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...)

Now that was some project...

So it was last July when I embarked on my "Black Powder Challenge". Well, last night, I pretty much finished the project, completing a unit to represent the Austrian 10th Hussars. With that, I have basically finished my roster from the Black Powder Challenge.



You may note the caveats "pretty much" and "basically". Well, the cavalry unit is supposed to 24 models strong, but it is currently sitting at 20 models, as I have a shortage of figures from Foundry. I ordered a final pack of Hussars back in February, and it never showed. To Foundry's credit, they have said they will re-send another package. It has yet to arrive. So I hope at some point I will be able to paint the last three figures, and do a full 24-rider unit. In the interim, I'll have these guys a little under-strength, but still ready to fight. I'm not going to let this little supply hiccup hold up the completion of the project! Plus, I am looking to rack up some more points in Curt's Spring Thaw Painting Challenge.

All in, I've painted three infantry battalions, two cavalry regiments, two artillery pieces and crews (which would either be two batteries or two sections of one battery depending on the rules), a skirmish unit and a command stand. A total of 133 28mm foot figures, 49 mounted figures and two artillery pieces.



So where did this insanity come from?

Over the past couple of years, as new ranges of Napoleonic 25/28mm figures, many of them plastic, have appeared, with newer "grand manner" rule sets to match them. Examples include LaSalle, Black Powder, and Republic to Empire. These rules (to me, at least) challenged the focus on the really large major engagements (Austerlitz, Waterloo, etc.) by the gaming/rule-writing 'establishment' of Napoleonics (Shako). Shako has a lot going for it, but to me they are maximized for the very large encounters and large portions of the biggest battles.

With these newer rules, you can play a smaller engagement, with bigger-sized units. Play Waterloo if you want, but you'll have just as much fun with a smaller engagements, of which there were countless numbers throughout the period of the French Revolution/Napoleonic wars. Because you don't need 20 battalions on one side, you can paint much larger units. And you can also do it because it looks a lot cooler. You don't need to...but the implied peer pressure is clear :)

The newer rule books make you mental and jealous, full of pictures of 32-figure battalions and huge, huge collections (all beautifully painted). I was very, very skeptical of this "grand manner" notion. I loved the smaller games, but I struggled to wrap my head around painting the huge units. After all, one huge unit was worth like two Shako-sized units, right? Plus, I paint all sorts of stuff in all sorts of scales and periods. I felt trying to go with the big units would require me focus on this one period.

Inspired/baited/motivated by Conscript Curt, I took the plunge into "grand manner" sized units. One of the engagements given as a starter scenario in the ruleset LaSalle is the battle of Venzone from 1809. Curt figured the Austrian OB for this scenario would be a good basis to start with, and challanged me to get it done, pledging to have the French side ready for his part.

Curt is very skilled a turning my skepticism on its head, and so I finally got started. I am very glad I did! In the end, I found it was possible to get the painting momemtum going to a point where I could finish these units in a reasonable amount of time, and I love the look of them. Now that I have a bit of a base collection in place, adding more units doesn't seem like its such a dire challenge. I am already plotting to expand my Austrian force, and do some other nationalities too. And of course I am looking forward to getting them on the table soon...

Armies on Parade: The Expendables

"Armies on Parade" is turning out to be kinda fun as I'm breaking out stuff that hasn't seen the light of day in awhile, like this Deathwing army.  I actually didn't paint most of the models in this army, they were painted by Conscript Sean (correct me if I'm wrong in that Sean).  They ended up in my collection via Conscript Dave V. who was building his own Deathwing and had intended to strip these and repaint them (!)

I've always liked Sean's work and since he has moved away, it's nice to have some of his stuff in my own collection.

I added a Dreadnought from the Black Reach set and a Drop Pod to round out the crew.  They don't see much action but that's OK.  They're veterans and deserve a rest ;-)

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.

Armies on Parade: Now with 50% more Nurgle

Thought I'd throw up (heh) some more pics of my own Nurgle guys.  Clockwise from lower left: Plaguebearers, Rhinos, Forgeworld Plague Ogryn, Spawn, Dreadnought, Predator, Land Raider, Vindicator, Blight Drone, Raptors, Havocs, Rhinos, Plague Marines, Daemon Prince, Terminators, Chaos Lord, and (the real) Typhus ;-)

Looking forward to joining forces with Mike A's excellent-looking Nurgle boys for a mega-smackdown sometime!  Bring the hand sanitizer and Tamiflu!! 

Armies on Parade

Here is my Nurgle force in all it's rotten glory:
















My Dreadnought:Typhus and Retinue:
Plaguebearers:
Plague Marine Squad:
Finally, my Great Unclean One:

Armies on Parade

Here is my entire Space Marine army: The Brotherhood of Steel. See guys, I didn't melt them down! It's record is fairly mixed. The army seems to have a sweet spot at mid range combat. Long range is difficult to maximize and close quarters is a slow death. As such, I'm feeling pretty good around turn 3 or 4 and then it all goes to hell. Maybe I'll take it to Prairiecon for the apocalypse game Maxx is putting on. Last years looked as though everyone had a painted army.
I have yet to find a suitable use for the Captain, but I like how the conversion turned out.
The Sternguard have the necessary tools to be a powerhouse unit, but only if their support pulls its weight. Some of the heads and weapons are form Chaptereleven house.
I can only blame Cam for the poor showing of the scouts. Oh, Cam.