WW2 panel fence (Nick)

Progress! ...after yesterday's rather dismal summary of the last 12 months, here is my first finish of 2024 - a (resin) wooden fence section from Warlord Games.

There are in fact eight of these sections altogether as I bought 2 packs of 4, however with the lack of finishes since March last year and no results of the big end of year push I wanted to show something for my efforts.

Painting was a fairly simple drybrushing affair over black prime with an old Citadel Foundation Paint: Charadon Granite, followed by Vallejo Game Colour: Beasty Brown, Miniature Paints: Earth Brown, and finally Army Painter: Skeleton Bone.
The base was then drybrushed two shades of craft shop grey before following up with my usual earth recipe.

I have also managed these sci-fi scatter terrain pieces, but won't class them as finished just yet as I want to base them with the other 6 I have to paint (mainly to protect the resin from damage) - so still not heaps of progress, but a little every day to start the new year:

Bolt Action - Fallschirmjäger (Nick)

I only finished the first of my Aussies just the other week, but with the 75th D-Day Anniversary fast approaching surprise, surprise yet another change of tack from me and one of those other projects that I mentioned was calling to me at the end of my last post!

Once again another miniature that has been waiting over two years to see completion, however on this occasion not even so much as primer had been applied just cleaned up and stuck on a base along with some buddies ready for the painting to start.

This is a project I started to join in with a Bolt Action campaign when a last minute Axis place became available, and I specifically needed something suitable for Normandy which I didn't have.
As time was of the essence and generally preferring metal miniatures when practical I plumped for the original Fallschirmjäger range from Warlord Games, wonderfully evocative sculpts as ever from the talented Paul Hicks.

The campaign (which never really got going) would have required my core troops to be regular rather than veteran Fallschirmjäger, however a quick chat with my good friend, and font of WW2 knowledge, Andy Singleton followed by some Googling and I would be portraying the Fallschirmjäger 3rd Division, in particular the newly formed 9th Regiment.

I struggled for quite some time deciding how best to paint this one (probably the main reason I stalled so long), in particular the Splittermuster B (splinter pattern) camo and the colours to use for this and all the equipment.

In the end I used a culmination of information found in articles by the afore mentioned Mr Singleton (link) (link) of Volley Fire Painting Services, Stuart McCorquodale (link) of Great Escape Games and the go-to Mick Farnworth (link) and his Artizan Designs painting guides.
I also found this excellent blog as my final inspiration to get started (using the same minis too), as well as the colours suggested in the relevant Vallejo paint collection from Warlord Games - always a good reference.

Many of the Vallejo colours I ended up using were in fact Model Air equivalents of Model Colour paints I didn't have, but applied with a brush.  However this isn't much of a problem as they work really well especially on small, intricate areas like the camo scheme where having the paint slightly thinned is an advantage anyway.
Basing was deliberately finished to match the 101st Airborne I completed in January.

Hopefully I can follow this up quickly with the other FJ's that are primed and ready to go, so that Carl and I can get some games in based around Hill 192 and St Lô in the historically authentic June and July period - then Operation Cobra maybe!

Bolt Action - Austalian Jungle Division (Nick)

Well it's been a while but finally the second actual miniature of the year is finished, with several stalled attempts/projects in the meantime - and while it may look like I'm still doing better than Carl he just hasn't managed to blog his progress yet and is actually miles ahead of me!

This time the first of my Australian Jungle Division for Papua New Guinea from Warlord Games and the chance to try a few new ideas.

This is another one that has been part painted for over 18 months, being just base coated with ultra quick pva/brown ballast basing for a new release display/demo at The Other Partizan back in August 2017 - thankfully the rather poor lighting in the darkest depths of the hall saved many blushes on the day!

The good news this time is that a load of his buddies are also in the same part painted state, so I could in theory have 500pts up and running in no time.

 

I followed what are commonly suggested colours for the uniform, especially the recommendations from Bryan Cook in the FREE Australian Bolt Action pdf (with him being a bit of a guru for all things Australian and WW2 related,  and an Antipodean himself) which is also at the core of the even more excellent Campaign: New Guinea supplement for which this range of figures was released.
Although I did substitute Vallejo Game Colour 64 Yellow Olive for the uniform as I didn't have any Model Colour 888 Olive Grey to hand at the time and they are near identical, and for some reason that escapes me the helmet started as Brown Violet rather than Russian Uniform but it 'all came good in the wash' as they say and we all know campaign uniforms aren't an exact science anyway.

This particular mini has been a bit of a personal battle for me as for some reason it just wouldn't go right, a mix of old and new techniques and impatience to get it finished being the culprits I think - in the end I had to keep walking away and coming back for another go until it took me a week of 20mins here and there to get a result I was happy with.

One of the biggest issues seems to be the areas of exposed skin, I think maybe the detail is a lot softer than the previous US Airborne figure and I had to do more work with the brush in this instance rather than the sculpt doing the work for me.

The basing was a chance to try out the Fine Base Render from Warlord Games/War World Scenics as it was something I obtained at a similar time as the figures were released and wanted a chance to compare against my usual Basetex from Colour Party - at the time I was also trying to keep everything Warlord for the demo force.

It worked pretty much as expected although seemed grittier and less compliant than my usual, however this could be down to storage and is easily overcome with a small amount of water.

