TINKERING WITH MY SOVIETS.

What on Earth do you do when you have spent months building, painting and basing an army and, suddenly, it’s all done?

(silence…)

It is a very strange feeling when you don’t have that objective there to work towards anymore. For ages, you’ve had a constant, on-going, set of little steps to achieve, that move your project forward; finish painting those four skirmishers, start building the last six warriors, think about how you’re going to get those four mounted warriors done when you haven’t painted any horses for years.

I have all the figures I need for a third Dux Britanniarum warband (the dastardly Saxons) and I’ve got all the components sat on a shelf to build a Chain of Command German platoon, but I’m not sure I want to embark on another big project so soon after finishing this one.

When I began rummaging around in my little garage paint shop, I started to find bits and bobs that had obviously been left behind at some point in the past and sparked enough of an interest to get them under the cutters and micro files.

Some old Fireforge archers and sergeants would paint up nicely as groups for a Baron’s War retinue. I actually started painting these archers during the final stages of completing my Irish Raiders, doing a bit of a mash up with figures from Fireforge, some Gripping Beast Dark Age Infantry and even some left over Irish bits…

Although Baron’s War retinues will be my next actual project, because you don’t need many figures and you can play the game on a nice small table, I really couldn’t resist going back to the Chain of Command rule book and having a look at what extra Support Options I could build from the smattering of figures left over in my Warlord Soviet Infantry box.

Although I’m absolutely morally opposed to the use of flamethrowers, having a team up your sleeve, just in case, seems like a really good idea!

In Chain of Command, flamethrower teams have a crew of three, with the other two crew members simply being there to soak up casualties and keep the weapon in play a bit longer. The flamethrower comrade is a metal figure from Warlord but his two colleagues are left overs from the box. Every weapons team needs someone pointing out a target, or the location of the nearest public toilets, but the Third Man proved to be a bit of a conundrum. In the end, as he has a very limited life expectancy, I decided to give him a packet of looted zigaretten… if he needs a light, he’s certainly in the right team.

Next onto the painting bench came a 5cm Mortar team. Just two men this time and, even by Chain of Command standards, not the most effective bit of kit you can have; they have no capacity to lay down a smoke screen and, being a Team, will only activate on a “1” or if a Senior Leader is close by.

For some reason omitted from the Support Options list is the Medic. I don’t know why this is, as it is an option in the Early War list that you can download from the Too Fat Lardies web site. Assuming that this is an accidental omission, I’ve painted one up ready for action… with only one Senior Leader, a Soviet platoon really needs someone who can keep that officer in the fray for as long as possible.

Finally, for now, I decided to add a new sniper team to my list of Support Options. I already have one but, when I saw the two lady team produced by Bad Squiddo Games, I thought that I really needed to broaden the diversity profile of my table top armed forces and so, we warmly welcome Ludmilla the Nemetski Killer to our happy little family.