New Year's Day Game - Chemical Commies vs. Bundeswehr!

On New Year's Day, in accordance with ancient tradition, a few of the boys came over for a game and some pizza. This year I teed up a Cold War Hot game with the infamous Chemical Commies facing the Bundeswehr. It was the first chance for me to get Greg's superb Soviets on the table, as well as my newly painted Bundeswehr Marder AFVs. 

I imagined the scenario as follows: D+5 and the Soviets have made significant inroads against NATO in Germany. Elements of a Bundeswehr panzergrenadier company are holed up in the middle of a city and while the Soviet spearhead has passed them by, the follow-up Soviet forces (i.e. the second-tier dudes) are tasked with mopping up.

A couple squads of BW troops are in the middle of the board awaiting reinforcement from the rest of the company, but the Soviet goal is to crush them quickly before help can arrive.

Here's the Bundeswehr...

... and here are the Soviets.

The Bundeswehr were pretty tough - too tough as it turned out. I'd made them "veterans" and that was an error, veterans on defence in the new Bolt Action are WAAAY too tough to beat. The dudes in the photo above finally got pinned out of the game after like 5 turns of Soviet fire. The combination of 5+ needed to hit them and a 4+ save from cover was just too much. They shoulda been regulars.

Soviet BMP brews up.

Soviets move in on the valiant defenders of the Reich West Germany.

The game looked great and it was really fun to get the Cold Warriors out on the table once more. But as noted, next time it'll be Regulars vs Regulars. Or maybe Soviets in Afghanistan fighting the mujahedin? We could do that too. But it was great to have the guys over and have a game, and continue the New Year's tradition.

Till next time!

Cold Warriors - BobMack 3D 28mm Marder 1A3s, Plus More Eureka Bundeswehr and Soviets

OK so there's a few more Cold Warriors to post here! I recently ordered some freaky Chaos/Hieronymous Bosch li'l dudes from Eureka, and threw some Bundeswehr and Soviets into the order, just because. They were quick to paint so here they are, along with some extra unpainted models from years ago. 

MG3 machinegunner in NBC gear. A leftover.

Panzerfaust 3 operator and GraMaWa (granatmaschinenwaffe - grenade machinegun) gunner. Whoa!

Bundeswehr sniper with G22 (Accuracy International AWM-F) in .300 Winchester Magnum (7.62x67).

I also picked up a couple more Chemical Commies, a Sagger (AT-3 ATGM) operator, PKM machinegunner, and flamethrower operator.

The Sagger set from Eureka is so cool. So much ATGM goodness.

The flamethrower dude and PKM gunner are great too. The Chemical Commies are painted with Vallejo German Uniform highlighted up with a VGU/white mix. The Bundeswehr flecktarn is Doombull Brown, Castellan Green, and Deathworld Forest.

But check these out - 3D-printed BobMack 3D Marder 1A3s from their Kickstarter, printed for me by Conscript Byron.

These are 1/56 scale models, and replace the North Korea store Marders in my Bundeswehr force. These scale quite well against the Leopard 2s I have already. (For those who are wondering, the NKS Marders were built on the SAME CHASSIS as their Leopard 2s. They were therefore waaaay bigger than scale Marders should be. These ones are much smaller than the Leopards).

I also got decals for these from District Miniatures. On the Marder 1A3 sheet you get decals for four vehicles, including crosses and (importantly) number plates. These are some great decals! The camo is Doombull Brown, Castellan Green/Deathworld Forest, and Vallejo Dark Rubber.

Here's one of the Marders with some BW infantrymen. Can hardly wait to get these out for a game. It will happen this summer I swear. I just have to find/write a Cold War mod for Bolt Action, I think that'd work best for a game.

Tornado Warning!

Something completely different done on a whim... it's back to Team Yankee and the Bundesluftwaffe. Long version: Conscript Greg was planning a visit to the Meeplemart and I noted that they had the "new" Team Yankee Tornado flight in plastic, in stock, for the very reasonable price of $35CAD (as opposed to the old resin aircraft that were an extortionate $53 for two). I thought I might ask Greg to get these for me, but I already have one painted Tornado... and there's no need to have three. However I'd had a Revell plastic Tornado kit on my eBay watchlist for some time and this was the prompt to finally buy it, for well under $20 shipped. 

