28mm Napoleonics Taking Off

Happy February everyone.

A quick update on things. My company reorganized at the beginning of the year and the new role is taking up a lot of time & energy, so while I am painting it is going at a slower pace than desired. My new local gaming friend Chris is amassing an Austrian Horde at a quick clip via purchasing painted minis online and I have started doing the same. I purchased three battalions of French infantry (36 figures each) off the ‘Bay in recent weeks and now am only a command stand and maybe another battalion away from having my first brigade ready to go. I’m continuing to look at painted miniatures online as well as some painting services to help increase the number of infantry battalions quickly.

Purchasing painted minis online requires patience, especially if you’re particular about how the models are painted like I am. There are plenty of painting services and individuals out there selling the Warlord and Perry plastics painted to a “tabletop” standard, but in many cases either the painting is really rough or they are using contrast paint to get things done faster. While I use contrast paint myself for certain things I find they are best used for fleshtones or very textured surfaces. Using them on large flat areas isn’t to my liking, and since most of the contrast-ish ranges are designed for fantasy or sci-fi use cases, with the blues and reds being way too saturated and vivid for use with historical miniatures in my opinion. As an aside, I think the Citadel and Army Painter browns are for the most part fantastic and I use Citadel Black Templar a lot as well.

So I keep on painting and scrolling through eBay, various online market places and Facebook groups and occasionally find something that appeals to me and is in the price range I’m willing to pay. If it helps me get a force together sooner, all the better.

I’m hoping to be able to put games on this spring. There are a variety of rules I’d like to try out including General d’Armee (I just pre-ordered the 2nd edition set from TFL), Black Powder and Valor & Fortitude. All of them bring different benefits and I’m curious to see which one(s) become preferred.

That’s all for now.

Happy 2024

Here I was trying to keep up with this blog on a more regular cadence and suddenly we have a 7-month gap between posts. The best of intentions and all that… Anyway, I thought I’d write a short post to talk about what’s transpired since the last post and what my gaming plans are for this coming year.

2023 was a good year for me gaming-wise as I started actually playing games again on a regular basis. I started out the year playing with one of the long-established groups that meets at a local game store. They play a wide range of historical periods along with Fantasy and Sci Fi. Regardless, they have a few constraints that dictate the rules used: Games last no more than two hours, and they often have to support a dozen players more more. The games are fun, but tend towards the simpler side due to these limitations. 

Mid-year I managed to join up with another local group that plays out of the organizer’s home, focusing mostly on ACW & WWII historicals and Sci-Fi games with the occasional pulp game tossed in for good measure. With a smaller group of players and fewer games in the rotation we use rules that have more complexity to them and I find them more intellectually stimulating. Compared to the previous decade where sometimes I only played a game a year, 2023 led to much dice rolling and camaraderie. I’ve missed it and am looking forward to more.

Painting-wise, I also had a productive (for me) year. Here’s the tally:
– I finished a full reinforced platoon of 28mm Late-War WWII British for games like Bolt Action or Chain of Command.
– I painted three stands (30 models) of Northstar’s Oathmark Human Infantry for the fantasy rules played by the group at the FLGS.
– I completed around 40 28mm Models for the “Back of Beyond” or Russian Civil War. Mostly red sailors with command and a Maxim MG team along with a few other characters of dubious intent.
– I started about 25mm WWI Austro-Hungarian Infantry from Brigade Games also for the Russian Civil War.
– I started painting 28mm French Napoleonic Infantry but ran into painter’s block. The method I chose to follow was very detailed and as I figured out about 2/3 of the way through a battalion, impractical for building armies at scale. I need to continually remind myself that at three feet distance those highlights are practically invisible.
– Finally, I have around 16 of the new plastic battlemechs for Battletech that are in various stages of completion.

All in all, a productive year.

For 2024, I am going to try and tighten focus. With the Back of Beyond stuff more or less finished for now I plan on shifting back to 28mm Napoleonics. In addition to my first contact that is painting Prussians here in the cities (Hi Jason!) I also recently found out that another member of my Wednesday night group is painting Austrians (Hi Chris!). So cranking out Frenchmen will be priority #1. In addition to the Perry, Front Rank and Calpe minis I’ve already purchased, I bought myself a resin 3d printer for Christmas and am going to be purchasing the STL files from Piano Wargames. They look like lovely sculpts and are sized to match well with the Perry models. They should fit decently well with Victrix as well.

