Eureka US Infantry in MOPP Suits

Also from a recent game, here are some new models fresh from the painting table... 28mm US Infantry in MOPP ("Mission Oriented Protective Posture") suits from Eureka. I got these models for my birthday this year and they are a great foil for the Chemical Commies. The Blackawk helo in the background is a model/toy from Unimax that was a fortuitous impulse purchase at a toy store years ago!
 

The models are sculpted by Kosta Herastinides, one of my favorite sculptors, and are very characterful as well as being nicely animated and well equipped with M16s, M203s, an M72 and even a Stinger missile.
 

Although theuy painted up very quickly, I'm not completely happy with the Woodland camo paint job on the helmets. Hopefully, Eureka will come out with heavy weapons and specialists so I can practice further... are you listening, Eureka??

The same models also come as variants without helmets, which will be great to serve double duty as generic post-Apocalyptic warriors or an anti-zombie unit.

These models are my first entry in Fawcett founder Curt's painting competition, running at his blog. The models are worth 5 points each in the competition, but we have some way to go as the top painter on the leaderboard has painted the equivalent of over 240 28mm figures since December 20... which is impressive to say the least... and they are beautiful figures with top-notch groundwork too. Check them out at Analogue Hobbies!

New ATGW for the Chemical Commies

"NATO tanks sighted dead ahead.."

I find miniature companies fascinating and baffling all at once.  Fascinating, because the skill of the sculptors and casters is amazing (or, amazing at most companies) and they create awesome stuff that we enjoy painting (or at least saying we'll paint) and gaming with.  And baffling for the way in which they will casually miss the mark with make-up of their collections. 

Trusty AK on hand for back-up use against NATO infantry.

Eureka is a company like this - home to all sorts of amazing products, but companion ranges that don't always mesh, exactly.  The Soviets in NBC gear are a great example - you would imagine they would be a perfect OPFOR to the West Germans, and now US, in NBC gear as well.  And yet their special weapons are bafflingly out of date - old Sagger missile systems going up against the MILANs and automatic grenade launchers of the West Germans.

The base is a 60mm round weapon team base from GW.  I never have enough of those...

Fortunately, one easy conversion gives my commies a bit of an up-gun on the ATGW side.  The modern ATGW systems used by the Soviet Union/Russia looked very similar to the MILAN (I'm sure there are key difference in components, switches etc. but at 28mm scale, I don't think it matters).  Eureka kindly sells the MILAN launchers as separate pieces, so I hacked up a Chemical Commie Sagger crewman and gave him a MILAN instead.

Top view of the figure.

The end result is a reasonable representation of a Soviet trooper in NBC gear using (or more likely, trying to use) a modern ATGW system, like an AT-4 or AT-5 launcher.  I doubt those things are easy to use in the best of conditions, much less through an NBC suit made by a Belorussian collective farm, but at least we have a serious AT missile to fling at the NATO lackeys.

The original Sagger model is on the right - I couldn't quite match the groundwork, but it's not too far off.

This didn't do much to help me in Curt's painting competition, where some fellow with the handle "KentG" is obliterating all of us by painting like 300 28mm Romans just for starters.  But the Commies are always pleased to see the efforts of the motherland yield new weapons systems for their use.

I have some other conversions in the hopper to up-gun the Chemical Commies and get them on par with their Bundeswehr and US counterparts. 

Berlin '85 - Chemwar! New Year's Battle Report

In accordance with ancient custom, once more this year I hosted a New Year's Day game. This year we went with tried and tested themes - World War III and zombies. The (admittedly thin) backstory is that World War III started in 1985, and the ensuing nuclear, biological and chemical exchange has created "chem-zombies" - lurching, half-dissolved horrors that crave nought but the flesh of the living.

Into this fairly bleak setting, behind Soviet lines, we drop a downed Blackhawk helicopter bearing some secret item (upper centre of photo), which the Americans (centre at right) must recover or die in the attempt. Add chem zombies, and Robert's your mother's brother, you have a game.

View from the US table edge

Factory buildings containing barrels of "fun sauce"

chem zombies in fun sauce barrels

Scattered liberally around the table were chem zombie spawning points, represented by Eureka's excellent barrels-with-zombies models. These barrels became known as "fun sauce" containers for obvious reasons.

Some of these barrels are not like the others...

Since this is essentially a skirmish game, we use a tried-and-tested variant of our favourite simple skirmish set, GW's "Lord of the Rings". It gives a straightforward, fun game, and with the state of some of the boys' noggins on New Year's Day, we like to keep it simple.

Downed chopper is a very nice "toy" model

Soviets suited for the occasion

All of the models used in the game were sculpted by Kosta Herastinides for Eureka Miniatures. We used his excellent zombies, Soviets in NBC gear, and my newly-painted US infantry in MOPP suits.

 

Conscript Brian tried a flank march along the table edge...

...but couldn't avoid the chem zombies!

 

 

Conscripts clockwise from left: Kevin, Mike A., Greg, Dallas, Frederick, Brian, Dave V.  Mike F. and Cam showed up later

As it turned out, the Americans failed to achieve their objective, so the nude photos of Nancy Reagan or whatever was so important in the Blackhawk remained unrecovered. But we had a fun time all the same.

I owe special thanks to my wife Pam for whipping up a spectacular German lunch for us, and to Conscripts Mike A. and Dave V. for bringing snacks.  Thanks lads!

World War 3!!

