And Now Something A Little Bit Bigger

Ok, OK, I know I have been blathering about 6mm rather a lot recently and have promised something a tad larger. Well for the long suffering amongst you here is a taster post. I have had various bits and bobs for this project for some time but was lacking the figures and the guts till now. This is the first two of the Deluxe Sniper Reminders that will have a lot more detail on them. My task was to reproduce the Journal Eight cover, see image below. First up the nearest figure I could find was not carrying a carbine, instead he has a BAR, not much difference thee then!

 

 

I am only putting the one figure on the base as it would start to look crowded, beside I don't think anyone does a figure to match the image and that would be important. So as to give a full 3D effect I want to do the corner of the building with the actual figure towards the edge of the base. This means  will also be including some interior work as well. This is going to be a bit of a large job really but a fun challenge.

The picture above is the majority of the bits for the project. I have the American for the cover, the German for a second base, Linka Moulds that will make up the pavement and even though the scale is wrong it will also be used for the chipped walls. Windows from Warbases. I have a thin sheet of balsa for the floorboards and other structures. Chippings for the road and other effects. The barbed wire is more for another project so unlikely to be used.  I am really looking forward to this and will work on the base before the figure. Though the figure needs removing from his base and pinning ready to be stuck to the base. I will drill the holes but not pin till after finishing painting the figures up.

The German base I hope will be far more adventurous, I know what I want to do but not sure I have the skill to do it and do it well enough to get over to America as it's for a mate Stateside.

 

I will post work in progress shots so you can see how it is coming along real time. Expect lots of swearing and a little bit of humour, hoping for the other way round but I'm realistic.

Warbase Commission

I have been using the excellent Warbase casualty counter for my Sniper Reminders ever since discovering them in a Wargames Illustrated. This was great news as I have been using Warbases normal bases since coming back to wargameing. But I was asked ages ago if I could do something a little different. Problem is the base just is not big enough to allow you much scope. The idea was for it to be more urban. I mocked up a base but it was clearly not a great finish but the idea itself was sound. So at Donnington I too my mock up and asked for a quote, bracing myself for the answer.

 

The Original base, score marks are all down to me.

The basic counter is 60p each, I have ordered well over 100 of these over the past year and will again be grabbing a fair few more in the coming months.

 

The Special Commission Base.

The new base is square and quite a bit larger. My start off order being just ten pieces but the price was a bit of a surprise. Just £1.20 each. The base being square allows for more use to be made of it and now I can really go to town. Over the last few months I have been buying brick moulds, barbed wire and other battlefield furniture.

 

Figure added for scale comparison.

So in the next few weeks I hope to start building the four bases that I have already in mind, just got to hope the guys who will be getting these are happy with the results.

 

A big thank you to Warbases for their typically fast and friendly service, I really like what they are doing with the hobby.

Italian Sniper Reminders Blacktree Design

Last of the recently painted and based Blacktree Design figures, the time of the Italian. Of the three sets of figures these are the least interesting as they have far less kit. This also of course meant they were the fastest to paint up.

I struggled with the uniform colour quite a lot. Plenty of information on the Desert but little on fighting in Russia. Finally found a mix of grey and green - grey pictures. This will be the usual, it fades to grey kind of situation. I painted these with a mix of German field grey and sky grey. Whilst the figures have less kit at least some of them have a look of movement about them. Nice to see them in active poses and not looking like they are ready to surrender as stereotypes kick in!

 

The Italians have an interesting pouch system that just loops around the back of the neck where all other nations seem to go down the back for extra support. I just can't help but think if fully loaded they would drag at the back of the neck.

 

These I have the green starting to fade to grey. A relaxed poacher style of pose which I rather like. The rifles on these guys are all big and chunky, must not have been fun to have to lug that around all day.

 

 

Told you that rifle was heavy! The poor sod can hardly bring the barrel up to point at his target. Overall I rather like the Italian figures and again Blacktree have a good number of different poses for this neglected force. I have to say that mostly the Blacktree sculps were relatively clear of flash and mould lines with just a few minutes each for clean up. On the downside they tended to have solid lead between such as rifle and body that I would expect to be a space. Not every figure but a few and it reminded me of early Airfix plastics rather than modern metals. At least the position of such fill in's was such that they did not shout out at you but it did take a bit of the shine off them.