So last week the kit arrived and was quickly assembled. I left off some of the bits specific to the "ECR" version and built it identical to its squadron mate already in my collection.

Painting was pretty simple - it's a three colour scheme - I just copied it from the plane I'd painted before. However I just tried to look up "Wings Palette" where I'd sourced the scheme in the first place... and nothing - the site seems to be defunct. Too bad as it was an amazing resource for aircraft color schemes :-(

Anyway the Luftwaffe Tornados are in a three-colour scheme - I painted this in black highlighted Dark Rubber; Castellan Green; and Castellan Green highlighted Death World Forest; the whole thing then washed with Nuln Oil. 

Here it is with its squadron-mate, not a bad match despite the fact I had failed to record the colours used on it. Happy to finish the second Tornado to join the first, and that'll complete the Bundeswehr's air support for Team Yankee.

Team Yankee 15mm Leopard 2s and BTR-60s + Vallejo Vehicle Paint

One of the things that the pandemic has been good for is ordering stuff over the Internet. What can be hit-and-miss though is the fulfillment of those orders. Back in April I thought to take advantage of some free shipping from Battlefront and ordered some GF9 terrain. I figured I'd add a couple Team Yankee tank sprues just for fun, so I threw in these two Leopard 2s. Well... suffice to say that my order finally arrived in July after having to cancel the first order and re-order the stuff... I guess I should also add that the complete order hasn't even yet arrived, since the two aircraft flight stands I added on were on backorder. I guess it doesn't matter much because there's no sign yet of the two 1/144 SU-25 Frogfoot model kits I ordered off eBay at the start of July... typical.

 

Anyway, the models finally arrived and have duly been built and painted in the same fashion as my other Bundeswehr Leo 2s.

The TY sprues don't come with decals, of course, but I had plenty of Iron Crosses and tactical numbers left over from prior projects. I just had to freehand a license plate for each of the vehicles.

The BTR-60 company came from a local brick and mortar store, so no worries at all about shipping or postage. Super-fast to paint these using the magic spraypaint (Krylon Camouflage Olive) - supposedly it's still in production but I haven't been able to find it anywhere. This lot of five vehicles emptied my last can :-(

 

Anyway, another thing I really like about the Battlefront Team Yankee vehicles is that they come with crew figures as well (are you listening, 1/72 aircraft makers???) I just love the cool character that a crew figure adds to the vehicle.

Cool looking crew eh!

Of course, one good use for these BTR-60s will be to transport the heavy weapons platoon of the Motor Rifle Regiment!

Just such cool little models. All injection-molded plastic and a snap to assemble, while retaining good detail.

I also have to give a shout-out to Vallejo for this paint set, which was a very generous gift from Conscript Perry (thanks Perry!)

I used the Panzer Colours "Dark Rubber" on the tires of the BTR-60s and it really worked a treat - I love the effect. It'll certyainly be my go-to paint for vehicle tires and likely also for Bundeswehr "teerschwartz" (tar black) as used in their three-colour camo pattern.

Anyway, that's it for now... until we can (finally) get gaming together again, stay healthy everyone!
 

15mm PSC Bundeswehr Leopard 1s

If there's one home truth about our participation in the world of Team Yankee, it's that we are subject to constant escalation. My Bundeswehr force hasn't been added to in some time, but I found it hard to resist Plastic Soldier Company's Leopard 1 box... so I didn't!

The rest of the force consists of excellent models from Battlefront, but I saw no reason why I shouldn't try this box of Leopard 1s from PSC. After all, they cost significantly less than the BF models and are also modern injection plastic models...

I certainly wasn't disappointed, either. The PSC Leopards are great. The kit contains parts to build five Bundeswehr (or other Euro) Leopard 1A1 or -A3s, or the Canadian C1 variant. The only deficiency identified with the C1 parts provided is that they don't include the proper pintle MG. However, this wasn't a problem with my build as what's provided is correct for the 1A3.

I also really like the PSC crew. They're super characterful and as the model's turret hatches can BOTH be modelled open, crew can be doubled up too as seen above.

Nice eh?

The only downside of the PSC box is that no decals are provided, but I used some I had left over from my Battlefront West German kits (plus some kindly provided by Conscript Greg), and freehanded the license plates.

Highly recommended! I love the ease of assembly and extras (like crew) provided by PSC, as well as the low price. However, you do miss the decals and unit card that comes with Battlefront's Leopard 1s.