As a palate cleanser or change of pace from rank after rank of French Infantry, I have purchased some 15mm WWII minis. My Wednesday Night group likes Fireball Forward for WWII in that scale and I am also looking at O Group and the Battlegroup series of rules for doing larger games with combined arms. The 3d resin printer will come in handy here, too.

Finally I have some old 15mm Sci Fi models that I would like to use. Small figures with simple paint jobs so get some forces going relatively quickly.

Those are the plans. I will endeavor to try and keep the blog updated on a more regular basis as well. Life gets in the way but I will do my best.

I hope 2024 is better for all of us.

More WIP French

I’ve been busy painting more Napoleonics this month. A quick post to show some more of the Perry Miniatures plastic 1807-12 line infantry. They take longer to assemble but you can get some great poses from the kit.

This picture was taken with the minis right under my painting lamp so I could get a decent shot. It’s a very cool light and the blues look a lot brighter than they are under normal lighting.

These minis are almost done. A few more details to pick out and some messes to be cleaned up. Overall I’m pretty pleased with how they are turning out. I think I can complete a battalion or equivalent per month at this quality which is good enough for me.

Getting Started – 28mm Napoleonics

I blame Peter Gilder.

I’ve been fascinated with the Napoleonic period since I was a teenager. Even before I knew much about the history or personalities of the era, I was entranced thanks to the full color pictures of 36-figure French battalions crashing into Russian infantry at Borodino in an issue of Miniature Wargames (issue 23 if memory serves). Figure availability. budget and existing collections of other gamers in my area meant that I started with 15mm models and happily gamed with them for a long time. All the while I would linger over any pictures of 25/30mm Napoleonics in the latest issue of Miniature Wargames and, later, Wargames Illustrated.

Fast forward over 20 years and while I haven’t played much Napoleonics in the intervening decades, I have continued to be fascinated by the period, collecting rules and history books more than miniatures but staying invested just enough to keep the dream alive while telling myself that someday I would be ready. Well, that day is apparently today.

My previous forestalled attempt to jump into 28mm Napoleonics had me doing Russians to play with local gamers Jason & Eric (details at https://immervorwarts.blogspot.com/). I still would like to do Russians, but for now I am starting with French for 1813. Hard to do the period without them, and I’m not sure how fast another French player may pop up since for now at least it’s just Jason & I doing the planning.

I’ve got enough models at home right now for 8-10 infantry battalions of 24 models. That’s either full strength at 1:30 or field strength at 1:20. Either way the rules I’m looking at don’t really pay attention to model counts so 24 is a good compromise between having a real unit on the table while also not taking up as much tabletop space.

Painting

I had a box of the Perry French infantry in pre-Bardin uniforms that I put together over the last few months. Lovely figures, but more parts to clip, sand and assemble than their original FN100 box or the Warlord French. After a getting the models assembled I’ve black-primed them and drybrushed them with a light grey to try and save some work dealing with white straps laying over the white plastron of the French Ligne infantry jacket.

Here are a few test figures done. I’m aiming for detail that will show up at 3 feet distance while also reducing painting time as much as possible. I did the best taking photos with a makeshift lightbox.

Two Voltigeurs & 2 Eagle Guards

The coats are Pro-Acryl Dark Blue with a highlight of 50/50 Dark Blue & Vallejo Prussian Blue and sparse highlights of pure Prussian Blue. This gives the coat some definition without lightening the overall tone too much.

Voltigeur Command

Here’s a few more Voltigeurs that could be a command base for a unit in skirmish order. The different parts in the Perry box allow you a good degree of freedom in posing models. Here we have a sergeant trying to get his unit’s attention along with a bugler trying to tell his squad mates to slow down.

The painting guide I used for color inspiration used cool grey tones for the white pants and straps. Since these are rank & file minis versus ones that will get a lot of individual inspection I went for only a base/wash/single highlight versus going for a triad approach. I used Vallejo Sky Grey for the base, washed the model with the new Pro-Acryl Black Wash, which is fantastic IMO and then highlighted with a mix of Sky Grey and White. It looks good and the whites pop with the black lining. It does lead to a very cool white to go along with the cool blue and black that makes up the rest of the model. I am going to experiment with a warmer white based on Deck Tan as well.