 

Taking it all into consideration I would recommend them over both the Bolt Action and the Artizan ranges. The figures seem to be that little bit more proportioned and beat Artizan over all for pose (Artizan are stiff) and whilst Bolt Action have great movement in most of their figures the need to clean flash off them drops them below the Blacktree casts. That said I am happy to paint up both other suppliers and I have some Blacktree Germans that some of the castings look like they are not quite as good as the other sculps, so watch this space.





French 28mm Sniper Reminders

More of the Blacktree Design figures, this time the French. Overall I like these figure a lot but one exception and that is on two of the figures the rifles are rather short. Now this may well be historically accurate in which case no foul, however it still looks rather strange.

 

A nice casual figure, with the rifle cuddled. Looking at the colour guides I found that basically the whole uniform from helmet down was basically all the same suggested Vallejo colour! After finding sample picks of reinactors and original uniform pics I was able to build a series of different colours that would work and give it a bit more contrast.

 

This is my favourite pose of the bunch. I checked a good number of images of the helmet to see if the badge was brass finished. By far the majority had the badge painted and most of these showed the badge painted the exact same colour as the helmet so I went with that finish even though it would have looked really cool to show the badge off in a nice shinny finish.

 

 

A good mix of equipment on all the figures make them fun to paint and interesting to look at. Like the Polish they seem to have a fair bit of clobber and I am sure in those hot summer days in the field that greatcoat was very welcome!

 

The figure I like the least as the rifle looks tiny, possibly because part of it is almost hidden from view. What I found fun was that the canteen is unpainted metal in a canvas bag so the neck that pokes out is painted shinny. All four poses have it so it adds a nice point of difference. The French in early WWII don't get a deal of love but at least two companies do 28mm figs (Warlord being the other) and between the two you can get a fair amount of posses and figure types.



28mm WWII Sniper Reminders The Poles

Well these have been a long time coming. It's about a year ago that I started to paint up the Sniper Reminders starting with he Germans, Russian and American as these are the most popular ASL nationalities. These have done really well and when I next added the ANZACs, Japanese and British I was surprised that these were nearly as well accepted. The British due to a brain fart ended up with an extra pack and just so happens to be the least popular (figures) but here I expect a fair bit of a drop off. Reason being the next three are some of the least played nationalities in the game at the moment, these being the Polish, French and Italian. Well I will break them down here into three posts, one nation at a time.Lets start at the beginning.

 

I've painted up two of each of the sculpts. Here we have the poor bugger trying to chamber another round. All the Polish figures from Blacktree Design seem to the weighed down with more kit than you could ever wish for. Lots of leather belts as well. These took a fair chuck of extra time to paint up. I just went for Summer Dress and none of the French equipment as I did not want to confuse matters with the French later in the process.

 

My favourite of all the figures from the three latest nationalities. Still burdened down but at least he does not have a helmet to carry as well. I really like the Blacktree figures as they ave good detail. Even the standing pose has movement to them. Talking of detail this guy has a bayonet over his entrenching tool, a nice bit of detail that adds layers to the figure.

 

Not sure how this guy manages to get enough energy to run but watch out here he goes. I did the straps on his backpack in a different colour to the rest as per a couple of examples I had seen and no I was not heavy handed those straps are double layered so are THAT thick. I think the Poles lost because they could hardy walk from all that kit  ;-)

 

 

This pic shows off that entrenching tool but without the bayonet. So here we have the Poles, I have just painted up eight for the time being but I think I will need at least another four. Took me an age to get them started but I managed to get all 24 across the three Nations painted up fairly quickly. At the moment I have 24 Galatian heavy infantry in 15mm on the go. These have all the tricky stuff done except the shields and I now have the instructions for Andy Mc's next three regiments but I have had to order five more pots of paint so these will have to wait for these to arrive. Plenty of time then to finish what's on the desk.

Production Line

Despite all the set backs and issues of this last week I have managed to paint up the Italian figures to finish off the third set of ASL Sniper Reminders. Now all I need to do is base the lot of them. as always I am using the Casualty Markers from Warbases to give me the sliding numbers, in my case 2-7 but 0-12 is n the dial.

 

All I need to do now is paint the bases and base green, add the rough ground and then flock. Just a light top up varnish of the whole and then add the tufts and there you are all done. So I expect in the next two days to have them finished and close up shots taken. All the Polish, French and Italian figures are by Blacktree Design and overall are I feel a upgrade on the Artizan and Warlord figures. This said the German and Russian castings I received from them this week don't look quite as good as plain lead. How they look once cleaned up and undercoated could well be better. The Polish and French were fairly slow to paint up as they have a lot of extra equipment all over them whilst the Italians were all painted up in a day as they are very basic. In the background are the painted 28's I showed a few weeks back which are waiting on some custom bases to be made up so I can finish them off. Behind them are some 15mm that are suffering from queue slide, not so much because I don't want to paint them but because I need to paint other things up.

