The Western Desert - Now in 15mm! (Plastic Soldier Co and Battlefront for starters)

So... here's the start of another insane project. Following in the footsteps of Conscript Greg, I've started the Western Desert in another scale, this time 15mm.

But there is definitely a method to my madness here. As I worked on the Yom Kippur War escalation I began to accumulate an unfeasible amount of 15mm desert terrain, including but not limited to the buildings in the pic above, and a crazy amount of palm trees. So it only makes sense to start more 15mm desert projects to helpfully amortize the terrain I already have. Right...?

Anyway, I've decided to build a couple forces for Flames of War (the multi-figure basing helps differentiate it in my mind from Bolt Action's individual-figure basing) and I fell into a couple great deals on Battlefront sets. These have been started in on with vigour...

I picked up a box called "Dietrich's Ghosts" from Meeplemart in Toronto, last time I was there. This isn't a "desert" set per se but includes three Pzkpfw IIIs, three Pzkpfw IVs, and four 105mm howitzers. So far I've finished the tanks - the IIIs are in the first photo and the IVs are above.

I did a mix of main guns... the IIIs have one short and two long 50mm guns, and the IVs have one short and two long 75mm guns (the latter being the infamous "Mk IV Specials"). The models were assembled (easy!), primed black, then basecoated XV-88, painted Tallarn Sand, washed with Agrax Earthshade, then panel-painted Tallarn again. Battlefront decals were applied then the model was sponge-chipped with German Camo Black-Brown. Lastly the stowage was painted and washed.

I use a lot of stowage on these Western Desert tanks, some is from the Battlefront sprues but a bunch of it came from Redog in the UK.

Next up I did some Shermans from Plastic Soldier Company. For some reason the early M4 kits are near-impossible to find, but I had a cunning plan... The M4 "wet stowage" Shermans were never used by the British in the desert of course, but the PSC sprues also include small turrets for the 75mm gun, sand skirts, and all the stuff you need to make an earlier Sherman II/M4A1.

I've read that the PSC kits are a bit dodgy on strict accuracy (for one thing, the 75mm Sherman never came with a travel lock on the hull) but I think our group will let that go. The cast rounded hulls look great to me and that's the main thing. Assembly was fairly straightforward but the tracks were a bit tricky... cast in two pieces (top and bottom) and a couple of the models needed some greenstuff filling. Battlefront commander fits well and looks cool. 

These tanks were fully stowaged-out too. The models were basecoated with AK Light Earth, camo was done with Castellan Green, then the whole thing was washed down with Agrax. Then the Light Earth was redone on the panels and the camo highlighted with Death World Forest. Battlefront decals snuck in there too. Since the Shermans only appeared for El Alamein I kept the chipping to a minimum, since these tanks are pretty new after all.

The last thing was to hit the models with matte varnish... and I am so happy to say that these were finished with TESTORS DULLCOTE! Yes it's back!! The best matte finish I've ever used, long out of production, but now available once again, it makes me very happy.

Toodles and heia Safari!

Summer Painting Update Pt 3 - French Men-At-Arms for Hundred Years War

Here's a scary lot to see on the battlefield!

Diving further into my (relatively) new Hundred Years War project, we get into some of the flashier participants in the setting - some men-at-arms and foot knights. These are 28mm figures from the beautiful Perry Miniatures range - there are some multi-part plastic figures in here, but also the amazing Agincourt French Foot Command set, which was a gift from fellow Conscript Dallas. 

Plastic Foot Knights

A selection of plastic French men-at-arms from Perry Miniatures. 

I have only assembled a few of the multi-part plastic men-at-arms so far - you get one small sprue of them in the French plastic infantry box. As mentioned before, nobody is ever going to pay me to assemble multi-part 28mm plastics, but they go together nicely, even with my fumbling, and you have a really neat assortment of arms/helmets/weapons. I am surprised there are not that many shields, and that the shields which are available seem...small. But this also points to how my assumptions going in are derived from years and years of marinating in various fantasy-type settings, which feature all manner of heavily armoured warriors and yet are...well, fantastical, right? 

Love that axe! Looks like some serious business there...