A couple of fusiliers.

Finally, here are a few Fusiliers. Same basic approach other than not having to worry about swords or fringy epaulettes. I’m happy with how these models turned out and now I’m trying to tweak the color palette a little bit and work on speeding up production. My initial goal is to complete a battalion each month. If more gets done it will be a bonus.

I’ll post my monthly progress and try to post more pics here as a way of keeping myself accountable and on-track.

All About the Blues – French Napoleonic Infantry Coat Colors

I’ve finally started my 28mm Napoleonic project and while I do plan on doing Russians at some point, I’m starting out with some French as you really can’t really game the Napoleonic period without them, After spending some time cleaning and assembling a box Perry French Infantry, I started looking at how I wanted to paint them. For me, the main bugaboo with French Infantry is painting all of the white straps and belts that go over the white chest piece of the tunic. Having proper definition between components is important, but I also don’t want to spend more time than necessary to get it done since I’m looking at having to paint 100’s of models.

After trying the normal black prime route, I don’t think I’ll be doing that for the rank & file at least. You can get very crisp definition between straps, belts and coats, but at the price of doing multiple layers of precise painting with detail brushes. I don’t have time for that. The next experiment will probably be giving the models an all-over coat of Vallejo Sky Grey, which is what I’m using as the base color for all of the white areas right now and then using a wash of some sort to get the definition/separation I’m looking for. The new Pro-Acryl Black Wash looks very promising and I’m going to try and acquire a bottle and see how it works.

On to the main subject of the post.

French fusiliers wore blue coats for most of the Napoleonic period (excepting the white uniforms issued in 1806/7), but what shade of blue is the right one? This is really a trick question for a variety of reasons:

• The proper shade of new French blue coats would be something very dark. Indigo was used to dye the wool and a new coat would be a very dark blue indeed. At 28mm scale this would look more or less like black on the tabletop. I would like something that actually shows up as blue on the game table.
• The actual color of the coats would vary from dye lot to dye lot. Assuming every new coat would be dyed the exact same color is probably wishful thinking.
• Once the troops were in the field for any length of time, sun, rain and dirt would quickly do their work on the coat and you would likely see something lighter and faded on a majority of the troops.

This is a long way of saying pick the blue that you like…. it should be something dark blue versus royal blue or light blue, but choose something that appeals to you. They’re your models so paint to please yourself and not some random person on the internet.

I’ve assembled a number of blue paints over time and these were the ones I looked at. This is a non-comprehensive list and consists of paints from the lines I can easily buy in stores here in the Twin Cities. I didn’t look at Citadel or Army Painter paints but there would be suitable choices in both lines.

The Usual Suspects

From left to right:

• Pro-Acryl Dark Blue
• Pro-Acryl Blue Black
• Pro-Acryl Payne’s Grey
• Vallejo Game Color Night Blue
• Vallejo Game Color Imperial Blue
• Vallejo Model Color Dark Prussian Blue
• Vallejo Model Color Prussian Blue

I’ve used Vallejo Model Color paints for decades and Dark Prussian Blue used to be my default choice for French Napoleonic blue, albeit for 15/18mm models in the past. The new formula Vallejo Game Color paints show promise and dry very matte. Finally the Pro-Acryl paints from Monument Hobbies are becoming a new favorite of mine. Very fluid, excellent opacity, they airbrush really well and dry matte.

Here’s the experiment I ran. The control stripe across the top is a common base layer I see for “Napoleonic Blue” – a mix of 75% VMC Prussian Blue / 25% Black (I used Pro-Acryl Coal Black). The ratio is approximate based on ‘drops’ of paint… every time I mix it it’s a little different, but that’s OK, especially for depicting pre-industrial revolution clothing.

