Painting Update - Soviet Tanks and (more…) Cangames Prep

Howdy everyone,

I hope all is well on your side of the internets. We are slowly getting our way into Spring, although we’ve had a few frost warnings, so those always seem to get folks horrified and whatnot. So Cangames is a few days away, and admittedly the last few weeks have been rather busy, I haven’t had much chance to get to game planning until the last day or so…

The general idea of my game is to take the Tank Aces campaign from Flames of War and adapt it to the Team Yankee mid80’s timeframe. I have plenty of NATO and Warsaw PACT forces, and my recent bout of painting has helped that out. To fill out the ranks a little, I did manage to finish some Soviet or Czech T64’s…depending on your flavour. 

I wanted to try something a little more unique with these tanks and did a bit of a deep dive google search for painting schemes for Soviet tanks. I then focused on T64 tanks and I found a bunch of colour plates with a variety of green schemes. However, I struck paydirt when I saw reference to the Soviet version of US MERDC. The colour plates looked pretty cool, and I found a few other reference pics…so, I was sold…I ended up going that way for my T64’s. I ended up going with Vallejo Reflective Green for the base, and then Saddle Brown along with Tan Earth for the other colours. I hit them with Army Painter StrongTone, and then again with a wet layer of the 3 colours which let me get some hard-edge camo effects the scheme.

All in all, I am pretty happy with the results. Enjoy the pics.

2026's Trek up Mt. Shame

Painted

15mm         44, +8 (tanks + crew)

28mm+       16

Terrain      +38

  

Bought        0

Progress   +98

CanGames Prep - Scatter Terrain and a Buttload of Trees

Howdy folks,

We are sitting at just under a month until this years CanGames (https://cangames.ca/) in Ottawa. I decided to throw my hat in the ring for running a table this year and while I took some time to settle on a ruleset and setting, I realized afterwards that I would have to get moving on prepping things up. I hadn't played Team Yankee in some time, and I had a few models kicking around that I could paint up (cough cough, horde!), so I thought I could give a shot at TY. At the same time, I didn't want to settle on a traditional TY or Flames of War fight and instead dove into the Tank Aces Campaign and rules from a bunch of years ago for a solution.

I liked the idea of running a standard table with a reduced number of forces, and I also like the Force on Force (FoF) ruleset, but at the same time I didn't want to get too bogged down in rules and minutia. I really just wanted to focus on having models on the table. So, Tank Aces will give me the chance to whittle the force structure down to more of a FoF friendly size, and using Tank Aces, I will be able to have folks move around as independent teams and all that comes with that nuance. Anywho, maybe more on that later or in another post.

So, I had the setting - Cold War (which was where my original FoF thoughts were going) - I did a deep dive google search into table layouts (found some eye-candy and great looking tables at Sparkers Wargaming page), and took them as inspiration. That meant that I had to finally beef-up and invest in some scatter terrain that I could be proud of.

Again, going to google, I tried looking for something similar to what Battlefront offers, but the price point was a little much for me at the moment...and, the biggest consideration, every site I looked at had the Pine Woods or similar tree terrain sold out. Well that kinda solved the concerns about the cost...

So, DIY/Scratchbuild time! I ended up buying an assortment of trees from Temu and Michaels…over 100 of them. I picked up some coasters to base the trees from Michaels along with some regular felt pieces (12x9 inch and 12x18 inch) and some textured felt, which would be great for some farmers fields.

I made up a mixture of sand, pva glue, drywall compound, hearty craft paint, and some water. It made a pretty solid mortar for the bases and it didn’t take much to tidy up the bases with a second application. 

Next step is the painting and dry brushing. Cheers.

Painting Update - US Airborne Artillery

Howdy everyone,

Here's hoping that the Winter season is finding you warm and well. We have a fairly decent amount of snow on the ground...not the most we've ever had, but certainly the best start to a Winter in some time. In this case, we had some wild temperature variations leading into November, but once Winter decided to show up it has been here to stay. We even had some -20 and more temps that we don't normally see until late-December or mid-January.

Anywho, I recently finished up the Battlefront US Parachute 75mm Artillery Battery. To be honest, I had started this box last year when I was pushing through my US paras, and I finished one of the guns and left the other 3 on the table. Well, a bunch of months later and I got around to finishing this battery in its entirety.

I think they'll find a home in WW2 and some post settings...maybe the Afropian frontier beckons?

I hope you enjoy the pics (only a few this time).

Running up that Lead/Plastic Hill...

