Up and at 'em!!

I have been waiting for a while to utilize my Rubicon Sdk 250 Alt transports, and the Monte Cassino army seemed to be a perfect time!

The idea was to have a force that seemed to be somewhat cobbled together and ad hoc, taking advantage of the bombardment of the monastery. 

This was painted entirely with brushes, as I didn't have the time to do the usual airbrush techniques.  It also had to be acrylics so that it would be dry in time!  That meant I put my Secret Weapon paints to good use.

Another reason I had such dramatic differences in transport types and camo patterns was to be able to tell one unit from another!  As you recall, there was no playtesting of this army whatsoever before the event.  I had no idea if I was even going to have units to match order dice the night before dice were gonna roll!

I tried to take advantage of the fact that by this stage of the war, may different uniforms were being warn, and this gave me a chance to secretly "color code" units.  The side benefits were that I had more fun painting that variety, and they looked more interesting.

I have done a number of painting videos on Bolt Action infantry and vehicles.  Here's an example of one of my Patreon videos, from the "Army Painter" series two.  In this set of 5 videos, I tackled every phase of basing and painting my Winter Soviets.  

Each video is about 2 to 2.5 hours long, and it really covers the process and planning involved:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsU7M9EIFnc

I will be making more Army Painter series, especially on my upcoming Desert Armies!  I have Italians, DAK, British 8th, Free French, and even Vichy.

Here's a link to the Patreon Page.  The Army Painter level is $15, and it will give you access to all previous series, along with other single episodes covering other effects:

www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Monte Cassino Basing

Operation Sting is fast approaching, and I needed a brand new army to fit the era of the tournament.  

This is an army that I have thought about creating since I first started playing Bolt Action, and that is a Monte Cassino Fallschirmjager army!

I visualized a force well entrenched in the ruins of the abbey, which would let me combine some classic sculpey carved bases and a late war Bolt Action army.  Yes, that is right... and army that is post 1940... ;-)

I gathered together as many reference images as I could find, including several of the Abbey.  The display board will be made to appear as close as possible to the lower right image.  Obviously things will have to be tweaked a bit to make room for the actual units themselves.

Much research has been done on the uniforms worn, and it has revealed a mix of gear.  In fact, that image in the upper right may reflect the variety which I will include.  It is late war after all, and by this time, equipment replacements were erratic at best.

I do think it will be interesting to see the Mediterranean style helmet and trouser color, however!

Many of the poses were of the kneeling variety, which meant that I could have a lot of fun creating bases for them to hide behind.

The plain white Sculpey is very easy to break and carve.  When you break the rolled out pieces, it gives a fantastic texture, and sometimes all you have to do is chip away at some of the edges to complete the look.

You can also use all those smaller chunks as additional rubble, which helps to achieve the effect of ruins.

I also tried to utilize some of my Secret Weapon Miniatures resin basing pieces like the broken pillar that you see on the figure to the right.  Eventually I would start making my own smaller pieces of broken pillar, which you can see a little later in this post. 

I have a number of basing exercises on the patreon page that show urban rubble style bases, such as the Army Painter Series 2.  In that set of tutorial videos, I tackle my winter Soviet army, all of which are based on rubble (including weapon teams, etc.)

You can check that out here:

www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

On this base, I was able to match the chunk of resin pillar by carving a larger piece of Sculpey.  This is part of my Sniper team... and he has a buddy in a similar type of base.