 

I have been let down again my Maelstrom Games, went over to pick up an order that was put to one side. They can't find it and it's possible they already sold the figures. That is three times I have gone over to collect stock only to find out they don't have it. Not that i stops them taking the money on order. Really they need to sort themselves out with blogworld already up in arms over failure to supply (mostly warehouse move related). This puts a kink in a special base I am trying to build, at least I have the German to go against it ready to start.

 

However Andy Mc has supplied me the other figures for the trade and I can at least clean these up ready for when he is happy with the colours he wants me to paint them. I have held off over this week in fear of wrecking them through the curse I obviously have brought down on my family ;-)

 

Once all these are done then I have to decide what next to prep, I think it may well be the buildings that I got at Derby, though the Persian Cavalry and the Bolt Throwers are also trying to gain my attention. In the background I plan to finalise which three new subjects will be up for the Sniper Project and hope to pin Lee down on what the hell he is up to with regards my future painting schedule (Chaos rules!)

Sniper Reminders WIP

Anne mentioned she wanted to see these and as they have been finished a few weeks I thought I had best add them. They still need basing but some of them will be added to a larger base than normal so the finishing touches need to be added.

 

I just love this scripts face, talk about attitude. The Russians are Black Tree Design casts and are the first of all the WWII figures in 28mm that I have painted that have rifle slings.

Here is a close up of the face. I am really happy with the way the face came out being 28mm and all.

Another shot of the figure to show the camo. Really felt a challenge as it's really very very simple. Just like cartoon paint splats and the uniform is really baggy and shapeless which can be hard to sculpt.

 

This figure rather lacks detail on his face! ;-) Sorry but all the figures could have done with a quick dusting before handing to Cath to snap but I forgot to do it.

Another figure that I like, again the face is really well sculpted and makes it look like I have more skill than I really do.

 

Ugly bugger, no? Sorry I just love the quality of the castings. I have French, Italian and Polish by the same supplier

Last of the four and I have the image of how I want o base this one up firmly in my head.

The Germans are all Artizan and I was disappointed with the sniper pack as only two are snipers, he other two are observers but don't really fit with the snipers themselves. Three of the four I have painted up in splinter pattern as that came in in time to be used in Stalingrad. This is an observer.

 

The second observer standing! well he would make a good officer or better still NCO but he really is a round peg in that square hole.

 

 

I like this figure, this time just his jacket was painted up as splinter. Not sure he would wear a cap with the eagle on it, really should have filed that off.

 

Last figure has the sniper moving. As you can see the Blacktree casts look so much better but for some reason they have not done German snipers. I can only hope these follow.



 

 

 

Australians are good to go.

Finished off the basing just this morning by adding the tufts and jungle. Really happy with the speed these came off the brush and still retained the same standard as all the others.

As I mentioned on the previous post the uniforms are slightly darker to show a little less fading and have darkened the hats just a few shades. I think the Australians are some of the nicer Artizan castings, with that bit more movement to them.

So now they are finished I have moved onto the Phalanx. I did manage to get them all cleaned up on the night so primed them yesterday and have started them. 22 figures now have the flesh done with the other 10 waiting for me to finish this post before coming under the brush. I hope to get this lot done in less than 10 days which is possible.

After that, well I have a couple of projects waiting that will need some extra thought so these will be a bit time consuming but I will be adding more of the Numidian troops into the mix as they are really quick and easy. Then it's onto the French, Polish and Resistance Sniper Reminders, most of which I still have to choose the figures and order. Also the Baccus Open Day is July 21st so it would be nice to paint up some more 6mm Naps before to make space in the mountain for the inevitable purchasing.

Games planned. 15mm Ancients with Lee if things work out this week and 6mm Naps to try out the new rules with Barry some time in the near future and if things really work out I get a game of something with Andy between. I'm a busy lad.

An Afternoons Painting

I am all charged up to get my third phalanx of pike done for the Macedonian army to make it a legal army before moving on to the Seleucid Army which of course uses the pike as well. Sitting in front of that task was four Australian WWII 28mm figures which were primed but that was it. Well after returning from Lee's this afternoon I have cracked on and painted them up super fast for me. These figures are fairly easy to paint which made the job so much easier. The picture was taken just after applying a wash so is shinny. I hope to get them varnished and on the base before bed tonight and the basing done through tomorrow. Tonight maybe will see the pike cleaned up ready for priming, well I can dream can't I?

