28mm U.S. Infantry (Late War).

And once again, a few more pictures of the lost and forgotten...

This time 28mm Artizan Designs U.S. Infantry.

The whole platoon:












The Platoon Command:















Rifle Squad:










.30 Cal MMG Team:
















Bazooka Team:















Not pictured are enough extra BARs to make an Armored Infantry Platoon. I realized after finishing the platoon that the helmet straps should be brown leather instead of khaki. Some day I might get to that. Yeah.

28mm Waffen SS platoon (Mid War).

Continuing with my forgotten Photobucket images theme: 28mm Waffen SS, also from Battle Honors. I love these figures, they are some of Battle Honors best. I still think they have one of the most extensive and well rounded WWII lines out there. Who else makes Dragons Portes, Chasseurs Alpins, Italian Alpini, and Early War Soviets in such variety?

Here is the whole platoon kitted out for the Eastern Front from the end of Barbarossa until Stalingrad. I did them in fall pattern smocks and with a dead grass look for the Autumn.











Platoon Command:




















The models are actually a mix of Battle Honors SS and Early War Germans in tunics. Some of them I did head swaps to give the guys in tunics helmet covers.

Rifle Squad:












Pak 36 37mm AT Gun. These guys were converted from Heavy Machine Gun crew and officers:


















The same crew serving a Pak 38 50mm AT Gun:
















The same crew can be used for the 75mm IG I have as well.

And an Sdkfz 10 to tow them (Army Group North Miniatures):

















Transports (Army Group North Miniatures and JTFM)

Opel Blitz (I have 4):














Sdkfz 251 C halftracks:













No SS unit is complete without some tanks to back them up. Panzer III early with 37mm Guns (Army Group North):


















And a Panzer IV D (Army Group North):
















Might as well throw in a Stug III D (Army Group North):

















There is a 75mm IG to go with this platoon, as well as an AT rifle team, 5cm Mortar, 8cm Mortar, and an HMG but I don't have pics of those. Some of the pics have turned the Panzer Gray color on the tanks to a strange hue. I edited these a long time ago on some wonky software that came with the camera.

Hope you enjoy!

28mm French DLM Motorcycle Recon Platoon (France 1940).

From the files of forgotten Photobucket images: pics of my 28mm Battle Honors French Dragons Portes. These guys can be used as Dragons Portes from a Divisions Légères de Cavalerie (DLC) or Divisions Légères Mécaniques (DLM). They can be part of the Dragons Portes Regiment or from one of the motorcycle recon units. I wish someone made French motorcycles and side cars to go with them. I have to finish some extra LMGs for the squads though. Hope you enjoy! I will also be posting pictures of the French armor I have to go with them.

The whole platoon:










The Platoon Command:
















One of the squads:











Hotchkiss Heavy Machine Gun:



















Viv La France!

Battered Bastards of Bastogne.

This is the season for random projects it seems. Last week it was a squad of North Vietnamese and an Ork Warboss, now it is back to WWII with a squad of U.S. Airborne during the Battle of the Bulge.

This squad is painted to depict members of the 101st Airborne during the fighting for Bastogne. I mixed Artizan Designs 28mm U.S. Airborne and their U.S. infantry in great coats together to get a more varied mix of uniforms. The uniforms and equipment are similar enough to work. The great coat models have the late war high boot which when left dark leather brown looks like paratrooper jump boots (close enough for me anyway). Plus, by the time of winter '44, the Airborne units were often wearing a mix of their older jump uniforms and newer Army issue stuff anyway, including the new high boots. To make the models in jump uniforms look like they were fighting in the cold, I gave some of them gloves.

This is the first squad of the platoon. I plan to do the rest of the platoon soon.

Enjoy!

M1919A6 .30 cal MG Team.



















Rifle Team.

Ork Warboss.

Well, after a hiatus of something like a decade...some friends of mine convinced me to play Warhammer 40,000 again. I have always loved the Orks (as one of my first wargaming armies ever when I was a kid), and since I somehow managed to hold onto a box of assorted Ork parts that allowed me to cobble together around 20 Ork models I figured why not? My friend Jeff and I split the Black Reach boxed set which gave me a Warboss, some boys, and Nobs to go with the rest. Oh, and some Orky choppers, which I think look dumb as hell. I don't care how "shooty" they are in the game, they just look silly to me, so I won't be using them. My boys will keep their feet on the ground thankyouverymuch.

So far, it is a small force (for Orks), but a good start. This past few snow days gave me time to prime the Warboss and paint him. This is the first time in 10 years I have spent 1. This much money on a single model, 2. This much time painting one, and 3. Painted anything other than various shades of khaki and army green or field green and camo. I like the change of pace.

I chose the Deathskull Clan as the theme for this (eventual) army. I always played a combination of Deathskulls and Snakebites when I played Orks. I loved the looting and superstitious aspects of the Deathskulls and the savage and Native appeal of the Snakebites.