Another product I've been waiting to try is Puddles by AK Interactive (which I picked up from the excellent PK-Pro at Tactica Hamburg, a superb show in Germany which I was fortunate to visit 2 years ago) and the often 'very' wet conditions of the New Guinea Jungle floor seemed an ideal opportunity although I didn't want to go too mad.
Before I dived in and applied it to my finished model I checked out a few clips on YouTube, especially the one from AK themselves: link definitely something I would recommend especially as it showed that although pre-coloured the finish is essentially clear unless you add extra colourisation of your own.

So all in all progress this year is somewhat pedestrian for me (nothing new there), and the bad news is that the last 2-3 weeks have seen me changing project more than half a dozen times before anything stuck just long enough to see its way onto and off the painting table as finished - even now with the next of these Aussies in progress other things are calling to me!
It seems I'm doomed to a life as the worst of hobby butterflies, there is no hope anymore... we'll just have to wait and see if any more beautiful butterflies emerge from this extended period of gestation and cogitation, but don't hold your breath.

Bolt Action - US Airborne (Nick)

So just 6 days into the New Year and I'm one down already, and while that's not a miniature-a-day it is two months sooner than I was able to show anything in 2018 so definitely a step in the right direction!

This is another one of those minis that's been 95% finished for over 2 years - just waiting for insignia, matt varnish and basing in this instance ...this one's been 'screaming' at me for ages, so really glad to finally see him complete :)

This is a test piece for my US Airborne force in Normandy, especially St. Mere Eglise and Carentan as a project some time in the future so is wearing the m1942 uniform and is one of the excellent metal range from Warlord Games - these are fantastic sculpts and the detail almost paints itself.

The base uniform colour is often the subject of much conjecture, probably not helped by the quality of the material and abusive battlefield conditions it was subjected to.  For my own taste, based on the information I could find I knew I wanted a green tinted, sandy colour and finding a base colour I was happy with proved elusive until I found the Russian Uniform spray from Plastic Soldier Company which proved just the ticket.

One of the reasons this particular miniature has been on hold for so long is my indecision between 101st 'Screaming Eagles' or 82nd 'All American' divisions and therefore the shoulder patch I would apply (I was also planning the Stars and Stripes patch for the right shoulder but recently discovered this almost certainly wasn't worn by the 101st in Normandy).

Both have their merits with the 82nd badges being more colourful against the green/grey and 'All American', but as I really wanted to use the characterful 'Mohawk' pathfinder models associated with the 101st and also have models for Dick Winters and Lt. Spiers not to mention the aforementioned battles of St. Mere Eglise and Carentan it really did sway the eventual choice of 101st Screaming Eagles even though the 82nd featured heavily at St. Mere Eglise (maybe I'll add some units of those too when it comes to recreating that particular battle?).

Overall I'm really happy with the result and can't wait for a chance to paint up some more... maybe for Warlord's own D-day 75th Anniversary campaign day in June?  Although I do have to question my own sanity for adding shading to the Screaming Eagle decal before sealing with matt varnish, but it just popped too much against the drab uniform and just didn't look part of it... much happier with it now, and maybe just a 'little' OCD?

Now onto the next minis to grab my attention... need to keep the momentum going, but also not loose sight of the new project I started putting together in November with the intention of gaming and expanding it throughout 2019.

Bolt Action - US winter (Nick)

Just a quick update for my Bolt Action US winter army, this time a 'spotter' to go with the M2A1 105mm Howitzer I did last year.

This guy is actually a crewman from the M1 57mm anti-tank gun by Warlord Games which I have yet to build, but as I have two of them for the AT Platoon I'm doing it will be good to mix them up a bit and so I 'borrowed' this one as he's just what I needed!

He has been sat prepped and primed on my workbench (along with half a veteran squad) since I finished the howitzer so it really is time I got some paint slapped on, hopefully the veterans might follow shortly but there are several other 'oddments' on the go as well.

Bolt Action - US winter (Nick)

Wow... over a year since the last update, doesn't time fly!! Still nothing from Carl, he's always busy and painting plenty for 'Open Combat' but unfortunately it never makes it here for us all to see - just too busy!

So it would seem I haven't finished anything to show in the last year - shameful I know and I can't quite believe it myself, I really must check my collections to make sure ...lots started and even 80-90% done. just not that final push to get them done and off the pile!

Anyway onto the goodies, even these are a month later than planned but I finally finished my first Bolt Action minis.

These are painted as reinforcements for the US winter army I bought from my good friend Gary Betts at the Britcon show last year.

....a third and final .30cal mmg, as US forces are allowed to take the option of three for a single force organisation slot:

...and the recently released M2A1 105mm Howitzer from Warlord Games (as is the.30cal) for some added punch - I also really like the model and put a bit of extra work into the base to create a snow bank emplacement:

These were just meant to be a few models to fill in some gaps in the army list, but having been totally inspired by the latest campaign supplement for Battle of the Bulge it is now the beginning of a whole new 1000pts in addition to the 1250(ish) I already have from Gary!!

Hopefully on the way are an Anti-Tank Platoon, with support from some Intelligence & Reconnaissance, and even Military Police on Harleys!!

...all of which I will be using in the W&P Bolt Action Escalation League at War & Peace Games Club on Wednesday evenings.