Clearly set up for D&D although not directly referenced (back when TSR was serious about their IP). Anyway, there were four sets and I finally put together the last one.

Presenting: The Conquistador Dwarves!


These guys may not be the sharpest axes in the woodshed, but they make up for it with enthusiasm.


Pascale is their fearless leader with sword, shield and classy helmet. He is ably assisted by Torquemazda who will bring the Holy Word to heathens everywhere.



But Dwarves are better in short sprints, for long-distance, the team counts on Guernica, the monster lizard. Riding atop in the box we have Salvidora (with the spear) and Paulo covering the rear with his crossbow.


Finally, to help them punch above their weight we have Crandall with his steam cannon.

These guys were fun to paint up and they weren't much bigger than the 15mm stuff I've been doing earlier this year. I'm sad the project is at an end, but I wanted to put together my own adventuring party. I've purchased the figures (from Reaper rather than RAFM) and we'll see how they turn out. later Tom

The Greatest Little Dudes

Hey,

So in January, some of the guys down at the store started playing Chain of Command, a platoon-sized WW2 skirmish game. People had sort of settled on Bolt Action as their go-to ruleset for this (and indeed, I painted up a bunch of 28mm Soviets), but Chain of Command really blew me away. There's a real focus on good tactics and the fog of war. There's also a short pre-game "patrol phase" where both sides maneuver to set up "jump-off" points where their forces will enter during the actual game. This eliminates a lot of the tedious early maneuvering most games have and basically sets your forces up within shooting distance of the enemy.

A fun game and the guy championing this stuff has mostly 15mm figures. That's good, 15mm is sort of my preferred scale (since my bad paint jobs aren't as noticeable) so I figured I'd paint up a platoon.

In the past two months I've done 4. So I've painted over 120 figures and can field a platoon for every major combatant of WW2 in Europe. So...I think I'm into this game. At any rate, here's a dump of photos showing off everything:

 First up, the Americans:


Here's the full platoon in all it's glory. The Americans have lots of guys and a smattering of support. The large squads can soak losses pretty well and remain functional.


Each squad has a leader, a BAR team and 9 grunts. The BAR was a pretty sub-par squad support weapon, but it was easy to fire on the move.


Finally, the Platoon HQ with the Platoon Leader and Platoon Sgt. (the pack I bought didn't have one, but it did have a spare rifleman so he's the new top NCO). The HQ also has the squad's anti-armor support with a two man bazooka team. I thought the bazooka itself was a little small, but some internet research suggests it's about right. Anyway, the HQ provides some much-needed flexibility.

 Next up are the Soviets. And now I have the same basic troops in two different scales (15mm and 28mm)...I'm becoming a true wargamer!


Here's the whole platoon. Actually, the pack of figures I bought comes with a whole bunch of extra guys. I had enough dudes left over to make a fourth squad of guys and a small SMG team. With a couple more support weapons and a tank, I could replicate my 28mm Bolt Action Soviets and run the game in 15mm if I chose. 

But for Chain of Command, you get a platoon leader and three big squads. Like the Americans, they take a lot of hits before they break. Their LMG team is a bit better than the BAR the Americans use, but there are no support units of any sort. To make up for that, the Soviets will usually get a nice pick of support options to bulk out their forces before the game starts.


Here's a single Soviet quad and the platoon leader (there's really no one else in the platoon HQ). You get a leader, an LMG team and 8 troopers. The squad has some flexibility to detach scout teams, but mostly it just wants to roll over the opposition. Again, the Soviets hope for a mass of support options to beef up their firepower.

 And now for something completely different...


A group shot of the British platoon. The British platoons are a sort of jack-of-all trades. The platoons have a little fire, a little movement, a little artillery and a little anti-tank. The squads can take a few hits, but they won't take a real pounding and have to use everything at their disposal to win. I'm curious to give these guys a go since I think they need a delicate touch to be used well, but once you understand how to use them, they'll be a real menace in the field.


So the rifle squad is very firmly centered on a fire and movement doctrine. The Bren team set up a very accurate base of fire while the rest of the squad moves around to flank and close with the enemy. The only question is where do you place the squad leader? Ideally, he should be with the maneuver unit ready for the final charge, but keeping him back with the Bren to direct fire is a good idea too.


