A Little Bit of Armoured Support for the Soviets.

This is my first attempt at building and painting some armour for my Bolt Action Soviet army; a T34 with 76mm gun from Warlord Miniatures. When you've never done one of these before, it's quite a daunting prospect, especially when you look on-line and see what wonderful examples there are out there done by people who seem to know every nook and cranny of these mechanical monsters.

The Warlord kit comes with all sorts of options for different versions of the T34, so your first decision is to choose which part of the war you want your tank to fit into.

Once that decision has been sorted out, you then need to make sure that you choose the rights bits from the sprues to fit the model you want to make!

Building the kit took a lot longer than it probably should have done but I was extra careful about making sure that everything was in the right place. At one point, I removed the tracks because I was convinced that I had glued them too high on the model.

As this was my first attempt, I decided that I would keep the model as simple as possible and refrain from adding bits of stowage or other additional baggage. Now the job is done, I sort of think I ought to have been a bit more adventurous and added more, but I did have a go at using a washing technique that I hadn't attempted before. While I was browsing the internet for help with building the model, I came across a company called Flory Models, who produce a range of washes which are water based but have their colour provided by the addition of clay rather than ink.

The weathering washes cost £5.99 a pot, so they aren't cheap, especially when you are only planning to build a single model. Flory do some very useful video clips showing how to use the washes, which was really helpful, as the process involves applying the mixture and then wiping the excess back off again, after it has dried, to reveal the highlighting that you have done underneath! I like the Dark Dirt, as it provides a really subtle layer of weathering, but I think I still need to work on the Rust, which is much more dramatic in its effect.

Warlord provide a set of decals with the model, consisting of red and white numbers of various sizes, red stars and some patriotic slogans... I let my son choose from the three slogans available and, of course, he went for the one which says "Kill the Fascists!" 

The decal set also includes some formation insignia, but the one I wanted, the 9th Tank Corps, is not available. I might yet have a go at painting my own if I can find a space somewhere on the bodywork to apply it. The decals are fiddly, of course, but go on fine with the use of a little Micro Sol and a lot of patience.

So, as my T34 drives boldly off to the front, I am now planning to build the BA 64 armoured car that Santa brought for me on Christmas Day. Hopefully, the experience of experimenting with those Flory washes will reap its reward on this next model to join my Soviet army.

A Soviet Sniper Team.

Apparently, somewhere near half a million men and women were trained as snipers by the Red Army during World War Two. One of them has arrived to give a little specialized marksmanship to my little Soviet Bolt Action force.

Somewhere around two and a half thousand Russian women served as snipers on the Eastern Front during the Second World War and I would have liked to portray my sniper as one of those female heroes of the Soviet Union but, as I built my team from the standard infantry sprue, I have had to field my sniper as a Vasily Zaytsev rather than a Lyudmila Pavlichenko.

The sniper is armed with a Mosin-Nagant M91 rifle, fitted with telescopic sights.

The sniper's assistant is armed with a Tokarev pistol and a PPSh submachine gun to lay down some covering fire if the pair get too close to the enemy!

I decided to put the sniper on one of the large oval bases intended for the prone firing figures, so that I could give him some kind of cover to conceal himself behind. I initially thought about putting him behind some large barrels, but the ones I have were too big to fit on the base with the figure as well. Sat at the back of my painting shelf in the garage, is an old tin full of stones from our local pet shop and intended to be used in an aquarium and they offered an opportunity to try my hand at a bit of dry stone walling!

I toyed with the idea of putting both figures on the prone figure base, but decided against it as the whole vignette would have looked too crowded. This figure has a German helmet fastened to his waist belt; I can't decide whether this is just a souvenir taken from one of the sniper's victims, or a useful bit of kit used to make approaching the enemy a little less risky. Damn sneaky these Ruskies!

Covering the main man's back... armed with multiple weapons and a keen pair of eyes, the sniper's number two performs an essential role in the job of picking off those German officers and other key personnel... including those enemy snipers!

An Ancient Beast Stirs in the Heart of Cumbria!

Oh Victrix! Why dost thou tempt me so?

Well, I just can not believe this!

Gaius Julius Civilis and his wailing ladies.

