M24 Chaffee (Bolt Action) walkthrough

With this one I've officialy run out of Bolt Action vehicles.
Finally!

Because since like a few months I've been doing anything but painting infantry models:
working on vehicles, buildings, upgrading game table...
So now, without Chaffee on the desk, there are no more excuses for not painting infantry. Perspective of having whole army 100% painted has never been closer:
the distance is about 25 infantry models...

As for the model itself I've been taking pictures while working on it, so in case of getting satisfying result I could repeat it later.

The tank is Warlord Games' resin + metal piece.
Must say it's nothing spectacular but otoh I've seen much worse casts from this manufacturer. Cleaning it and assembling didn't take much time, the barrel and commander got paperclip pins for more reliable bond - it's gaming model after all.

Here's the assembled piece.
The green color ain't proper basecoat yet, I've just been spraying excess paint on it.

Basecoating. Actually - preshading.
I got nice result using this trick on the Calliope so decided to give it a try once again. Long story short it should provide some extra shading and better contrast to the paintjob.
Color used it not black but mix of dark grey, dark brown and tank green (?) - really dark green from Vallejo Air line. Straight black would also work fine.

I wanted to give it bit worn look so model was painted with bright brown, which will appear from beneath chipped paint - like on the M7 Priest model. I tried to leave corners unpainted - the preshading thing.
After paint dried chipping medium was applied on the model.

Now the tank was sprayed with some green tones. Tried to keep it bright to make the oils and washes more visible in the next stages.

Next step: the green paint was chipped off using damp brush and some rubbing. It comes off really easily and gives nice effect - but not on the turret. Why?

Because I fu&^ing forgot to paint it with chipping medium before applying greens!!! ><

Damn!

Ehhhh... Nevermind...
Some details were also painted now: hmg, tracks, rubber cover of the wheels.

Decals. There were none in the box (sadly) but luckly I had some spares from other models.
Give decals and decal medium time to try completly before applying washes - these stickers are pretty fragile.
As for missing bits - there's no hull mounted mmg in the set (at least there was none in mine) but I had one last spare from M3A1 halftrack which saved the day.

Washing time: dark oil wash was prepared (black + umber) and applied...

And mostly washed off with turpentine.

Bit more turps bath.

Streaks. Once again oil paint was more than useful.
Bright dots were painted all over the model...

Followed by bright brown...

And red + dark burnt umber (no idea why I did it really, now I think model would look better without this reddish tone).

The paint was washed off with old brush and turpentine, don't rush and leave streaks on the armour. After model dried I gave it delicate yellow glaze to make colors more fresh.

Instead of making model muddy I decided to use solid layer of pigment to get dusty look.
New thing was applying pigment binder with airbrush - which works just great for the model.

See?

At this stage model was nearly done but since pigment binder is not varnish, model was sealed with solid layer of Revell matt, for better protection against battle damage.
With a brush...
Which was big mistake, because brush simply wiped off the pigment and / or smeared it on the armour.

Lesson learnt:
either apply pigment AFTER model is painted and sealed or spray varnish over the model.
Not sure such a thin layer would be enough for gaming model though.
In case of this patient  I added another layer of pigment and another layer of airbrushed binder. More than enough effort for gaming model.

And quest for better photo background continous: I think WIP shots over hobby desk mess are more clear than the final ones. Judge for yourself:

Fhtagn! ^(;.;)^

Painted 1200 pts US army

There's been quite a lot about making terrain for Bolt Action battlefield recently, so it's time to turn the tide, back into stricte miniatures.

For recent "Road to Berlin" campaign each or participants had to prepare 2 army lists: 

1200 points from the same selector. I think the idea was to fit the army to specific scenario's conditions (attack/defence, capture markers or whatever).

So here are mine.

Quite a rare occasion to show fully painted battleforce actually...

The first one is anti-tank group:

Local players like heavy armour a lot, in fact it's nothing unusual to see 2 tanks on 1000 pts games. Therefore I became tank allergic...

Sure it's fun to use large squads but when confronted with German armour, my infantry melts like snowman in March...

So the remedy is solid anti-tank punch:

- 2 bazookas,

- Hellcat and Greyhound (light AT gun but still counts),

- AT atrillery,

- air support,

- flamethrower (in case shit gets really thick and REALLY close).

In my opinion it's solid and reliable force but during Berlin game had not much chances to show what was it worth because scenarios' specific conditions. Nevertheless these work just fine in local conflicts:

The other one is something way more funny: 

the core is almost the same but AT vehicles were replaced with nasty Jeep and Sherman Calliope: really like that model and it brings lots of randomness to the game. And sheer terror...

The other thing is mounting 2 infantry squads on transport vehicles - also really nasty thing especially if the scenario allows outflanking...

What next?

I'd like to deal with remaining infantry (paint them or sell) and one more tank. In the future I'd also like to add one more anti-tank gun (this time heavy) with a tow. We'll see.

Some more real estates on the battlefield

Hey again,

Looks like our Bolt Action battlefield is more-less complete:

I think at this stage we have all terrain features we need - thank to invaluable support from Black Grom Studio. Sure, there are things I'd still like to add (river, bridge, small bits to make the scene more "alive") or modify (woods, hedges, roads) but it's nothing urgent.

So the last hdf constructions added onto the field of glory are tiny huts: nice, useful, quick & easy to assemble. Assembling the bits takes some white glue, as for finishing walls and roofs - the walkthrough was posted bit earlier.

That's it for now. Must say it was cool thing to work on terrain pieces intead of miniatures (for a change). Lesson learnt: it takes much less time than it might appear to prepare nice looking bits of terrain for the battlefield, all you need is simply start.

The dirty piccies:

Building are still on the hobby desk assembled, weathered and heavily sealed (these are gaming pieces after all). Models for scale purpose:

And current battlefield including new buildings. Looking forward to face Nazi paras there and give them lesson of US democracy!