Two weeks ago I hosted a fun WW3 battle between my Bundeswehr and Greg's Warsaw Pact army (aka the Chemical Commies).  I'd just painted some new BW tank-killers with Milan ATGWs and the time was right for a wall-to-wall Pact tank assault to test them!  We chose a "breakthrough" scenario that required the Pact to get into the BW deployment zone by the end of the game.  The BW had a few infantry sections and a couple Milan teams.  Pact had 3 T-80s and some BTRs packed with gribblies, plus some disposable scout cars...

 Milan team placed in a ruined apartment building.

 View from the town.  Pact vehicles just over the horizon...

Here they come!

 

Chemical dismount...

Lone BW trooper with Panzerfaust 3. "Dude - BEHIND YOU!"

Blowed-up BTR in the town.

Last BTR is threatening but Milan rains death from above (note absence of company command section)

Last man standing for the BW.  A newly painted model no less!

The game was great fun as our WW3 games tend to be.  We played with a "persistent gas" rule that meant my BW guys who were sans NBC gear suffered a slight penalty to morale and firing, that was cool.  The Milans and PzFst 3's were alternatingly deadly and useless as several Training checks were failed at key times, but they did enough to keep the Pact at bay.  The game ended with the last Pact vehicle blown up in the town - a German win.  But one can imagine the dismay of the BW survivors when 15 minutes later, another identical Pact task group rolls up the road...



Armies on Parade: Soviets Part 1 - "Chemical Commies"

It's about time I chipped in to the "Armies on Parade" effort here on the blog, and with Dallas providing some shots of his excellent Bundeswehr, I thought it would appropriate to start with their arch-enemies - the Soviet group known with affection as the "Chemical Commies". Workers of the world unite - and we're here to help...




The infantry are from Eureka's beautiful "Soviets in NBC gear" range. I can no longer recall the exact progression of who provoked whom, but I recall Dallas flipping me the link when Eureka first unveiled these figures, and I was immediately snagged. NBC gear is one of the most sinister looks out there, and I found the Soviet ones particularly scary looking.



Little did we suspect (or maybe it's exactly what we expected, but anyway) how the purchase of some infantry would be the first step in one of the great arms-race spirals in our wargame group! Before long I was adding BTRs and tanks, and Dallas was responding with Marders and Leopards, and now we can fill big tables for WW3 smackdowns.



The vehicles are a bit of a rag-tag mix. The BTRs and the BRDM scout car are diecast toys from somwhere in Russian (I think) acquired on Ebay. The tanks - three T-72s, and three T-80s are Kitech kits acquired on the mega-cheap (thanks to E-bay's "North Korea Store"). The ZSU-23-4 is a custom resin job I acquired from some obscure website specialising in models of Russian vehicles. The scale of the vehicles is 1/43. Kitech, however, uses exactly the same chassis for every tank model. This makes the chassis of the Soviet tanks a bit large for that scale. But I still like the models - they are cheap, and they look like they are a proper size, as opposed to 1/56, which just looks horrible with 25/28mm. The Kitech kits are also the only model kits that I have ever assembled using a hammer...





As Dallas noted, I have embraced the Soviet concepts relating to the quality of quantity when it comes to vehicles for the Soviets, and our WW3 games are packed with socialist armoured vehicles (many of which are on fire within the first turn, but anyway). The Chemical Commies are able to roll in motor rifle style, backed by tanks and covered with a helpful ZSU-23-4.





The Chemical Commies have battled the Bundeswehr on several occaisions, but have also enjoyed service against Zombies, and have acted as mercenaries on behalf of Big Pharma in many a World War Z encouter.

Maybe the only knock I would have on the Eureka NBC Soviets is the lack of more contemporary weapon systems compared to the Bundeswehr range. The Soviets have some great toys - RPGs, RPKs, sniper rifles, flamethrowers,Sagger missiles, and dudes with chemical/rad sensors. But the Bundeswehr stuff - particularly MILANS and the automatic grenade launchers, is right up to date. The Saggers are old school (1970s) and are no good against Leopard IIs. Hopefully Eureka manages to get some new stuff out there soon.



The crazy part of all of this is that this is not my whole modern russian collection - I will post some more pics with Part 2! Stay tuned (or keep watching/reading - I don't know what the right blogger term is...)

Armies on Parade: Bundeswehr

As Greg and I put on a "World War III" game for the lads last night, and I had the Bundeswehr boys out anyway, I thought I would take some photos of the army for the blog.

The origins of this particular project go back several years, when Eureka Miniatures brought out their range of Soviets in NBC gear, sculpted by Kosta Herastinides.  I managed to convince Greg to go in big time on the "Chemical Commies" and I committed to building a BW army to defend the North German Plain against the Red Storm!

Since then, I think I've painted at least one example of every model Kosta has sculpted for the Eureka BW range!
 

The Milan ATGW teams are a particularly welcome addition given Greg's proclivity for wall-to-wall armour ;-)

"Diensthunde" dog teams are part of the Bundewehr's airborne forces and are used for various battlefield and rear area tasks.

 BW snipers with a variety of weapons.

The armoured component consists of Leopard 2A6s in 1/48 from "Kitech".  Very inexpensive and paint up convincingly, I think.

 Diecast Tpz. Fuchs armoured personnel carriers in 1/43.

 Marder IFVs also from Kitech.

"The Boss's" personal vehicle - BMW X5 in camo.  Mercedes-Benz G-wagen in background.  Both are die-cast toy cars, repainted.