My absolute favourite army of all time is definitely the Germanic army of the Batavian Revolt against the Roman Empire in 69A.D. If you have followed this Blog for a while, you might remember a cluster posts a couple of years ago when I was excitedly cobbling together figures for Julius Civilis' army, mainly, Warlord Games and Wargames Factory, with a few Black Tree Design thrown in for good measure. I loved (and still do) the Black Tree figures but the Wargames Factory offerings were little more than shapeless blobs of plastic and I got more than slightly miffed, when I discovered that the Warlord Games 'Warriors of Germania' set was just a re-hashing of previously released sets of Celtic warriors. There were a number of issues with the Warlord Games set, not least that it included a number of metal bare chested torsos, which made the figures top heavy when attached to the plastic legs!

Although I tried my best to love my Batavian rebel army, the figures just weren't good enough to do justice to what is a brilliant army to build. You have the wild and woolly Germanic types, always a treat to paint, backed up by cohorts of Roman Auxiliary infantry and cavalry and, as if all this were not enough, there were two Roman legions involved in the rebellion as well, albeit somewhat reluctantly. Even a butterfly painter like me couldn't get bored putting this army together.

Sadly, the project ground to a halt and I reluctantly moved onto pastures new... until now that is! It appears that those tempting Johnnies at Victrix Miniatures are planning to turn their digital designing wonderfulness upon some ferocious Germanic warriors. If previous Victrix offerings are anything to go by, then they will be top dollar and will certainly knock the Warlord Germanised Celts and the Wargames Factory blobs into an embarrassing cocked hat.

The very best head on offer in the Wargames Factory German Cavalry set.

The digitally designed heads for the upcoming Victrix Germanic Warrior set... and these are just the ones from the Command sprue!

Suddenly, I'm all of a tingle again at the prospect of building a Batavian Revolt army, but this time with figures that are truly worthy of those magnificent men of Germania Inferior.

My only request of Victrix Miniatures is that they hang on long enough for me to finish my Bolt Action Soviets before putting them up for sale.

Bolt Action... Цель достигнута

After I finished my first Soviet LMG squad for Bolt Action, I set myself the target of completing a second LMG squad and an SMG squad (that's a grand total of 30 PBIs!) before I started messing about with other peripheral stuff like officers, artillery, tanks and the like. The theory being, that once I started modelling the supporting cast, I would struggle to get back to the bread and butter, nuts and bolts, hard core of the army.

Well, apart from one small lapse, when I just couldn't resist building and painting a two man crew for an anti-tank rifle, the target has been achieved! On the afternoon of Saturday 24th November 2018, the 30th Soviet infantryman rolled off the painting table and three squads were complete. Less than three months passed from first starting them to the last brush stroke, and, considering that only one week of that was holiday, that is probably the greatest number of figures painted while going out to work every day! Two squads needed basing and that was done over the rest of the weekend.

One strategy employed in achieving the target was to leave the tank and the other supporting troops wrapped up in the boxes that Warlord posted them in when they were ordered! Out of sight, out of mind seems to work!

For the past couple of months, I've done really well to keep focussed on building and painting troops for my Soviet platoon, even though Warlord almost managed to drop a massive spanner in the works by announcing the release date for their 'Cruel Seas' naval game, just as I was coming to the end to painting my SMG squad.

I spent way too much time watching John Stallard on UTube and browsing pictures of coastal forces hardware, but the fact that there was nothing that I could actually buy and paint kept the brushes dipped in Russian Uniform Green. A good job, as it turns out, that the Cruel Seas release date was December rather than November.

Hopefully, things ought to get a little less stressful now and I can concentrate on the smaller, more enjoyable, tasks of building and painting the supporting cast. The Lieutenant and his side-kick are already on the bench and I'm experimenting with ideas for something a bit unusual for the sniper team.

And here's a sneak preview of the lieutenant, struggling to get his map orientated properly, and his mate, who appears to have strong views about which way is west!

Too Many Projects... Not Enough Discipline!

There is an old Russian proverb which says that if you chase two rabbits at once you will catch neither! In my case, this roughly translates as; when you have three completely different painting projects currently arrayed upon the painting bench, you might as well take up stamp collecting instead.