Anyway, the armour is still amazing, and the figures are beautiful. As far as attempted heraldry goes, my assumption is that some of these footmen were nobles, men of rank, who might have their own heraldry, while others would be in their retinues...either lesser ranked, or perhaps not even nobles at all, but trusted retainers? At any rate, I experimented on a few of the figures, copying (or trying to) some of the heraldry patterns I have seen elsewhere, and in other cases just sort of making some up, and in still other cases keeping very colours in place on the assumption they are non-noble footmen/retainers...

Of course, heraldry continues to be a real challenge, and in the case of the Agincourt foot command, a real challenge, as these are all meant to represent specific people from history who had specific heraldry they would have worn to war...BUT...the Perrys have me covered, as the metal command figures have their heraldry patterns sculpted on to the casting, making painting them much, much more achievable...

Agincourt Foot Command

French Foot Command for Agincourt - amazing metal castings from Perry Miniatures.

Now we move to the metal command group. These are AWESOME sculpts, challenging to paint, but a lot of fun too. I'm not planning to make any kind of serious attempt to replicate the battle of Agincourt itself, but I love these figures, and they will do absolutely splendidly to serve in all manner of French forces in the period. I mean, if the game is post-Agincourt, perhaps we can assume an heir has taken up the role, right...?

Boucicault, Marshall of France on the left, and Guillaume Martel (awesome name), bearer of the Oriflamme

The heraldry involved with this project is a huge conundrum for me, but fortunately with these figures, the patterns are sculpted right on to the figures, which makes painting the patterns a lot more possible. 

John, Duc de Bourbon (left) and Lord Rambures, Grand Master of Crossbowmen, which sounds like a cool job to have in France.

You will see two banner bearers here among the group...the flags are another thing I find daunting about this period. I mean, the flags are so cool, and I would like to squeeze in a reasonable number, but it also seems like most of the flags were not cloth banners as I mind imagine them, but were rather fixed in a way as to be stiff and rigid...I don't quite know how I will tackle that...

Charles x 2! Charles, Count of Eu (on the left) and Charles, Duc de Orleans, with a big f*cking hammer...

Having said that, these two seemed to be more traditional in the sense of curling in the wind...we have the flag of the Constable of France - at least, I THINK that it is...and the other is the fabled "Oriflamme", raised, as I understand it, when the French intend to signal that no mercy will be shown, and no prisoners taken. In both of these cases, I attempted to freehand the flags and it was kind of a mess...but whatever...

Here we have d'Albret, Constable of France (in the middle), his standard bearer (on the right, holding his boss's helmet) and on the left, a figure assembled from spare plastic bits...I made into a herald/trumpeter.

As for the rest of the Agincourt command, I did my best to copy other online sources to paint the heraldry. I also sourced some much brighter "white metal" metallic paints to capture that real sheen seen on the armour of this period. 

In aggregate, this provides the 12 warriors needed to form a single unit for a game of "Never Mind The Billhooks", but there are many more men-at-arms to come and I hope to form several units to spread these fellows out a touch. Big thanks again to Dallas for these awesome figures! That's all for now, hope to be back with more before long!

Summer Painting Update Pt 2 - Hundred Years War - New Project

A couple of initial French units for my 28mm Hundred Years War project. Figures from Perry Miniatures - movement trays courtesy of Byron M's "Northern Lights".

Another little painting update to share as June concludes here - a project that is "new" - in terms of blog posting, if not in terms of when I actually started messing around with it. Here it is - the Hundred Years War in 28mm. These are all 28mm multi-part plastics from Perry Miniatures (or, nearly all of them...I think a couple of metal castings are in one of the photos).  

Why do the Hundred Years War? Well, it has Knights! Castles! France! Plus, while the war went on and on - for, er, a hundred years (actually, I think, slightly longer even?) - and featured some historic larger-scale battles, and the majority of the conflict, it seems to me, featured raids and counter-raids (the famed "chevauchees") which, to me, make it ideal for smaller-sized skirmishes and minor battles which are a lot more within reach in terms of getting a couple of opposing forces painted up and staged on a 6' x 4' table. 

