Team Yankee Soviet Motor Rifle Weapons Teams

Not too much painting going on nowadays at Conscript Towers but I had time to crank out some Soviets for Team Yankee - a set of their Motor Rifle Weapons Teams. The set is cast in Battlefront plastic/resin - a much superior material to the dreadful Warlord "restic" in my opinion. The Battlefront stuff holds fine detail well and requires little to no cleanup. Good stuff.  

Anyway, the blister pack contains three large team bases and figures to make three heavy weapons teams: two AT-4 "Spigot" ATGW teams and one AGS-17 "Plamya" automatic grenade launcher team. There's also two cards with stats for use with the Team Yankee game.

Above is the AGS-17 team. Three grenade launchers and operators, and three riflemen. The AGS-17 automatic grenade launcher went into service in 1971. It fires 30mm high-explosive grenades from a belt, at a cyclic rate of 350-400 rounds per minute. Enough to bring some hurt. Apparently the Soviets intended the AGS-17 to address the expected "human wave attacks" of the Chinese in a future Sino-Soviet conflict (!)

 

The blister also includes two AT-4 anti-tank guided missile teams. Fortunately NATO adopted the designation "Spigot" rather than the Russian designation "Fagot" (bassoon). The AT-4 is wire-guided; the launcher tracks the position of the missile from an incandescent infrared bulb on the rear of the missile and transmits guidance via the wire. This is SACLOS - semi-automatic command to line of sight. The operator keeps his pip on the target and the launcher guides the missile to that point.

Anyway, there you have it - three new weapons teams for the Motor Rifle Battalion. Price tag on the blister was a nickel short of ten bucks which I reckon is good value. Fun and easy to paint and most importantly, represents movement of figures from the lead pile to the painted army drawer.

Hope you're all keeping safe.

WWII Skirmish Gaming

The Conscripts play WWII infantry games in several scales (28mm, 20mm, 15mm, 6mm) and using several sets of platoon to battalion or larger sized rules (Bolt Action, Chain of Command, Crossfire, Flames of War, Spearhead, Blitzkrieg Commander, plus home brew).  I realized long ago that I am not going to be able to build up larger forces like several of the other fellows. The last couple of years my figure gaming has been focusing on skirmish gaming, of the science fiction variety.

Lately, I have been collecting rules sets to fight very small scale skirmish actions, from a fire team to maybe a couple of squads a side. Such rules include:

• the updated version of Donald Featherstone's classic Skirmish Wargaming; the original book had scenarios from the Dark Ages to WWII, and the new edition includes a Lord of the Rings Third Age fantasy scenario and a sci fi scenario!
• 5150 Star Marine; fast play sci fi rules, up to and including units of powered armour
• Nuts! 4th ed.; WWII man to man combat, squad level and up
• Rogue Planet; cinematic science fantasy 
• Snipers! Duck, Dodge and Shoot; close up and personal, with one side a single sniper team or MG crew and the other side a single squad
• One Hour Wargames; 8 sets of very simple rules for various periods, from Ancients to WW2, with 30 scenarios
• One Hour Skirmish Wargames; diceless (uses two regular playing card 54-card decks), with historical scenarios ranging from the Napoleonic era to Cold War Afghanistan, and including Pulp Science Fiction 
• Song of Blades and Heroes; fast-play, skirmish-level fantasy miniature system; it uses an action-point system that requires no book-keeping
• Song of Drums and Shakos ; using the Song of Blades and Heroes engine, fast-play, skirmish-level Napoleonics

So, I have bit the bullet and started with some WWII infantry. The header photo and the one below are a 28mm female sniper team, for a small WWII Soviet force. A squad or two of infantrymen, and maybe a MMG team. These nicely sculpted figures are from Bad Squiddo Games. They have some very nicely sculpted female figures from several historical periods. From what I have read, Soviet women served in various specialist roles (medics, snipers, tank drivers, pilots) throughout the war. I used Vallejo acrylics and GW washes for 95% of the painting, with a little bit of artists' oils for details. 

Ottawa Conscript Sean traded me three squads of painted German troops for some Warmachine figs. The were long-serving toy soldiers, with some chips and dings. I fixed up the damage with the appropriate Vallejo acrylics, applied some GW washes, and re-sealed the figs with Tamiya (TS-79) semi-gloss spray. I now have a full squad of early war Germans (mostly from Foundry), a separate LMG team, and a small command element.






I have yet to paint some Artizan Designs Soviets in great coats that I have, and ordered more figs from Bad Squiddo. There's some late war Germans from Sean that also need some touching up.


Other Periods

I have a "battalion" of 24 painted French Napoleonic figures that I got when Pendragon Games closed down. I can base them on 25mm round bases. I recently ordered some 28mm plastic Prussian Line Infantry and some plastic French Hussars (some of whom will become Prussians with shako head swaps from the Prussian infantry box), from Perry Miniatures. 

Also in the long-term queue are some Fireforge 28mm Templars I purchased awhile ago, both mounted knights and on foot, that I will convert to the Order of Santiago.

I look forward to trying out some more historical periods, in small, bite-sized chunks!