Carthaginians for Swordpoint, Soviets for Bolt Action and Samurai for Test of Honour! A somewhat eclectic selection, but they all have their own fascinations that seem to endlessly lead to one of them rising to the surface, while the other two slip below into the shallows, only to rise again a few day later!

A few weeks ago, I was steaming along painting troops for my Carthaginian Swordpoint army, and just embarking on a thirty-two figure unit of Hannibal's Celtic allies from Victrix Miniatures, with a few of the slightly odd Warlord types thrown in. On the eve of The Other Partizan, I had completed just one base of Celts... At Partizan, I encountered a group of players from a local club, that I didn't know existed, playing a Bolt Action demo game and suddenly there was the motivation to crack on with the box of Soviet infantry I'd bought without having any real plan in mind.

So, is it possible to keep chasing the rabbits and get anywhere? Well, probably not, but as things are, I don't see any alternative.

The Victrix Celtic infantry are absolutely gorgeous and suspending painting to keep up the pace with my Bolt Action Soviets has been a real challenge. As an added bonus, they fit quite nicely along side Warlord's contorted Gallic counterparts. I used Warlord's Celts in their re-branded Germanic Warriors set and a whole unit of them looks pretty peculiar, as most of them are either bent double lunging forward or, squatting in a pose that looks like they are desperately trying to relieve themselves from a bout of severe trapped wind. However, a few of them, scattered in amongst the much more majestic looking Victrix figures, adds a nice touch of height variety and gives a unit a much more dynamic look.

I was just getting the hang of painting stripes and checks with this command stand and was looking forward to developing the technique as the unit progressed. Of course, the LBMS shield transfers are exquisite and really inspire you to do the best painting job you can.

So far, I think I'm managing to focus on one rabbit and have two Soviet squads simultaneously taking centre stage on the painting table, however, I keep looking at the Victrix Celts and the small size of the force you need to play Test of Honour is proving to be a temptation that might just see me veering off after a different bunny!

Banzuiin Chobei

I'm still not exactly sure how I ended up downloading a PDF copy of Test of Honour; I think it was the lure of only having to paint a dozen figures or so to have enough to play a game! Oddly enough, I have several boxes of Wargames Factory samurai tucked away at the back of my cupboard under the painting bench. I bought them with a miniscule bid on e-bay years ago and put them in the cupboard because I couldn't figure out how to put them together! Now that Warlord have taken on the Samurai mantle, you get a sort of instruction sheet which shows how to construct them and I managed to, not only build an Ashigaru spearman, but also paint it in something resembling the proper colours. The rules suggest that your main Samurai figure should be your persona on the tabletop, so I decided to buy the Chobei's Renegades set as Chobei seems to be the character who, physically, most closely resembles yours truly.

The Soviet PTRD-41 Anti-Tank Rifle.

Bows and Arrows Against the Lightning!

The PTRD-41 was a single shot anti-tank rifle used in large numbers by the Red Army throughout the Second World War. It lacked the capability of weapons such as the American Bazooka or the German Panzerschreck, firing a 14.5mm cartridge, which was incapable of penetrating the frontal armour of any of the German medium tanks. At ranges of less than 100 metres, it could penetrate armour plate with a thickness of around 35mm.

In Bolt Action terms, the PTRD-41 has a Penetration Bonus of +2, which compares to the +5 for the Bazooka and the +6 for the Panzerschreck. So, in game terms, it's a pretty feeble weapon, particularly if you are the poor soul lying there waiting to squeeze the trigger and a Nazi Tiger is heading straight in your direction.

Ivan... there's a Tiger heading straight for us!

Why then should you bother to spend the time and effort painting up the two figures you need to make a piece of kit which has the odds seemingly stacked against it?

Caught in the glare of an illuminating flare...

Firstly, I suppose, because Comrade Stalin had about half a million of the things built and delivered to his forces the length and breadth of the Eastern Front. If Uncle Joe says they are good enough to use against the Fascist Hordes, then who am I to argue?

Staring down the barrel of a tin opener.