Results

The paint was applied on the back of a white envelope that was at hand. Photo was taken using warm interior lighting on my iPhone. Handwriting by a real adult regardless of how it looks. 🙂

A few opinions:

• VGC Imperial Blue and VMC Dark Prussian Blue are almost identical with Dark Prussian Blue being slightly darker.
• VGC Night Blue is a very dark but very saturated blue. It’s the most ‘blue’ of the 4 candidates on the left.
• Payne’s Grey is a dark grey with blue overtones. It’s a great addition to Pro-Acryl’s line and something you don’t see in miniature paint lines often.
• Blue Black is really a very dark grey with a blue tone mixed in. A lot of people plan to use it with 40K Space Marines as a zenithal highlight for black armor. I think it would work great for that.
• In my opinion I think the Pro-Acryl Dark Blue is the closest to the control color. A little less black perhaps but pretty close.

I’m going to use the Pro-Acryl Dark Blue for my base color. In all honesty though I think you can’t go wrong with any of the 4 candidates on the left. Once you apply more layers you won’t see much of it and it won’t make much of a difference in the overall paint scheme.

I’d been looking for a base color I could use straight out of the bottle since I don’t normally use a wet palette and I’m lazy. I thought this quick experiment was useful and I hope you find it of interest as well.

April 2023 Update

Greetings everyone.

It’s been a while since my last post but I haven’t been idle in the meantime. I don’t have a setup for taking pictures of my models so this will be a short text-only update. I’ll try to remedy that in coming months,

Painting

I’ve finished my 28mm Late-war WWII British army. In my last post I mentioned that I had finished the final sections of infantry. Since then I’ve added the following bits:

• A command section with a senior leader, Sgt, Radioman and medic
• Two snipers in ghillie suits
• Two Vickers MG teams
• Two 3″ Mortar Teams
• 1 6-pdr AT Gun

The only 28mm WWII items I have in my backlog are a troop of three Cromwell tanks, I’ll assemble and a paint them at some point when I get tired of painting black powder troops.

I also assembled and primed a bag of the excellent Victrix 28mm Republican Roman cavalry. One of the local groups plays 28mm scale ancients and I’ve got enough Romans and Carthaginians to paint up small forces for each.

Finally, I have started on the great work – 28mm Napoleonics. I’ve assembled and primed my first box of Perry plastic French infantry. I had a box of the 1807-12 infantry in the pre-Bardin uniform. They are excellent figures. The sculpting is top-notch as you’d expect from the Perry twins. Each figure has at least 5 parts (body, head, two arms and the pack/coattails, which is both a blessing and a curse. The modularity means you can build a unit with individual poses for each model. It also means you have to clip, scrape and assemble more pieces per model. So, assembling the models took a while.

I managed to fully-paint a few skirmishers to test out my painting scheme for these figures. I’m following what I’ll call the “Spanish School” of figure painting promoted by the likes of “El Mercenario” Javier Gomez and Rafa “Archiduque” among others. Basically, black prime and shadow/base/highlight using primarily Vallejo colors. I bought the “Painting War” magazine issue for the French Napoleonic army and have been happy with the results so far. I’ve tended in the past to have very subtle shading and then wash it all out with overall washed of Army Painter Strong Tone/Citadel Agrax Earthhade. This works fine for eras like WWII where people are trying hard to not be seen but it ends up with subdued colors for more flashy periods like the Napoleonic wars. The recipes in “Painting War” gave me a brighter overall color scheme that might not be as realistic but will show up on the tabletop a lot better without using garish color schemes. So, I’m happy with this. Picture soon-ish I hope.

Note: Javer Gomez’s book “Painting Wargaming Figures”. has very similar paint recipes and is readily available in the US and UK. It’s a great starting point for gamers looking to get historically plausible paint schemes for their models.

Right now I’m aiming more at 1812-1814 so I’ll be doing way more of the FN100 boxes in the future, which should cut down on both assembly and painting time (greatcoats FTW).

Gaming

I continue to play games on Monday evenings with one of the local gaming groups in town. I’ve played a variety of games including French & Indian War, fantasy, Napoleonics and ulta-moderns. I get to 1-2 games a month right now which works with both my work and family schedules.

That’s all for now, It’s been a long winter here in MN and I am looking forward to spring. Hope all is well with everyone, and I’ll try to post again soon.

December Update

Greetings everyone. November turned out to be a very busy month work-wise and family-wise so I didn’t post anything and didn’t play and games until the end of the month.

