12th Painting Challenge Entry - US Mechanized Infantry for "Team Yankee"

US Mechanized infantry in 15mm

Submission number twelve to Curt's Analogue Hobbies Paiting Challege was another "Team Yankee" offering - US mechanized infantry and M113 armoured personnel carriers.

Modern US infantry in 15mm from Peter Pig

It has been nearly two months now since Battlefront "released" their US mechanized infantry figures for their new "Team Yankee" range. Many companies can experience delays in getting their products shipped, but the supply chain Battlefront uses is so glacial that I often snap my crayons, give up waiting, and use an alternate product.  I used Eureka 15mm Soviets in place of the Battlefront motor rifles, and I have opted to use Peter Pig modern US troops instead of waiting any longer for the Battlefront "releases" to reach Canada via whatever snail-driven hot air balloon they use for shipping.

More US grunts

US Mech Company command stand - blue flowers to denote officer

The Peter Pig troops - actually listed as "US Marines" in their website - are a little more modern than the ones from "Team Yankee", more 1990s-2000s than 1980s.  The body armour is a little different, small differences in the harnesses etc.  The only really noticeable difference is the portable anti-tank weapons.  In "Team Yankee", this is the M-47 Dragon missile launcher, but these figures are carrying the AT-4 rocket launcher.  I'm not 100% sure, but I think the AT-4 is a little later than the M-47...but I have no idea what the differences actually are...also, the Peter Pig line does not have a casting carrying an M72 LAW rocket. 

But Peter Pig figures have one marked advantage over Battlefront's - when you order them, they arrive in the mail and you can then paint and use them.

AT-4 teams stand in place of the Dragon AT teams

A view of the camo and webbing

Despite the differences, the Peter Pig castings stand in very well. Peter Pig makes, in my opinion, some of the best 15mm castings out there.  The sculpts are excellent, and the casting quality it top of the line.

The blue flowers denote platoon command base

Painting camouflage is the bane of any hobbyist, but the US Camouflage of the 1980s is particularly challenging.  I try to give an impression of the pattern more than copy it faithfully, particularly in a smaller scale. The results are not too bad.

Propaganda photos - US infantry confront Soviet dismounts near a rail line...

AT team has a surprise for that T-72...

To be mechanized, these fellows need a ride.  The M113s from Battlefront were nowhere to be found either, but it finally clicked that I could just order a box of Jordanian M113s from Battlefront's "Fate of A Nation" game and get the same models, so that's what I did.  Four M113s are enough to mount on platoon of troops - enough to at least get a game in.

M113s...ugliest APCs in existence

I think all of us have some models or figures in particular periods or settings that we dislike or dread painting, and for me, one of those is the M113.  I hate the look of this vehicle - it's just a lame box on some treads.  Whatever its merits in real life (and they might be considerable - I don't know personally, I'm a civilian) in the hobby perspective, these things are totally, totally lame.  The BMPs look waaaay cooler.

Nice models of terrible vehicles

You will notice that none of these M113s have tread covers on...the crappy quality of the plastic struck again, with the tread covers snapping when I tried to clip them off the sprues, so I just avoided them entirely on these models.

Battlefront plastic strikes again...

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And now a short diversion on something I noticed in the "Team Yankee" rule book.  One thing I do appreciate about Battlefront is their painting guides - they have a lot of them in their books, and I find them to be generally helpful.  They often combine art work from Osprey books with Vallejo paint recommendations. I was particularly pleased to see one for the US infantry camouflage in the "Team Yankee" rule book, and once I received the figures from Peter Pig and started painting, I opened up to the guide and noticed something odd...

I thought this was really, really dumb.  Like, really?  I don't know the stats, but I'm confident a large number of the front line troops in the US Army of the 1980s were African American.  So, there was no way to give us a painting guide for that? Just....this was really, really dumb. I hope some copy editor is banging his head against the wall...

