I added a bit of weathering on the guns with a sponge to make them look a bit worn from fighting. Otherwise the standard paintjob that I've already done on quite a few of these little guys.
lauantai 10. toukokuuta 2014
Airborne Antitank platoon
Finished basing one of the final platoons for my Flames of War force. Around 2000 points worth of miniatures ready now and only the Artillery battery left to do to to allow for a few different list options. Still no news of those minis though so no idea when I'm going to get them done. I ordered them in early February and haven't gotten an update on the order since April when the store said that they are on order from Battlefront... A bit frustrating considering that they are not the only minis missing from the same order that I've now paid for nearly 3 months ago.
I added a bit of weathering on the guns with a sponge to make them look a bit worn from fighting. Otherwise the standard paintjob that I've already done on quite a few of these little guys.
I added a bit of weathering on the guns with a sponge to make them look a bit worn from fighting. Otherwise the standard paintjob that I've already done on quite a few of these little guys.
keskiviikko 7. toukokuuta 2014
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.
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.
Bolt Action test game
I played my first Bolt Action game last week using some of the Winter War minis and terrain that have been built at the club. The game pitched roughly 1000 points of minis on both sides with the Russians fielding two tanks and hordes of inexperienced infantry and the Finns fielding 5 regular infantry squads, a small veteran squad, a HMG and an antitank gun.
The goal of the game was for the Russians to break through the Finnish side with them gaining 2 points for every unit through and 2 points for every destroyed Finnish unit. The Finns on the other hand gained 2 points for every Russian unit destroyed. The game was to last 7 turns, but we ended up stopping at the end of turn 6 when it became apparent that there was no way that the Russians could win or even tie the game.
We made some small alterations to the rules to better reflect reality. All belt fed MG's received one more attack dice to make them feasible and the requirement for a second crewmember was removed from magazine fed LMG's. In addition we use a special rule for Winter War russians to reflect the mass wave assault tactics used by them. Any Russian infantry unit destroyed can come back on the board as an inexperienced infantry unit according to the rules for reinforcements.
The game started out with a small Finnish force preparing to hold against the Russian onslaught. Preliminary bombardment by the Russians was fairly effective causing a lot of pin markers on the Finns. The first turn involved the Russians blasting away at an exposed Finnish unit killing their NCO and LMG gunner and causing further pins, which pretty much put the squad completely out of action for the rest of the game.
Finnish reinforcements start arriving with a HMG team and an antitank gun taking positions on the flank and a rifle team moving up into the cover of a forest to be in position to shoot at the approaching russians.
Finnish rifle fire starts taking a toll on the attacking Russians with most units losing men and acquiring a lot of pin markers. Commissars are busy at work motivating the men forward with shots to the back of the head.
Russian attacks manage to wipe out the Finnish HMG on the flank, but counterfire from close by rifle teams wipes out the offending Russian unit. Thanks to bad reserve rolls the destroyed units only manage to come back on turn 6 meaning that they have no chance of reaching to Finnish lines.
The game ended a clear victory for the Finns with a rifle team and the HMG destroyed while the Russians lost 6 rifle squads and most of the other were in no shape to push forward on the attack. The scenario didn't really afford the Russians too much of a chance even with the Human Wave special rule as the Finns could just sit back and blast away at the closest teams. The lack of artillery and mortars really hurts the attacking side badly as they are lacking a reliable way of putting in pins and smoke screens on the enemy. And even sides really favors the defender a lot especially if the attacker splits his forces like the Russians did in this game.
A nice game and the rules seem to be quite quick and easy to play. Rules wise it's a bit weird that there is no way for a team to be prone and fire as they either go down for cover or then fire in full sight. We really need more support weapons as especially the attacker is really in a bad position without any supporting artillery
The goal of the game was for the Russians to break through the Finnish side with them gaining 2 points for every unit through and 2 points for every destroyed Finnish unit. The Finns on the other hand gained 2 points for every Russian unit destroyed. The game was to last 7 turns, but we ended up stopping at the end of turn 6 when it became apparent that there was no way that the Russians could win or even tie the game.