For all that, I do find this setting does have one major, major barrier - at least for me - and that is the presence of medieval heraldry. Now don't get me wrong, medieval heraldry is really cool! The thing is...there is a whole lot to it! It is so easy to get things wrong, and even if I have the intended heraldry correct, it us usually, at best, almost impossible to paint properly...

But...if you don't at least try it, you'll never get to play it so...I started messing around a little bit with the Perry kits in late 2024. For rules I found myself intrigued by Andy Callan's "Never Mind the Billhooks", which was originally written for the Wars of the Roses, but was quickly adapted for the Hundred Years War (and an increasing number of other periods). The process was very slow - such that none of the work ever made it into Curt's most recent Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge - and, well, it still is pretty slow...but there is enough done that I have a couple of very basic units ready to go. 

French Crossbowmen

A unit of crossbowmen for the Hundred Years War - 28mm multi-part plastic figures from Perry Miniatures.

In "Billhooks" many infantry units are in blocks of 12 - and that is what we have here, a basic unit of crossbowmen for the game.

Let's get ready with those crossbows now!

So - which French city or lord are these crossbowmen from? Great question. I have no idea. This unit was about experimenting, seeing if I can get the plastic models assembled and painted so they can be a kind of general "medieval crossbowman" unit - able to fit in with a French force, but just as possible perhaps as part of a Free Company. 

Reloading crossbows seems like a drag!

I love the Perry Miniatures sculpts, but I'm not ace when it comes to assembling their multi-part plastic kits and you won't have to squint too hard to find some very awkward shoulder connections. A few of them appear to be holding their crossbows in a reluctant fashion - which can be kind of interesting for the setting, but would be better if it had been a product of my intent instead of a coincidental outcome because I suck at assembling plastic figures. 

I struggled with the shoulders on these models...fortunately a hobby knife helped sort the worst of it out...

These crossbow blocks are basic building blocks for a French force, so I will need another couple units. I might try to get some more metal castings to bulk out my remaining box of plastics crossbowmen. I may also try to get a little more specific about a city or lord for the next crossbow group. 

French Spearmen

French spearmen ready for action in the 15th century!

Again, we have a block of 12 figures here to comprise the unit - in this case, spearmen, although not every fellow is armed with a spear. As far as the "Billhooks" rules go, it's all close enough so they get counted as spears, and that is fine with me!

Variance in the level of armour/equipment...

You can see here that I have attempted something of a matching color/marking for this unit. Which city, or which lord? I have no idea. I copied the look from something I saw online...if you are looking at this and know the period, you may recognize it - and if so, will spot the mistakes I surely made...but whatever...I went for a look that was generally matching, but still had one or two fellows stand out a little more. 

Not all the "spearmen" have spears...the chap on the right looks like he is ready to crack open someone!

These are all multi-part plastic Perry miniatures, and I was struck by the wide assortment of armour and equipment worn by these soldiers. Some just seem to have padded jackets, while others have chain mail, and still others have a fair collection of plate components, on their arms or their legs. I still have so much to understand about this period - was this pretty common? I guess with any mix soldiers from this time in history, it would have been a bit tricky to have every single soldier outfitted in the same way...so I went with the motley look. It...seems right to me. I'll go with that for now!

A day at the office somewhere not far from Calais...

OK - that is two basic infantry for the French side. But the REALLY cool bits of the French armour are the noblemen and knights, mounted and on foot. Stay tuned for more on that...that's all for now, thanks for reading!

Summer Painting Update Pt 1 - 15mm 30k Bits

Reinforcements for my 15mm Sons of Horus. 3d printed 15mm sized resin figures.

Well...hey, I'm still here! I'm still puttering about the hobby painting desk! I just find that once one "takes a break" from posting to the Blog then...it is very easy to keep "taking that break". A body at rest staying at rest...you know how that goes...but I have been painting since the end of Curt's Analogues Hobbies Painting Challenge, and it's past time to share some of the work. Up first, another couple of bits for my 15mm 30k project. 

These are 15mm-sized 3d prints provided by Byron M. There are two different units to share here, both from the XVI Legion Astartes, the Sons of Horus. We have some sinister Justaerin Terminators and then a devastator squad equipped with autocannons. Watch out, loyalists!