Secondly, and more importantly, what does it matter if they don't quite fit into the 'my tank is bigger than your tank' arms race that Bolt Action has the potential to become? The PTRD is a quirky and off the wall sort of weapon and fits perfectly into the weird and wonderful world of the Soviet army. The PTRD is the weapon of the underdog, the weapon that might just pull off the improbable and make Soviet heroes of it's two man team; assuming that they are not squished under the tracks of that rampaging Panzer IV.

Aerial view of the No.2. Performing the vital pointing function and showing off his looted German accessories.

Thirdly, building and painting the PTRD-41 team is great fun. It's unlike anything else that you get in a box of Bolt Action troops. It reminds me of that fowling piece that they have on display in the Royal Armouries in Leeds...

If the PTRD isn't going to halt a Panzer IV in its tracks, then it might, at least, bag a brace of ducks and give its team a hearty meal before they sacrifice themselves for the greater good of the Communist cause.

The PTRD Stats in Bolt Action... with 6 on the die, against the side armour and with the wind blowing in right direction, who knows!

A Hero of the Soviet Union.

The Pendulum Swings...

Bolt Action Back on the Painting Table!

Having begun to make some considerable progress with my Swordpoint Carthaginians over the balmy days of Summer, the time came to make the annual pilgrimage to the Newark Showground, to wander gobsmacked round the hallowed halls of the Other Partizan. When I looked through the contents of the programme, I noticed a demonstration game being put on by a wargaming club from my home town; this was a different club to the one that was aware of and their demonstration game was an Allies v Germans Bolt Action scenario... Although I was delighted to find a very active club based just a few miles from home, I began to get a feeling that my current target of 32 wild Gauls for my Carthaginian host might just be about to get side-lined!

As you can see, once again, enthusiasm for a game at a show got the better of me and I was sucked in to that old Bolt Action Attraction that I first experienced watching a demo game on Beasts of War and, since returning home from Partizan, I've been consumed by Joseph Stalin and his Communist ideology! 

I'd already painted the squad leader in the picture above and, apart from the fact that I'd armed him with a Mosin-Nagant M91 instead of a nice juicy sub-machine gun, I decided that I might as well use him as the starting point for a reinforced Soviet infantry platoon that I could take along to the club sometime fairly soon. 

There is much about the Soviets that really appeals to me, both as a painter and a gamer, not least the fact that their method of warfare and leadership dovetails very nicely with my own complete lack of tactical battlefield skill. Charging headlong into a storm of lead and hoping for the best is exactly what is written in my little red book of table top tactics.

From a painting point of view, the Soviets have proved very entertaining, in as much that all the information I have managed to acquire about uniform colours, suggests that 'uniform' is probably not the right word to use. It appears that the factories that produced uniforms were never given a proper brief as to what exact shade  the uniforms they were making should be and, as a consequence, they arrived with combat units in a multitude of assorted colours. Coupled with the fact that the materials, dyes and mordents used were all very poor quality, which lead to a rapid fading process, means that I get to paint individual figures in a medley of relatively miscellaneous colours! I have stuck to the colours which are mentioned in the painting guides that I have assembled and conformed to some degree of uniformity by only using Vallejo 894 (Cammo Olive Green) for helmets.

The one downside that I have discovered so far in choosing a Soviet force to build, is that there is a relatively large number of infantry to paint. In fact, the Bolt Action army lists are so keen on making you paint more figures than anybody else, that they even give a you a free 11 man squad of riflemen. Being one of the World's slowest painters is a decided disadvantage in this respect.

All in all, however, I have to say that I have definitely been bitten by the Soviet bug. Comrade Stalin and I will get on very well I think (until the next purge at any rate) and it's nice to find an army whose ideology and methodology you feel totally comfortable with. I'm not sure that I'll be setting up my Maxim medium machine gun directly behind the witless dullards, that I've sent scurrying haplessly towards the Fascist battle line, ready to gun down any shirkers who think it's acceptable to turn back and not give their lives for Mother Russia, but, I shall be singing "The Internationale" and waving the Red Flag as my boys hurl their Molotov Cocktails bravely into the advancing Panzer's jaws of death... on second thoughts, I might have to scour the rules to see what pluses I can get if they drink the stuff instead.