We made some small alterations to the rules to better reflect reality. All belt fed MG's received one more attack dice to make them feasible and the requirement for a second crewmember was removed from magazine fed LMG's. In addition we use a special rule for Winter War russians to reflect the mass wave assault tactics used by them. Any Russian infantry unit destroyed can come back on the board as an inexperienced infantry unit according to the rules for reinforcements.
The game started out with a small Finnish force preparing to hold against the Russian onslaught. Preliminary bombardment by the Russians was fairly effective causing a lot of pin markers on the Finns. The first turn involved the Russians blasting away at an exposed Finnish unit killing their NCO and LMG gunner and causing further pins, which pretty much put the squad completely out of action for the rest of the game.
Finnish reinforcements start arriving with a HMG team and an antitank gun taking positions on the flank and a rifle team moving up into the cover of a forest to be in position to shoot at the approaching russians.
Finnish rifle fire starts taking a toll on the attacking Russians with most units losing men and acquiring a lot of pin markers. Commissars are busy at work motivating the men forward with shots to the back of the head.
Russian attacks manage to wipe out the Finnish HMG on the flank, but counterfire from close by rifle teams wipes out the offending Russian unit. Thanks to bad reserve rolls the destroyed units only manage to come back on turn 6 meaning that they have no chance of reaching to Finnish lines.
The game ended a clear victory for the Finns with a rifle team and the HMG destroyed while the Russians lost 6 rifle squads and most of the other were in no shape to push forward on the attack. The scenario didn't really afford the Russians too much of a chance even with the Human Wave special rule as the Finns could just sit back and blast away at the closest teams. The lack of artillery and mortars really hurts the attacking side badly as they are lacking a reliable way of putting in pins and smoke screens on the enemy. And even sides really favors the defender a lot especially if the attacker splits his forces like the Russians did in this game.
A nice game and the rules seem to be quite quick and easy to play. Rules wise it's a bit weird that there is no way for a team to be prone and fire as they either go down for cover or then fire in full sight. We really need more support weapons as especially the attacker is really in a bad position without any supporting artillery
sunnuntai 4. toukokuuta 2014
Painting Marpat
I got started on painting up some marines with a trial rifle team of 4 men. Digital camo seemed like quite a daunting task beforehand and trying to google for good tutorials just yielded multiple different takes on the subject that didn't really seem to be either practical or then looked a bit off.
Trying to imitate the pixelated graphics is pretty much suicidal and isn't very realistic either in this scale. I guess the best way is to get the uniform to look similar to what the real-life version would look like from roughly 30-40 meters away. To simulate the pixels I painted the paint blotches in horizontal and vertical stripes to have some sharp angles etc. This was actually surprisingly fast to do with the whole lot taking roughly an hour to get to this stage. Looks a bit rough still, but once the body armor and webbing are painted and a wash is applied, I'm hoping that it will end up looking a bit like the real thing.
Next up is painting the rest of their uniform and gear and then all their faces. I'm still not decided on whether to paint them with skin colours or with camo paint on their faces too. Maybe a simpler version of painted faces followed by slightly faded camo colours might do the trick. At least remembering from my own time in the army, the camo paints started to wear out very rapidly especially in the summer, leaving you with really faded colours that piled up in the creases of your skin.
In the background there's a small peak of an anti-tank platoon for Flames of War. Uniforms are finished. Now they just need weapons, helmets and the guns themselves painted.
Next up is painting the rest of their uniform and gear and then all their faces. I'm still not decided on whether to paint them with skin colours or with camo paint on their faces too. Maybe a simpler version of painted faces followed by slightly faded camo colours might do the trick. At least remembering from my own time in the army, the camo paints started to wear out very rapidly especially in the summer, leaving you with really faded colours that piled up in the creases of your skin.
In the background there's a small peak of an anti-tank platoon for Flames of War. Uniforms are finished. Now they just need weapons, helmets and the guns themselves painted.
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