From a hobby perspective, the main thing I completed this month was getting the final section of WWII late-war British infantry completed along with some supporting weapons teams and command. Here’s a picture of what I got done. They don’t look fabulous up close but they look pretty good at tabletop distance and they are completed.

The only things left to complete for this army are the heavy weapons teams and a troop of Cromwell tanks. I’ve started prepping the heavy weapons crews. I have two 3″ mortar teams, two Vickers MG teams and a 6-pdr AT Gun team to do, These figures are all metal while the previous figures for this force were all hard plastic. Having mostly worked with plastic figures over the last 50 years or so, I would like to say that assembling multi-part metal models seems harder and less fun that it was 20 years ago. Assembling the Warlord 6-pdr AT gun has not brought joy. I hope to have everything done & dusted by the end of the year. We’ll see.

The other main update is that I actually played a game in the last week. The “M4” gamers meet Monday evenings at a local game store, putting on a variety of games in a variety of scales. This group appeals to me for a few reasons: first, they meet on Mondays. I’m generally doing family stuff or up at my cabin on the weekends so gaming on weeknights generally works better for my schedule. Second, the games move fast… usually done in two hours. That means simpler rules, especially since there are often 8 or more players, but that’s not a bad thing. Many historical gamers chase detailed rules in the name of getting a more historically-accurate game, but simple, fast-moving rules are appealing too. I’ve followed them for a while but finally dragged my butt out of the house and went up to see a game.

Last week’s game was 28mm Napoleonics, using a one-page set of rules based on Neil Thomas’ “One Hour Wargames.” We had 10 players and it was the first time all of us had seen or used the rules. The scenario was loosely based on the battle of Borodino, focusing on the action near the village of Borodino rather than the Great Redoubt or the Fleches.

Here’s an overview of the battlefield. French and Allied Forces on the left, Russians on the right. Pseudo-Borodino is the distance and a stream runs across the entire battlefield. In the foregound on the left are a reinforced brigade of Austrians who started the battle inactive and, considering their historical aversion to actually fighting in 1812, activating them would require rolling a 2 or less on d6. There were several other brigades on both sides that started off inactive and you had to roll to get them involved in the game. Mostly cavalry reserves and a brigade of the French Guard.

Infantry were in battalions of 12 models, and each player was commanding a small division more or less with two brigades of infantry and an attached battery or two (or more on the Russian side). I commanded a division of French, Swiss and Saxon infantry next to the Austrians and my task was to attempt to force a crossing of the stream and mess up the Russian division in front of me.

As you can see in the picture below, I managed to get my leading brigade across the stream, taking a decent number of casualties in the process. The lead regiment of Swiss infantry took most of the damage coming in but between them and a supporting battery of artillery I mangled the lead Russian brigade pretty well. If the game had continued on I had more reserves than my Russian counterpart and probably could have pushed him back. Since the game ran two hours and then we were done, this is the high-water point of my assault.

It was a fun time and I’m glad I went. The rules are very basic but did a good job of capturing the essence of Napoleonic combat. As units accumulate more hits, you have to roll morale and depending on the delta between your morale target number and what you rolled, units would either continue moving forward, halt and not be able to move next turn (i.e. your assault faltering but not yet failing), you might be pushed back 3 or 6 inches, or the unit just routs off the table. Combat is attrition-based. You take hits and there’s no mechanism to get rid of them so you need reserves to press forward as your front unit accumulate damage over time.

There’s a few tweaks or additions I would like to try, but the rules as written did their job. They kept 10 gamers entertained and we managed to get 6 or more turns done in two hours with all those models on the table. It was a good-looking and fast-moving game, which is what I’m after these days.

I’ve ordered the various book on wargaming written by Neil Thomas and look forward to reading them over the holiday break. It’s always good to get new perspectives and ideas on the hobby. Also, I plan on trying to be a regular attendee of the M4 games going forward.

Thanks for reading!

Clearing the Backlog – Part II

Hello everyone. Another month passes quickly. I have been busy since the last post, so here’s a quick update. No pics in this post but soon, hopefully. I need to re-learn how to take decent pictures of my models.

