3D Sniper Reminder Giveaway

The second Giveaway will be ASL themed, this being a set of three Sniper Reminders. One each of American, German and Russian, these replace the cardboard sniper's that come with the game. If ASL is not your thing but you just want the mini's then feel free to enter.

Above is an example of the German and Russian figures, the ones received may be of a different pose. The figures are Forged In Battle with the bases custom made by Warbases for me. 

As always you need to be a follower to join in, if you are not yet it's simple to do. Along the right hand side is a black/grey box that expands when you hover the mouse on it. Click on the bottom button (labelled subscribe) and follow the instructions . 

Just leave a comment and your in the draw, if you run a blog please supply a back link. You have till 2nd of April to be included in the draw.

I have six draws to do all told with one a day, you can enter as many as you wish, winning one does not stop you being entered in any of the others so if you like all six go for it. I have two lots of these to give away.

3D Sniper's The Russians Arrive

Painted up the Forged In Battle Russian 3D Snipers which more or less will bring this project to it's close. I will only do the other Nations in dribs and drabs if I can find small quantities of each other Nation. The Russians for me have been a bit of a disappointment as the castings whilst quite crisp tended to have issues with sculpt. The biggest issue being straps that are plainly visible on one side of the figure disappear once over the shoulder. Also one pose all had a big flap of flash covering the bottom half of the face. 

Whilst this can be dealt with it's a fair drop in quality from both the Germans and Americans. Let's just say that if I was to do more 15mm Russians I would be looking for another supplier but would still consider Forged for other Nations.

Still they painted up fairly quickly and now are ready for anyone who want's them. I would have loved to take them up to Heroes this weekend where I am sure I could have sold off a number of them as well as the Sniper Reminders but better still I could have a great weekend of ASL, still I plan to have my own ASL weekend in a week or three or.............

This is the one I am keeping, I painted him up as a Commissar so he should bag he a Hitlerite or two. Given that the Sniper Reminders are still being panted up over 18 months after the project started I am rather happy that these guys were on and off the desk in such a short period. Another thing I am rather pleased with is that I have just finished off the Baccus WSS command for Matt making that the fastest I have painted up a whole army. I am now going to throw myself at twelve bases of Prussians for a total of 336 figures, I want them based by this time next week then it's probably back to the 15mm and 6mm ECW the first lot being with Curt awaiting scoring.

3D Snipers Off The Bench

I was surprised at the speed I was able to paint up these Forged In Battle WWII 15mm figures, especially given the level of detail the figures have. Each pack was 40 figures strong but not all of these are suitable for use as 3D Snipers. In most cases it's due to the amount of space the base takes up (mostly lying down poses) but also two man groups such as the 50Mtr and the MMG. 

Fairly easy to clean up with acceptable levels of flash and fairly easy to remove mould lines (I missed a few), so prep time did not send me nuts, good job given I had 80 figures to do. One German in a field cap though was missing his face due to extra lead and had to be scrapped. Lots of different poses and as much equipment on the Germans as you would expect on a 28mm. The Americans were also not short of kit and whilst in both cases it adds to the painting time the end result is well worth it.

I have since bought the Russians and these will get cleaned up and painted in a few weeks time I hope. Again these have plenty of detail. All three Nations have rifle slings as well, so they get an extra point for that from me.

Here we have a close up shot showing both front and back of the Yanks, I went for the early post D-Day uniform for all of them. Here you can see the amount of kit they have to cart about.

Here we have half of the whole lot  of Yanks giving a fair idea of the multiple poses. Just like a lot of the 28mm figures though, the amount of troops actually pointing their weapons is rather low which is a bit disappointing  I am all for troops with movement but I would expect about half to be actually looking like they are engaging the enemy. At least you don't get the Airfix like useless poses, these were always annoying.

The faces (ignoring the elephant man) are not bad at all with a wash bringing out the features. The only figure I had real difficulty is the BAR man centre left of the picture above, the BAR looks very clumsy in it's detail. 

I did manage to paint up all 40 of the Americans but the Germans had six removed as not suitable to base and the one that needs the vet (or was he making a trunk call?) but again lots of good poses but even less shooting types.

The officer even has binoculars which was a great touch. Given the detail of the figures they would make great figures for skirmish play, I just can't see 28mm write even for infantry only actions, add tanks and I would want to hire the local sports hall. 15mm would allow limited tank use, something I can feel myself being drawn towards.

I did not waste the German support bases, these two have been painted up and based on the 30x30 bases I normally use for 6mm command stands. I still need to paint up the other loader then I will be finished with these until a time I do go for some WWII action then maybe I will be calling on these guys again. Not having painted any Battlefront I can't compare them but price wise these supply a saving but from what I understand the FiB packs are not tailored to FoW units so some biting between packs could be required. 

3D Snipers For ASL

I'm still running with the 28mm reminders and I still have loads left to either source or are waiting for me to paint up so obviously I need to be thinking about moving into another theme or idea to add to the list of things to do. Actually the idea came fast on the heals of Andy H's original Sniper Reminder. In fact it would be a quicker and easier job than the Sniper Reminders. The idea as the title says is a physical figure actually on the board. This one though will not act as a reminder of your number, no this one will help you locate where your sniper actually is on the board!

The figures shown are a couple from the packs I picked up the other day and are 15mm Forged in Battle 40 fig packs. I don't think I will need all 80 but you never know. As you can see from the two pictures above they stand out fairly easily. OK the map area is really small and counter clutter at the minimum but the typical game has 20-60+ counters and can go into hundreds so it's possible to occasionally loose track of the actual sniper counter when that SAN gets tagged. 

The actual finished version will of course be painted but it will also be mounted on a hexagon with the numbers 1 through 6 etched into it. I am having these costume made by warbases (who else?) which give the direction the sniper would move on a random die roll.

So if I start to moan about not getting anything finished or an army taking to long to make the table you can remind me about yet another project I have got into.