The British Platoon HQ is where the Brits keep the good stuff. The Platoon leader also has a Platoon sergeant who gives the force a lot more command and control options than other forces. There's also a PIAT team who can take their spring-loaded mayhem machines and try for a flank shot on a panzer. The HQ also has a 2" mortar team (only the British platoon have organic artillery pieces). The mortar can fire explosive rounds but is probably better employed in dropping smoke to cover the advance of other members of the platoon. Again, how the British makes use of all his toys will probably determine victory or defeat.

And finally, some Germans for all those other guys to fight.


For the Germans, I put together a Panzergrenadier platoon. This formation has proven to be an interesting opponent. Although the platoon is smaller that the other forces described above, each squad comes with two LMG teams. This means that when a squad fires, it's rolling buckets of d6s and putting a serious hurt on opponents.


And here you can see the platoon. Two LMG teams but only five troopers. If you can get a few hits on this squad it starts breaking down pretty fast, but getting those hits is a real challenge. On the attack, the squad can make effective use of bounding fire to approach a target. Dug-in on the defense, they're almost impossible to shift. They're always an interesting problem to solve.


The Platoon HQ for the Panzergrenadiers is a little thin. There's no Platoon Sgt. like the Americans and Brits have so the Germans can run into Command and Control problems. The HQ also contains the platoons anti-armor support in the form of a panzershrek team. Alas, I couldn't find the right figure pack for that, so two panzerfaust-wielding troopers are standing in.

Like I said, that's some 120+ little dudes in two months and now I can field a basic force for pretty much any ETO game. Although my photos continue to be crappy, I'm really happy with how these guys came out. I tried a few new things and I think my painting has really improved in this batch of figures. The improvements basically boil down to two things.

One: I used a bigger brush. Until now, when I paint 15mm the idea was "smaller figures, smaller brushes" and it works ok, but after watching a few videos I did all of these with a larger brush. I say "larger" but it's still pretty small (a size 0 brush instead of a size 3/0 brush -- apparently you can divide by 0 when you're doing art). In the past, I found this larger brush to be too big, but apparently my brush control has improved to the point where I can effectively use the larger brush. This has made things go faster and the brushes have lasted longer than the smaller ones.

Two: I did a lot more highlighting this time around. Normally I block out the basic colors, brush on the shade and that's about it, but this time I really added some serious highlights. This has made the figures really pop. They look a bit funky up close but on the table they look really good.

So I'm happy to see that practice does make perfect.

So that's how I've been spending my free time the past couple of months. I need to paint up some vehicles for each of these groups (and maybe add a few more support troops), but I'm ready to give this a rest for a bit. The next item on my docket is the last of the RAFM Shadows and Steel boxed sets I've been working at on and off the past couple of years -- The Conquistador Dwarves! Should be a fun project.

Stopping the Hun

Hey,

 So back in the Spring of last year, I painted up a mess of Soviet troops in 28mm for Bolt Action games. Since then, they've never made it to the table and I've fallen in love with Chain of Command for small action WWII games...and the scale of choice for the guys who play that is 15mm.

 BUT! Last Saturday my gaming group had their belated Holiday party and ran Bolt Action games all day. In the morning, my Soviet soldiers made their tabletop debut... We rolled up a scenario and my job was to defend a set of three objectives spread out over my side of the table. My opponents would be trying to wrest away as many as they could in six turns. I had the pleasure of setting up first:


Here you've got a long shot of my line at set-up with my left flank at bottom and my right flank at the top. We were spread out over a long ridge that overlooked a small town and some forrest area. The Germans have to push up the hill and take as many of the objective markers as they can.


In Bolt Action, the Soviets get a free squad of Inexperienced troops to bulk out their forces. I placed that squad on my left flank along with a 2nd Lieutenant and his flag bearer to help rally the troops. I also gave them some confidence by placing my T-34/76 tank. It was also the only place with a break in the hedge line that would allow the tank to get out onto the road before it and move where it needed to be. Those barrels mark the position of an objective.


In the center of my set-up area, I placed a regular infantry squad and the mortar team. The tank in back isn't functional and acts as another objective point.