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So there are a total of 47 infantry and four vehicles, all in 15mm size, in this submission - worth enough points keep me within a possible striking distance of Byron in the "Modern Mayhem" side duel.

Completed US forces to date for "Team Yankee"

With this I will have concluded my little "modern tear" over the past couple of weeks.  I have enough 15mm stuff on hand now to play a few games and get a sense of the rules - and we even got a game in with these little fellows when Curt visited over the weekend.  Stay tuned for more on that in a later post...

This submission took me past my points goal for the Challenge. Just in time too, as the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is nearly done. I REALLY need to get back to some 30k stuff - I hope I will have more to share before things conclude...

Up Next: Team Yankee

Great! More toys! 15mm "Team Yankee" US starter set from Battlefront

What's a New Year without a New Insane Project, right? The madness of Warhammer 30k will certainly continue in 2015 - in both 6mm and 28mm scales to boot! I guess I could try and "focus" on those.  I've heard of this thing called "focus"...but screw that. The release of a set of cold-war-gone-hot rules from Battlefront is certainly too interesting to pass up.  The goodies have arrived in the mail, and I was excited to dive in. Let yet another New Insane Project Commence.

I generally enjoy Battlefront stuff - Flames of War, when I take off my gaming snob hat, is a ton of fun, if you ignore some of the sillier stuff (and there is a lot of that - like artillery right on the table -arrgh! but I digress).  I was pleased to hear Battlefront was doing some 80s Cold War rules.  I expect they will be relatively light, fun and quick, and have lots of flaming tanks on the table.  If you check through a lot of the modern "what-if" and historical AARs on this blog, you will notice that is a recipe that works for me...
 

You get a bunch of cards...whatever - it's the figures that matter!

But in this case I care less about the rules and more about the figures. Finding a unified, relatively complete set of figures for any particular sub-period of "modern" is not easy.  Micro stuff is covered extensively and completely (see GHQ, Scotia and Oddzial Ozmy). Once you are looking to get larger than 6mm in size, however, the ranges become incredibly balkanized. So I'm excited Battlefront is stepping in, as they tend to be really complete with their ranges. They certainly were with the Arab-Isreali Six Day War stuff (and seemed to be with Vietnam).

Pretty nice plastic on the M1 Abrams sprue - I'm pretty sure the parts are included to make another variant...maybe the M1A1, which had a bigger gun, among other things?

And yet, a few things hang in the background. Maybe the word that worried me most is "plastic".  Battlefront is making a huge effort, it would appear, to have most, if not all of the Team Yankee product range be plastic. Plastic today seems to have this totemic place in the minds of many gamers as "oooh, this will be so great and cheap". But this is not always true.  Price is a function of supply and demand - plastic in and of itself is not magically cheaper as a final product.  Furthermore, plastic is really hard to do well, particularly in smaller scales, and my previous experience with Battlefront plastic has not been great - cheap, brittle plastic and soft details.

To give Battlefront credit, I think they have been working very hard to make improvements when it comes to the plastic. They care what customers think, and they want to get things done right. They seem to want to have a great product, and are prepared to risk some bumps to get there. So I was keen to see for myself when I received my first "Team Yankee" products.  

Test model number one...now to figure out that MERDC camouflage...

I wanted to start with the US forces first, as I already have some 15mm Soviet kit painted (as does Mike F), so this seems to be a quicker way to get to a test game. The US starter box contains five M1 tanks and a pair of Cobra Helicopter gunships. I stuck together one of the M1s, and I have to say, not too bad.  The detail on the plastic is nicer than I have seen on other plastics from BF, though still nowhere near the nice, sharp details you get on properly executed metal vehicles. And the plastic is still a bit brittle for some parts, like the .50cal MGs - use extreme caution clipping those suckers off the frame.

With the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge underway, one of the side-duels I have going on is "Modern Mayhem" with Curt and Byron.  Getting these models underway will hopefully score me a few points in that area.  Just have to try and puzzle out that confusing MERDC camo the US seemed to use in the 1980s...