My main focus painting-wise continues to be clearing my painting desk of as many half-completed projects as possible. I am trying to keep the tally of completed figures updated in the ‘On the Painting Table’ widget on the blog main page.

After getting the tanks and Bren carrier completed for my late-war Bolt Action British, I started working on the infantry. I bought the new-ish late war starter army earlier this year which is roughly a platoon of infantry along with some supports. I assembled all of the plastic infantry and in the last month have completed two squads for a total of 20 models. I was able to crank out each section in roughly a week, fitting in painting time around meetings and doing some work at night. Maybe 8-10 hours per squad in total.

After two squads were completed I needed a palate-cleanser of a sort and decided to build and paint 15 Age of Sigmar Ironjawz Brutes. I bought an Ironjawz army shortly after they were released in 2016 and got the entire army assembled and painted except for these Brutes, which basically left me with an unplayable force. I have friends that play AoS so I decided getting these 15 models done would be a quick way to complete an army and have something I can run on the table. “Quick” is turning out to be a relative thing. The GW models are significantly larger than the Warlord models and even with my not using the optivisor and taking as many shortcuts as I could, these models are still taking time. They are more or less completed other than finishing up the basing work and sealing. FWIW I used the “SlapChop” (i.e zenithal pre-shading and then using contrast or similar paints to quickly basecoat models) method to get them started and then put some highlights on to make the models pop a bit more. They look great, but I forget how much time it takes to paint GW models. They are beautiful figures, but so loaded up with details and bits that it takes a long time to do even a basic paint job covering all of them,

As an aside, there’s been some social media drama over the whole SlapChop thing that I frankly don’t understand. The main methods have been known for a very long time, but if this hashtag-y trend gets more gamers painting models and reducing the amount of grey plastic on the game table, I’m all for it.

Anyway, once the IronJawz are done I’m switching back to finish off the Bolt Action army. I have one section of 10 models left along with platoon command, a mortar team and a PIAT team to complete. I have some metal support units that will need to get started ( higher level command, two 3″ mortar teams and two Vickers MG teams) and eventually a trio of Cromwell tanks. I won’t need three Cromwells for Bolt Action games but I like the tanks and will get them painted up eventually.

That’s all for now, I hope to post some pictures of the finished infantry soon,

Clearing the Backlog

Like many other minatures gamers, I suffer from the curse of finding way too many projects interesting and pivoting from one project to the next and ending up with a half-dozen unfinished projects and nothing ready to play games with. In the intervening time since I was last updating this blog on a regular basis I kept on buying miniatures and even occasionally painting some. Right now, though, my painting table is clogged with a bunch of stuff that’s half-completed and that has to be cleared up before I launch into something new.

A quick spoiler for the future – I’ve been purchasing rules sets and starting to acquire models for my long-dreamed-of but never started 28mm Napoleonics project. As much as I want to start working on them, they will have to wait.

My current focus is on my Bolt Action British force. In the last week I’ve managed to get a 10-man infantry section 95% completed, mostly while being logged into one of the many remote meetings I have on my daily work schedule. Ones where you have to attend but you’re mostly listening and don’t have much to contribute. The joys of remote work. One of the things I’m working on is getting a faster yet good-looking paint job on my models. For this batch of infantry, I left my jewelers’ visor downstairs and just focused on painting what I could see with a good light and my normal glasses. By utilizing better brush control and using washes tactically versus sloshing it everywhere like I used to, I managed to get a paint job I’m happy with in 5-6 hours of work for the section. I’ll post pics in a future post once the bases and final touchups are done.

I like painting and am pretty good at it. With the advent of YouTube and the proliferation of YouTubers that paint professionally to a very high level of detail and quality, I (like many others) have watched these videos and tried to emulate the processes shown in the tutorials that are out there. One one hand, they have helped me get better as a painted. On the other hand, I spent many more hours than I should have on rank & file models trying to build bright colors up from a black primer base, doing multiple layers of edge highlighting, blending smooth transitions, etc. The resultant models look great, but took forever to produce. The details pop out and look good in up-close photos you might post on a blog or your Twitter/Instagram feed. However, with my normal eyesight, I can’t see any of it when those models are on the game table, so why am I spending all that time on them? If I was building a skirmish force for a game like Infinity or Kill Team, I could see doing that still. Those armies have small model counts, and each figure is unique and has a different role to play in the game. When you’re looking at large model count games like 40K (I play Orks) or big-battle Napoleonics, trying to produce that level of detail across the board is folly in my opinion.