Painted

1/200             4 

15mm          85, +20    

28mm+        36

Terrain           1

  

Bought        42

Progress   +84

Painting Update - Battlefront Shermans

Howdy everyone,

I hope all is well on your side of the internets, here’s to keeping the plague at bay. Here is a quick post on some more painting that I was able to get finished over the summer. These Shermans are from the Battlefront Open Fire starter box that I had bought years ago. The same box that one of my US airborne infantry platoons came from. If I remember correctly, I think the box came with two platoons/troops of Shermans, but to be honest, after I put these four together I was pretty damned frustrated with these models that I threw the other frames off to the side and gave them no mind.

For this group, I decided to have no markings…this way they could feel at home in any setting…WW2 or post-war or the Afropia region. I did enjoy figuring out the stowage and extra improvised armour thanks to extra track. While the assembly was a major headache, they painted up really well. I am almost convinced that I should grab that last frame and put them together…we’ll see where that takes me.

Anywho, please enjoy the pics.

Running up that Lead/Plastic Hill...

Painted

1/200             4 

15mm          65, +6    

28mm+        36

Terrain           1

Fabricated

     

Bought        42

Progress   +64

More BF Open Fire Grenadiers

Howdy folks,

I hope all is well on your side of the internets. Hard to believe that we are pushing into March now…the last month just sailed by. I had all the best intentions to post a couple of updates, but here we are with only one post for February.

Last month I kept working on the German Grenadiers from the Open Fire box…I gotta say, I had approached this with a certain amount of keenness…but the more of these first-gen plastic sculpts that I paint up, the more i get annoyed with them. So yeah, kinda soul sucking and maybe a little demotivating. Regardless, I decided to push through, and while I was going to base up the second batch for Flames of War, I instead just kept basing them for Force on Force. Maybe I can use them for Afropia and alt history or some such.

At this point, I’m not sure if I’ll finish the rest of the remaining figs or try to sell them off at CanGames…we’ll see how I feel. Anywho, I based these guys for FoF and while I was at it, I ended up putting together a couple of old-school Battlefront Marder III’s. These were fun to finally get some paint on…and I kinda forgot how challenging these old metal models can be. I had a hard time with paint transferring from the tracks to my fingers, so I had a few repeat applications of primer.

Hope you enjoy the pics. In this batch I had 2 leaders that I delineated using FoF classic colour coding…i.e. I painted a couple of desert yellow rocks on their base. 

You can see the 2 leaders in the front range centre-ish

Running up that Lead/Plastic Hill...

Painted

1/200          

15mm          46, +23    

28mm+       

Fabricated

     

Bought        0 

Progress   +46

Open Fire - German Grenadiers

Howdy folks,

I hope all is well on your side of the internets. So, here we are hitting mid-February and we are fresh off the best storm of the current season…although many would ay the first actual snow storm of the season. We had an excellent amount of snow fall the other day, and in some areas with the blowing snow, we got to walk up to 1 to 2 feet of snow. Good news…we have the chance to do a repeat of this tomorrow, so I’m looking forward to that.

The year so far has been fairly steady, and I have been trying to push through the Open Fire German grenadiers…following off my recent work on the US Para’s that came with the box. I had been looking at doing 1 platoon of gren’s based for Force on Force and then another for Flames of War. If I’m totally honest, I’m not really impressed with these plastic figures…so I am having some motivational issues with getting through them.

I’ve completed a first wave of the figures…and have started another batch. In between that time, I did see a post on Reddit where this fellow said that he uses 15mm FoW figures for Bolt Action. I think I can get behind that idea and ditch my plans for making a FoW platoon out of these figures…I think some more for Force on Force or 15mm Bolt Action might be a bit of motivation that I need to help me out.

Anyway, here is the first batch of Grenadiers…I’m looking forward to getting the rulebook for Bolt Action to see how that goes…and hey, 15mm Bolt Action.

Enjoy the pics. 

The group overall…mix of leadership and grunts…SMG’s and riflemen.

A couple of MG42 crews…they’ll work as part of a Grenadier section or standalone teams.

Tried my hand at splinter camo as well…it has been a while.

Another group shot, you can see the Officers and NCOs up front…these would be a platoon HQ or company HQ stand for FoW formation.

…a little Kate Bush love…

Running up that Lead/Plastic Hill...