Not a lot to do on these to get them all finished up. The uniforms are a little darker on this bunch which was intentional and I think look that bit better and that bit less faded. The bush hats are also a few shades darker which is not obvious on this photo.

So once these are finished it's the pike as mentioned, but I will also start some of the 20mm Numidian cavalry. Also whilst at Lee's I picked up the 10mm ADC's I committed myself to paint for the guy who used to run the Wargames Holiday Centre for his new project. Turns out there are 13 of them, I will also fit these in between projects, yep I'm not short on diversions!

Australians arrive at last.

Finally got round to doing some of the Australians. I say finally but in fairness to them, they themselves painted up quickly and was fun to paint. I still have 4 more to do, repeats of the poses attached. Pics are done by me and are not meant to be anything special. I will get the last four painted and call it for a few weeks whilst I get on with some other figures. I am also going well on the buildings, two need final touches, two are about half way done and the last one is just primed. Not sure if I will do any tonight but I have to stay in tomorrow waiting on the delivery of three new chickens so I may use that as an excuse to crack on after a fairly slow two or so days.

For the Australians I wanted more terrain on the bases than the other Nations but less than the Japanese to give the Japanese that point of difference whilst keeping the Australians a little on the wild side. The next choice was uniform. Officially the clothing should be a darker green but if the boys had been in action for some time the colour would fade a great deal and who wants wet behind the ears guys? As normal with Artizan the poses are somewhat stiff. I like the touch of the binoculars on the figure on the left, nice point of difference. Of course the first Japanese sniper that clocks him will make him regret it!

Nice jaunty hats and fully loaded rifles. I also like the rolled up sleeves of these figures. All of them painted up easily so were quicker to paint. I am getting a better feel for the Poison Ivy now and cutting it out so that I get the best out of it.

I think these are the best looking figures of the eight. It took me a couple of goes before I was happy with the Bren Gun itself.

Finally a figure that is moving faster than a walk on the left though the right hand figure has good look about him. I my moan a bit about the mobility of the figures but I won't be looking for another supplier and probably would buy these again if and when I need more.

I took the pics just before 7am in the morning as the natural light was bright enough to give a good colour without the later bleaching effect. I was not brave enough to ask Cath to do it at THAT time!

Japanese Sniper Reminders

Oh the Japanese have arrived. Well they were in fact finished about a week ago but I have built up a bit of a back log of late so they have been delayed. What can I say about the 12 bases? Well for starters I did struggle with these. Being all Bolt Action you know the drill, pain to clean and pain with the heads. I have already banged on about it and have also shown the first part of the 12 as it was the basing that slowed me down and I did that in two groups. The second lot of basing went better though as I had made the mistakes on the first batch so did not have the restarts I had with the original batch. Both have the same style and finished look and are no difference between either group. I have 12 bases over 13 figures and a few figures unpainted in reserve if I need to do more but I expect that will be it for the time being. I have just finished 8 Australians with 4 more needing all the work on them to match up. Hoping to get that done this week and then it's back to my own figures for a bit.

A flag in WWII, Really?

Not sure, but I think I will end up keeping this one. The print on the flag is not made for folding so has creased and flaked. Looks OK and I will probably paint over but have to say I am disappointed with Warlord for supplying something so obviously not fit for purpose. These figures are supposed to get more handling than they will get through ASL and yet this clearly would not take it.

The Jungle ain't neutral!

This guy was fun to paint but comes in three pieces. I really like the Kunai and the jungle (AP Poison Ivy) along with the tufts, breaks up the base and makes for a nice feel. Duncan snapped him up straight away as he has first dibs.

Running down a trail.

Added a trail to this base and built the kunai up on both sides with jungle growth encroaching on the path. Wanted the Kunai to tower over him for a bit of a claustrophobic feel. I like the result, in fact I like it so much here is another shot.

Cap, cap cloth and uniform are all different colours which do not show up so well in the shots. Cath was having a field day as her camera kept claiming the figures blinked!

Skirting the jungle.

This base just has Kunai on the one side but another great shot of Cath's that shows off the jungle well.

Yes some even have helmets!

Bolt Action have the saving grace that their poses tend to be very active. None of the stationary style that most of the Artizan have. All in all I have been happy with the whole project so far. I have not kept a close eye on the number of figures painted thus far, not sure I dare!