Justaerin Terminators

"We're heavily armed, heavily armoured, and...really grouchy!" It's the Justaerin, the elite of the XVI Legion Astartes!

The Justaerin are one of the "elite" formations found among Horus' own Legion. They are noted for their dark armour, preference for spikey-type adornments and a generally dour attitude that seems to find joy only in hitting other people. Now, I recognized it can be confusing, given that this describes like 80% of the Space Marines at the time of the Horus Heresy, but I credit the GW armour designers as the Justaerin armour manages to look quite grouchy, and so they still manage to stand apart in what might fairly be considered as a crowded field. 

Power axes for everyone!

These chaps carry combi-bolters and big, scary power axes. For a firepower boost, one fellow is equipped with a multi-meta, but note that he ALSO has a giant axe to smash people. Because 30k, right? For the power axes I went with a bit of an extreme color contrast, to help the blades stand out. It looks a bit silly up close, but from "gaming distance" it comes across nicely.

Another pair of "regular"" Justaerin fellows.

View showing some of the engineering bits on the back of the armour. You can see the fellow on the left lost his axe handle...had an unfortunate encounter with the floor...

The chunky 3d-sculpts have lots of fun little details, capturing the assorted engineering bits on that back of the suit, the recessed helmets and the flashy top-knots. One fellow lost the handle on his axe when the miniature fell to the ground and it snapped away, but I just covered the damage with paint, and figured he would go forward as an extra-grouchy fellow. 

Heavy Support - Autocannons

Mad minute, anyone?

I painted a few autocannon gunners for the loyalist side of my collection, and so naturally the Sons of Horus needed some as well! These guys are wearing the Mark VI "beakie" power armour, and there is now a whole lot else to say...I love how they look! 

Lots of ammo to keep those weapons going!

Lovely details on these 15mm figures...the 3d prints give a great result that paints up rather quickly!

Five autocannons will come in handy when the time comes to mow down some of the new loyalist figures I painted back in April during the Painting Challenge. 

That's all for this post - but stay tuned for more, on this project and several others! I hope to get at least one more painting up shared later this week. Thanks for reading, and have a great summer. 

IDF Infantry Platoons, Halftracks, and some more Egyptian Infantry for the Yom Kippur War! And Palm Trees!

Back with some more "content" from the Yom Kippur War. This time we'll start off with the IDF infantry I've finished off.

The models are quite nice, they're from Khurasan of course. I ordered enough models for two "understrength platoons", as Mr K. described them.

What you get in an understrength platoon is this: two rifle packs (FN FAL), one Uzi pack, and one section weapons and command pack. This gives you enough for the whole platoon: two sections each of seven men with FN FAL, one man with a heavy-barrel FN FAL and rifle grenades, and a couple Uzi-toting dudes as leaders. For the record these guys' uniforms are painted GW Death World Forest and the webbing and helmets are Vallejo Khaki. Everything is washed with Agrax Earthshade and re-highlighted in the base colours.

The weapons section of the platoon is a man with an FN MAG (light machinegun), Blindicide (anti-tank) team, light mortarman, and another Uzi-toter. Sorted!

I also built a weapons platoon to support this understrength company. That's two M2 Browning HMGs (Khurasan also provides .30 MGs if you prefer) and two mortars and crews. Fun.

Lastly for the IDF, I've done up five M3 halftracks. These are plastic kits from Plastic Soldier Company and I think they worked OK. I am given to understand that the IDF didn't use the cupolas from the M3A1 and just went with a pintle-mounted .50 cal Browning. But they also equipped each track with a .30 MG sticking out the driver's side "front window"! To model this I used a small square of plasticard drilled to take a scale .30 cal barrel. I didn't bother with modelling the breach-end of the weapon as it's pretty much hidden anyway.

Of course I painted the typical white stripes (no blackline as these guys didn't get the memo) and as always, I painted some crew too. 

You have to squint a bit at these guys as they are WW2 Americans. Most are unarmed but there are a couple Garands and Thompsons in there. I don't know of anyone that sells IDF seated infantry (Peter Pig's have Galils I think) so these will do. I also loaded up the vehicle sides with stowage.