As a side note: the rules for Warhammer 40,000 still suck after all these years. And I mean boy do they suck (sorry Jeff). Talk about a system full of ridiculously overcomplicated and open for powergaming rules. So I decided to finish up my Disposable Heroes Warhammer 40,000 conversion. This is PURELY a personal side project and nothing from this will ever see the light of day beyond my own game table. So don't ask unless you want to pay the legal fees of taking on the Games Workshop lawyer's team. I should have the rules done and ready for the table by the time I get a few of these Ork mobs done...perhaps in another decade?

Anyway, here is the result. My Ork Deathskull Warboss. Hope you enjoy.

(should I yell WAAAGH!? isn't that what GW fans do these days?).



Here are some detail shots. Just for Jeff, I painted the Space Marine trophy helmet and shoulder pad as Dark Angels. You are welcome.



And one last shot of the face with warpaint.



















(tongue planted firmly in cheek).

Man, I thought I would never play this stupid game again...as a historical gamer (much higher on the geek totem pole you see), I feel kind of dirty. It's kind of hard to take all of this fantasy/sci-fi made up stuff seriously after you spend so much time gaming real conflicts. Well, it's kind of hard to take gaming itself seriously most of the time, seeing as how it is just a fun hobby, but that's beside the point.

Historicals is serious business.

As a Warhammer 40,000 aside. I get a kick out of the descriptions of the Imperium and the Imperial Guard where they describe what must be, to Games Workshop, the "Epic universe of Warhammer 40,000."

With descriptions such as "Imperial Guard Regiments number in the thousands with hundred's of thousands of men each." I guess that is supposed to sound galaxy spanning epic. But I can't help but think..."a couple hundred thousand? That's it? Pfff, the Soviets had several million at Kursk alone, and that was a fraction of their total forces in the East."

To modify a quote by Stalin and apply it to the Warhammer 40,000 universe:

"The Emperor? How many divisions does he have?" -Stalin

People's Army of Vietnam.

I just finished a squad of 28mm PAVN for Vietnam. The miniatures are from Baker Company's 28mm Vietnam Range I picked up a few years back but never got around to. This was my first attempt at using a modification of the "Dip" technique and I think I finally arrived at a result I am happy with. The Dip never produced enough contrast for me before, and I never seemed to get the results other people were able to get. I tried the Minwax method on a test PAVN model and it came out ok, but I decided against the tone I had used (Tudor).

Instead, I found the best results by spray painting the miniatures flat Dark camo Brown from Krylon, followed by a light covering with their flat Khaki camo. After that I painted the uniforms with a lighter shade of the khaki uniform color I wanted to end up with, followed by the pouches and equipment in a lighter, but different tone of Khaki. After the skin and guns were blocked in with color I washed the whole thing with Games Workshop's new Sepia tone wash. When this was dry details and some highlights were done on certain spots and details were added such as the gun stock and hat badges etc. The whole thing was based and static grass was added. Overall, a fast job and a result I am happy with.

I am not 100% sold on the dip, but I like the way these came out and will complete the whole platoon this way with plans to pick up a platoon of Baker Company's U.S. Airborne so I can do some LZ X-Ray games. A similar technique will be used on those models as well.

Baker Company minis have some really nice character and the sculpts are clean cast with nice crisp detail. The only complaint I have is they are only available from the U.K. and the cost of exchange rate and postage kind of puts me off.

Edit: Ordered the U.S. platoon for my birthday and they should be here soon. Looking forward to getting them on the painting table. Also, I have been looking for a die cast 1:50 scale Huey or two (both Corgi and Forces of Valor make one), but have only found them for $50 and up. Might just have to bite the bullet. Can't do LZ X-Ray with nothing for the PAVN to shoot at...

I want to take some better pics of the whole lot when it is done.

Anyway, hope you like them!

My first 6mm scratch build: Russian House.

Since I started on a 6mm WWII project (rules included), I found that I did not like most of the commercially available terrain. Especially the price. I really like GHQ's metal cast buildings, but there isn't much variety and I don't like the price knowing I am going to be needing a lot of these.

So I figured I would try my hand at scratch building one. I picked up some styrene at the hobby shop and gave it a go.

Not too difficult if you keep it simple. The windows were a little fiddly, and the roof was tricky to figure out how to do thatch. But I learned a lot and I think I have a good process in mind for cranking some of these out. I need to start making templates for windows and doors and other common parts.

The house is mostly plastic sheet and strip styrene. The thatch is made from static grass mat (paper backed) glued down to the styrene roof. After you coat it with a thinned down layer of brown paint and hit it with a coat of brown primer it stiffens up and can be drybrushed easily.

I think it might be just a tad too large for the GHQ infantry. I do want to be able to place 1" bases in the buildings though...so these roofs lift off.

More to come. I plan to add more houses, barns, fences and all kinds of stuff.



Enjoy!