More USMC Fireteams

Finished up another two fireteams of USMC from Empress. Only two more to go and then to some other Modern subjects. I've run out of bases so I can't get started on more infantry yet, but I guess I can start to paint the first M-ATV next.

I have a tutorial on painting the uniforms coming up soon. I just have to finalize the text and should have it up at latest tomorrow.

I also got some new basing materials mainly in the form of Army Painter 'Poison Ivy' and some MiniNatur tufts. Especially the poison ivy seems to work quite nicely as small bushes.

First USMC fire team finished

I just finished the basing on the first USMC fire team last evening. The paint job was actually surprisingly quick as there is basically only the uniform and the webbing to paint. I just painted the uniform without any highlights and did a single highlight on the webbing followed up by a wash. Works quite well and quick and easy to do.

Painting wise I don't like these modern forces that much as the uniforms just aren't flashy and nice to paint. And however you paint them they just don't look that good at least to my eye. Practicality and camouflage tends to be boring compared to the flashy uniforms of Napoleonic era for example. Still an interesting era to game and the minis are excellent. Empress really does deliver when it comes to sculpting and casting quality. The faces are maybe a bit lacking at least to my liking, but still they are better than average even if they are not as characterful as something from Paul Hicks or the Perry Bros for example.

On the bases I decided to use some lichen for once as I found a large bag of the stuff from my cupboards. Looks OK I guess and adds a bit of variety to my normal forest bases to separate them a bit. I might still add some scatter from tea leaves or the like on the ground to make it look more like a thick undergrowth.

Preparing for Modern May

My painting output has been a bit low lately, mainly because I tried to paint too many things at the same time and started losing interest. 14 28mm with a few cars and two platoons for Flames of War at the table at the same time just seemed to look like nothing is progressing at all. So to get a break from painting the same camo pattern over and over again I decided to prep some minis for next month, which will be Modern May.

These are some of the USMC minis from Empress Miniatures Kickstarter from last summer. I bought into the deal with 3 platoons and some extras like the Oshkosh and some special forces. Splendid minis with amazing detail all around. Today I put together the Boonie toting USMC platoon to paint them up as a recon element for use in pacific themed games as well as an Oshkosh M-ATV to be used in Afganistan scenarios.

I've also got a platoon of them with helmets which I'm going to paint up for Iraq/Afganistan. They will be supported by two Oshktosh M-ATV's. This bad boy is a pretty impressive resin kits from Empress, but boy are they pain in the ass to build. Mine needed quite a bit of sanding to get parts to fit. And even when they fit together trying to glue everything together really caused some issues. I don't know what it is with super glue, but it never seems to stick when parts are correctly aligned, but when something goes on a bit wrong it sticks in a millisecond and makes it impossible to correct mistakes. So now I have a front bumper that is slightly lopsided and one part of the back carriage that just doesn't stick whatever I do with it.

Anyway I was a bit optimistic with my painting output for Airborne April so I'm scaling my goals down a bit for May. I'm starting with the marines meant for the pacific theater and if I seem to have too much time on my hands I'll try to get some desert uniformed marines done too.

• 20 USMC in boonies and woodland camo
• 4 Devgru
• 5 USMC divers
• 2 Oshkosh M-ATV
• 20 USMC in helmets and desert camo