On the right, I looked out over a small town. This provided the most cover for an approaching enemy so I bulked up on this side. There are two squads of infantry, a machine gun team, a sniper and a Captain to help provide morale and activation bonuses to the various groups. The crate on a silvered disk marks the final objective.

 The game began with an artillery bombardment. This kind of artillery bombardment can be deadly, but most of the time it's just an annoyance. It puts a few points of shock on your groups and this can make it harder for them to activate (or you can waste a turn trying to rally it all off of them). Considering how far the attackers have to run to get at you, it's mostly a nuisance. The only real effect the barrage had was to kill the sniper. A small bit of irony there. The loud booms also scared the tankers who botched their activation test and froze up for a turn.

 For most of the turn I just put people on overwatch. I did send the machine gun team down the hill to take up positions behind some crates near the crossroads in town. I also started feeding a squad in from the far right into the building next to it and got the mortar team's forward observer into a building to try and direct some fire.

 The Germans had small squads of Veteran troopers with lots of machine guns and almost all of them started moving into the town with one squad on my left moving behind some woods to approach the town from that direction.

 The also sent a Stug down the street right towards the MG team.

 By the end of turn 2, things looked like this:


The tank was finally rolling forward, but I was worried about the German squad swinging in wide from my left. The machine gun team was drawing a lot of fire, but hanging in there. The squad in the house next to it kept growing as its members dashed down the hill to jump in. They exchanged a lot of fire with the German squad just up the street from it. And still the Stug closes....


On Turn 3, the machine gun team finally succumbed. The Germans sent a squad around the right side of the town and tried to bring down the forward squad in a withering hail of fire. They did catch a few brave soldiers trying to reach the safety of the building but the squad (in the building with the blue dice next to it) was largely intact. They returned fire and crippled their assailants. Up on the ridge, the whole Soviet line began to shift over to the right in order to gain a better angle on those Germans in the open and get some reserves ready for the inevitable losses that are soon to come.


Near the start of Turn 4 things are looking a little better. Continued fire on the open German squad has whittled it down pretty sharply. My Forward Observer was driven out of his post by a German rush, although he did manage to kill a couple of guys on his way out (doing more damage than the mortar team ever did). Still, there's that Stug to deal with, my tank is out of position and the Germans are prepared to rush behind it and take my positions.


But my brave Soviet troopers have a nasty surprise for the Stug. Every man carries anti-tank grenades for just this purpose. The squad rushes from their house, swarms the tank flinging grenades at it, and then retreats back into the house leaving the Stug shocked and immobilized for the turn. This is exactly why I purchased the anti-tank grenades for the troops and I'm so very pleased I got to use them to such effect on the first game. I suspect future opponents won't drive up so close to me, but making them worry about every knot of dug-in infantry will almost always be to my benefit.


  By Turn 5, the fight's gone out of the Germans. That open German squad on the right was wiped out to a man, the Stug either has to retreat or get brutalized by the troops in the house and if it goes forward, my T-35/76 will get a nice shot into its side. In the meantime, it can spray the Germans in the nearby buildings with machine gun fire. If all the Germans rush forward, they'll be cut down rushing up the hill and the survivors are not likely to overpower the large Soviet squads (Close Combat in Bolt Action is pretty decisive). They don't believe they'll be able to get one of the objectives so we call the game there. Victory to the People!

 So, I'm quite pleased that in their first battle, my little dudes acquitted themselves so well. They were pretty well set-up for the defender role. Although my casualties were light (eight men total), I had plenty of extra guys to soak up losses. I was just able to spread pretty thinly across the width of the table, but once the Germans committed, I was able to shift guys over to where they needed to be. If I had been on the attacking side, I'd like to think I could rush a mass over the top of the defenders, but it's always a gamble.

 The only thing that really didn't work out for me was the mortar team. The way mortars work in Bolt Action, you want to attack the same target over multiple rounds (because your odds of hitting get better as you "dial-in" the range). It's designed to make people shift out of their positions as the fire gets more and more effective. Here, the Germans were almost always on the move so you could zero in on them. The mortars would be great if I were on the attack since defenders usually want to stay close to one position. I should look to see if I can swap out the mortar for something else (another machine gun would be nice but I'd also take a small squad of SMG-equipped maniacs).

 So it was a fun game and although I'm shifting away to another system/scale, I think those Soviets will hit the table again in the future.