Of course these guys have to have some terrain to fight over so I bought (more) palm trees from an Amazon seller, I think it was $18 CAD for 20 trees, which seemed to me a bit of a bargain.

I based the larger trees on washers and the small ones on pennies. The smallest ones are pretty small (these are a Perry DAK dude and a 15mm Khurasan Egyptian) but most of the trees will work.

Lastly for this post are some more Egyptian infantry from Khurasan. Right here we've got two squads and a weapons platoon.

I had to re-work the paint formula as I'd painted the first bunch of these guys over 10 years ago, and (of course) GW has redone all its colours since then. Anyway these guys' uniforms are Rakarth Flesh, washed with Agrax and highlighted again with Rakarth and then with Rakarth mixed with a splash of Pallid Witch Flesh to lighten it a bit. The assault vests are Tallarn Sand washed Agrax and re-highlighted. Skin is Doombull Brown and Ratskin Flesh. 

Each squad is seven guys with AKMs, an RPG-7 gunner, and one man with an RPD or RPK LMG. The squad leader has an AKM or Port Said SMG.

 

Here's the heavy weapons - two Sagger ATGM teams, a heavy machinegun team (DShK) and a mortar.

Would hate to be an IDF tanker looking down the end of this!

Anyway I think that's mostly sorted the IDF and Egyptians for now, I just have some BTR-60s to paint yet as well as some Israeli recce and TOW jeeps. But more importantly we need to get this stuff out for a game!

Shalom and Youm Sa'id!

Dusty's PrairieCon XLIV After Action Report Part 3 - "Bolt Action" - Defense of the Polish Post Office Danzig, 1 September 1939

On Sunday morning I ran a Bolt Action scenario from the 'Germany Strikes' campaign book, specifically the defence of the Polish Post Office in Danzig on 1 September 1939. This it the third time I have run this scenario, and each time the results have been very different. In preparation for the game I painted up for 2' x 2' MDF boards that had urban grey on one side and desert brown on the other to maximize utility. It gave me an opportunity to deploy my Polish Post Office building that I constructed in 2020 along with the brick and wrought iron fencing I built a few years ago for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.

Set up at PrairieCon

The Polish defenders consisted of six 4-man rifle sections, three 2-man BAR section, an anti-tank rifle section, and Lieutenant Guderski
 

Polish defenders

 The German attackers consisted of three waves with a mix of light and medium howitzers, a pair of armoured cars, two sections of Ordanzpolizei, three sections of SS Heimwehr Danzig, a section of SA, a MMG, and a small engineer detachment. 

The 3 waves of German attackers

 I had three players participate in the game, so there was a single Polish commander and two German commanders. While the Germans have a definite advantage in numbers and weapons, the Polish troop quality is higher, and they have the 'No Where To Run' special rule allowing them to re-roll failed morale checks. Most of the German infantry units were inexperienced which gave them a negative modifier when shooting.

After the Poles were positioned in the various rooms of the post office, the Germans deployed their first wave at the rear of the building, despite being informed that the only entrance was at the front. With more Polish die in the cup than German at this point, the attackers suffered major casualties as the Poles had the opportunity to shoot before the Germans had a chance to move. 

 

Initial Polish deployment in an off-board grid
representing the rooms of the post office,

Initial German deployment

The Germans learning a hard lesson of deploying in the open

On the third turn the German second wave came on and a focused attack on one end of the building commenced.

SS Heimwehr Danzig going into action

 The German assault pioneers were able to plant their satchel charge against the building as further assets came on the board on turn 4. 

SS Steyr ADGZ armoured car advancing

 

A squad of SA advancing on the left

 

Unfortunately for the Germans the first die out of the bag at the beginning of turn 5 was a Polish one, and the defenders wasted no time in cutting down the remaining assault pioneers before they could set off the satchel charge. With the front entrance now the only means of assaulting the building the German attackers were out of position to capture any rooms before time ran out, and we called the game after 2½ hours of play.

Despite their loss, even the German players had fun

Thus concluded my third game of the weekend. I had an enjoyable time, and I hope circumstance will let me attend again next year. Thanks for reading.

HALT!
Gefahr! Es wird
scharf geschossen.