Painted

1/200          

15mm          23    

28mm+       

Fabricated

     

Bought        0 

Progress   +23

US Airborne Troops

Hello everyone,

Merry Christmas to one and all, happy New Year around the corner as well. I wanted to throw a quick post up of the last Battlefront US airborne troops that I've gotten painted up before the end of the year. While I am building my US Parachute Company for Flames of War, I also took one of the platoons and painted them up so I could use them in other rulesets...although, you can still use FoW based troops, they just need a little accounting work.

Anywho, I was thinking of doing some WW2 gaming using Force on Force so I ended up basing these guys accordingly. As well, it gave me the chance to try an alternate paint scheme, so I ended up trying to capture the D-Day and prior uniforms. I ended up with a platoon of about 30 troops and can easily swap in some of the HMG stands that I have already done.

For those inclined, here are the pics. I hope you enjoy!

Journey up Lead/Plastic Mountain

Painted

1/200          4

15mm         214, +30 (US airborne)

28mm+       44

Fabricated

Terrain        2

Bought        24 

Progress   +240

Geronimo!! More US Airborne for FoW

Howdy everyone,

I hope that the winter is treating everyone well, although with today’s weather, it is a lot less like winter and much more like spring. Anywho, I wanted to put up a quick post with my progress on my US airborne troops. I had previously finished the plastic platoon that came with the original Open Fire box, HERE.

This next platoon, and extras, come from the old US Parachute Company box that included 3 platoons worth of troops as well as company HQ stuff (i.e. snipers). 

There was definitely a difference between the plastic molds and the metal figures. The plastic ones look really good and have some pretty dynamic and expressive poses. While not as dynamic, the metal figs always feel good to paint. They’re also much easier to manage the detail with in terms of flashing and there area few spots where the plastic sculpts are chunky and lack that dimensional feel. I’m thinking mostly of the webbing and equipment like that where you are left with extra bulk where a space would normally be, and then you end up having to try to hide with the paintjob.

Regardless, it feels good to get some 15mm painting in and to finish up pieces that have been sitting around for far too long. Enjoy the pics.

Brand new platoon painted and good to go…2nd Platoon; standard platoon is 7 teams including 1 command team; 1 bazooka team, 1 mortar team; and 2 optional hmg teams and 1 optional extra bazooka team. For this platoon, I ended up using VJ Brown Umber on the edges for easier identification; as well, I ended up making tree stumps out of plastic offcuts to further identify the platoon as a unit.

Close up of a HMG team…

Close up of mortar team and command stand…

Some of the extras from the original box…snipers and pathfinder…and a couple of company command stands.

The company as it looks right now…2 combat platoons…I’ll have to paint up a couple of HMG teams and an extra bazooka team for the 1st Platoon…and then on to support platoons.

Journey up Lead/Plastic Mountain

Painted

1/200          4

15mm         184, +50 (US airborne)

28mm+       44

Fabricated

Terrain        2

Bought        24, +12 (beyond mig alley aircraft and another MiG Alley box) 

Progress   +210

Currahee - Flames of War US Airborne

Howdy folks,

Happy October and all that spooky stuff. Fresh off of my last post, and my fantastic ability to get distracted, I thought I would post a progress pic of my Flames of War US Parachute force. Inspired heavily by Band of Brothers and the anniversary of Market Garden (nope, I can’t explain why now), I have finished up my first platoon for the force.

As mentioned last post, this platoon comes from the initial plastic sculpts released by Battlefront inside of their Open Fire turned Hit The Beach starter box. I am currently working through a second platoon of metal figs from the first release of the US Parachute Company box and it has been interesting to see the difference in the sculpts, but also to see how far Battlefront’s plastic figures have come along.

The main con that I have is that the first kick at plastics have some pretty epic “flash” on the figures, particularly between the arms and torso. I call it flash only because I don’t know the plastic equivalent, regardless this plastic excess is really tough to deal with and in most cases (definitely in mine) I cannot bevel it out. The second con I have, and this is for the prone MG figures, they originally came in 2 different pieces for each pose and they went together poorly. From what I’ve seen of the latest release of the plastics, they have gone away from that initial method and gone to a solid singular molded piece. 

The main pro’s…dynamic poses with a great amount of detail on the faces…dynamic poses with arm and leg articulation…and they paint up so well.

Anywho, here are the pics…I decided to go with a post D-day/Market Garden uniform colour.

Take care.

Journey up Lead/Plastic Mountain

Painted

15mm         131, +31 (para platoon including 60mm mortar)

28mm+       43

Fabricated

Terrain        2

Bought        8

Progress   +168