American Sniper Reminder Additions.

The Sniper Project is doing fine. I needed a few more Yanks due to one guy wanting a figure with netting on his helmet. I had only one of these which had already been picked so needed to get another pack. This pack had two guys with the netting so it worked out well in the end. Again these are dressed in Greatcoats which come out really well with a wash. The above photo was battling the natural light through the window but it gives a fair idea of what they look like. Again I used Artisan figures. These tend to be more stationary than Bolt Action but that works with the whole one figure with a board game thing. Though the Japanese I am just basing up mostly have a hell of a lot more movement (Bolt Action) and will look great when finished.

 Close up of the two with netting. I found the figures fun to paint up and much quicker than the Japanese which will be shown at a later date. In fact the Japanese have been rather a pain to paint up and now I have the extra work that the jungle base provides. Oh Joy.

The Tufts are the ones I bought directly from MiniNatur and as you can see I went a little overboard with them, but it adds to the look.

Here is a close up of the Company B decal. Given the extra practise I have had with them I have managed a better job (not that I was unhappy with the first). The decal wraps round the shoulder really well and the transparent edges disappear once the figure has been varnished. Prior to that it was easy to see. I add the decals post ink wash  so they remain crisp.

SNIPER!

This really is a cross post from my other ASL only blog. It can be great to have a project that melts two different parts of the same hobby into one, this is the case with my Sniper project. I must admit though, it's been a challenge to get exactly what I wanted but finally it's fallen into place. Selecting figures was not really too difficult, the original idea was to use sniper figures but I struggled to find figures that looked like I wanted them to. Basically I could buy a pack of 4 figures and use just one from the pack. This just did not float my boat. So I went after just riflemen, well in one of the packs it also came with a LMG so it will be interesting how that one goes down. Mostly I have gone with Artizan so far, but I also have a large number of Boltaction, though I prefer the former. What was far less easy was the picking out of bases and this is the area I have wasted the most money trying to get it right. Originally I was working with the plastic hexagonal base with the numbers painted on. The idea being that the number pointing towards you is the sniper number. This remained the cheap option right up to the end, but the main idea was using Heroclix bases. This had the advantage that they are readily available and can be picked up with a figure on them for around £1 + postage. The first ones I bought were 1st edition that was difficult to turn but would have worked though a little fiddly. Scratch a few quid. Then I ordered what looked like a base twist. I bought 16 of these but it turned out you had to hold onto the figure to turn them and what's more, they were very stiff. Figures would just come away from the base. Scratch £15!!! Only then did I find the Oreo style base, these I could still get at about the same price as long as I did not mind damaged figures (given I was cutting them off, I really did not mind!!) The problem is that the dial numbers did not have the number range I was needing (2-7) so I was going to have to replace the template. Not a major issue as I downloaded templates off the Internet but it's all time and effort. Then I discovered the Warbases casualty markers in Wargames Soldiers & Strategy issue 58. The plinth version of what I am using was being reviewed. Whilst not perfect it was close enough for me and looking on their website I saw the version I have used. The dial has a range of 1-12, plenty more than I need. The dial in fairness is slightly larger than I need but allows plenty of modeling space. the pictures below are of the bases almost finished, tufts need to be added but as I have ran out I need to nip out and get some more. I just have a few done at the bottom of the post.

Americans in greatcoats. Was a bit worried how these would come out, but rather pleased with the end result. You van see the tad for the dial sticking out at 11 O'clock. Simple system but works very well. I will do a full review of it at a later point.

Two 'Yanks' in normal battledress. These show off the decals I was talking about in the above post.The pic does not do them justice but I was in a hurry.

Much better shot. The decals (yes there are two on that arm) are between small and tiny. Company B also do 20mm decals, I don't even want to think about those!! I have painted up the 8 Yanks with a mix of uniform types and colours as they will never be used together.

A couple of Russians in winter padded clothing. I always thought of Russians in the pale brown but it seems the winter gear tended to be green. Must have stood out in the snow real nice. Again the basing needs work as you can see the figure base on the guy kneeling down.

The offensive LMG sniper, but at least he is back in the brown. With an extra mag in it's pouch hanging from his belt and a grenade stuffed in his boot I guess this guy means business.

All 21 painted and ready. Well 20 are ready, number 21 has to wait for a base (on order) and the tufts had not been added to any figures at that point. Below shows the figures from above to show off the numbers. You can also see the tufts which are by Army Painter.