With that in mind, I keep reminding myself I’m not painting for the Internet. I’m not a social media influencer, I’m not trying to make a living or even a side hustle (I hate that term BTW) by monetizing a YouTube channel or running a Patreon site. If the models look good to me at three feet distance, that’s going to be good enough in most cases.

With that in mind, I’m going to try and crank out the rest of the Bolt Action Brits in short order. I’ll probably need to order more infantry and another support vehicle or two to get to the normal force sizes (1250 seems common?). But I can get a full platoon of infantry with supports and my motorpoll done relatively fast and start playing some games this fall.

After that, I have some random 40K Ork and AoS Ironjaws models I need to finish. I’m 15 Brutes away from having a starter Ironjawz army done, and I have some Ork walkers and some stormboyz to finish up.

In between that I have more Battletech minis to paint up. I’m not going for a complex paint scheme (Lyran Donegal Guards FTW) with them so they will be pretty quick to complete.

I also have an Orcs & Goblins 3d-printed army for Warmaster that needs to get moving, Lots of models, but at that size and scale, I’m going for a more impressionistic look versus trying to paint all the details well. I’ve seen some painters online post amazingly detailed units out at this scale. That won’t be me.

Once the Bolt Action and 40K/AoS stuff is completed, then it’ll be time for the next big project to get started. There are a couple of candidates out there. I did pick up the new Horus Heresy started box as a number of friends locally seem into it. There’s also Napoleonics on the horizon, too.

28mm WWII British Motorpool

Earlier this year I bought a Late War British starter army from Warlord Games for Bolt Action at one of the local game stores. There’s a large Bolt Action community here in the Twin Cities and 28mm is about the only scale I haven’t built for WWII over the years. I decided to model my force around elements of the Guards Armoured Division in 1944… sometime between Operation Goodwood and Market Garden. I chose the Welsh Guards for my infantry force as an homage to my only ancestors who came from the British Isles.

The starter army box comes with a Churchill and a Universal/Bren carrier. In addition, I acquired a Sherman V and a few Cromwells from a friend of mine in a recent trade. Researching TO&Es online, the Sherman can belong to any of the battalions of the 5th Guards Armoured Brigade… I chose the Irish Guards for no particular reason other than to use the blue decal markings. The Cromwells will belong to the 2nd Welsh Guards armoured reconnaissance battalions. The Churchill is the odd man out, since none of the units in that division were equipped with them from what I could find online. I decided to make it part of the 6th Guards Tank Brigade, which fought in Normandy and were equipped with these vehicles. Thankfully the unit logo was in the decal packs!

Here’s the Sherman V. The weathering looks a little dodgy up close like this but it looks fine at three feet distance on the tabletop and that’s really what I’m aiming for these days.

Next, the Churchill, modeled with the 75mm gun:

Churchill Mk VII

I decided to model this one with an open hatch and a commander stoically directing fire.

Finally, the Bren Carrier complete with a few troopers lounging in the back:

For all the models, I started with a black undercoat and then used a common paint scheme for late ware British armor – Vallejo Bronze Green highlighted with Vallejo Russian Uniform. Gloss varnished to lay down decals and pin washing with Vallejo’s black panel liner. Highlighted with Russian Uniform mixed with Deck Tan to lighten it a bit. Tracks were Vallejo Flat Brown drybrushed with Vallejo oily steel and then given a thick coat of Citadel Aggaros Dunes as a thicker version of Agrax Earthshade. Weathering was done using Vallejo’s acrylic products including Raintreaks, Streaking Grime, and a mud & grass combo that was liberally used on the tracks and lower chassis. The rain streaks came out thicker than I would have liked. Lesson learned and I’ll use a smaller brush in the future.

I knocked out these three models in roughly a week and am pleased with how they turned out. Next up are the infantry, which I’ll be working on one section at a time. I hope to have the main force painted and ready for playing no later than the end of October. We’ll see how it goes.