M16 MGMC

After providing German army with the pink love machine the time has come to get something nice for the US force. Especially because I want to try something new on enemy Italians...

The general idea is to save some precious points by replacing "normal" tank by mobile AA battery - Italians use mostly light vehicles so HMG battery supported by anti-tank gun should be enough for them. And once again I've found something cool in the Warpainter's offer.

Must say the model available there is much better then Warlord's - much sharper and better detailed. There was some spare space around the gun so I also got stowage set - just to add some shames and colors to make whole piece look (hopefully) more interesting.

The turret you can see has been salvaged from the failed Krautmower project - that model has never seen the battlefield anyway so it became perfect candidate for parts donor. 

The turret is metal (Warlord) and I prefered some extra weight on the back, instead of printed battery. The barrels have been replaced with thin rods - original barrels are just way too bendy for safe transport and gaming.

I was pretty satisfied about the paintwork - it was pretty clean and bright, but when weathering came I just got carried away... Again... On the other hand war is a dirty hell 🙄

That's it for now, time to roll the new toy out and shoot some nazis... 💀

Panzerkinder found new home

Apparently there won't be much painting from me in the next 2 months, due to my preparations to the state exams, which doesn't mean there's nothing to spam about.
There is actually ^^

A while back I put some of my Bolt Action stuff for sale - not that I came back to commission painting but there's not much hobbyspace in my new location, and these are models which are not compulsory choice in US army.
Last week fellow blogger (actually: "bloggess", 'cuz she's a girl,that's correct: a girl painting stuff, playing games and running US army!) asked me about the stuff for sale.
But instead of selling it I exchanged models below for some other vehicles - US army feels kinda sad  without anti-tank support...

You're seen these before. Hellcat got some extra dirt for new owner's special request.
Hope  she's gonna have lots of fun smashing nazis with new toys ;-)

Paras sent to liberate France

Hello,

This time there're only fresh photos of old stuff.
Last week my patatroopers found new home in France so before they were packed I took keepsake family photo of the squad.
All in all they are cool and reliable unit (and my first purchase from Bolt Action range if I remember correctly) but after year or so of playing I realised they just don't fit my vision of US force. I simply like ordinary troopers better.

Good news is the buyer already has solid paratroopers force so I am quite sure the guys will get along in no time.

What else?
Oh yeah, more pictures.

After sending paratroopers there was inspection of rest of my Bolt Action toys and it looks like there are two more pieces which I don't use too often, which could actually be changed into something fitting ground force better.

First one is M3A1 halftrack:
solid combat taxi, big enough to cary full squad of infantry:

The next one - M3A1 Stuart:
nasty piece, really: pretty cheap in points and armed with deadly flamer: 12" of range + 9" advance makes it just terrifying:

And mentioned before these were painted a while ago but in my opinion both look way better on printed background, than just standing on my messy hobby desk.

If you are interested in any of these from me a message or visit FB Bot Action buy/sell group for M3A1 halftrack and for M3A1 Stuart.

And finally paratroopers - good luck in France!

US engineers

Heyah,

It's been a while since the previous post but I wanted to get whole unit finished.
This afternoon the last member of the team has been sealed so I can proudly present engineers squad. The guys were baptised by fire during the last 4-players game, still unpainted, but after seeing what terror they can spread among enemy units the decision was made to paint full squad.

The squad is mix of models from Warlord Games, West Wind Productions and Black Tree Designs. At closer look there are slight differences between the brands but minis look just fine alltogether in my opinion. Really hope to torch an enemy vehicle shortly with that puker...

I need a break from painting Bolt Action stuff. The army is nearly finished but I am getting bored with those uniforms. Really wouldn't like to loose enthusiasm for bringing whole project to the end. At this point I think there are like 20 infantrymen left (including bazooka and 57mm gun teams) and 2,5t truck. More than enough for the scale of games we play here.

What else? Recently during walk with my kid I found some sticks in the park and decided to turn them into something useful. Gaming-useful that is...

I cut them at more less inch-long pieces, attached to pcv bases with lots of polymer glue and after adding some sand I got 4 really useful terrain pieces. Not enough to hide a tank but definitely enough for sneaky flamethrower or bazooka team.

And the last thing: Photobucket recovery.

Since whole post is Bolt Action-related I chose M3A1 halftruck painted in December 2016. Since it was finished I used it many times and it's quite reliable piece: it can carry large squad, has pintle-mounted heavy machine gun (I even managed to immobilize enemy tank with it once!) and you can buy additional medium machine guns (waste of points in my opinion since these are no pintle mounted). The model is just really cool nonetheless, the anti-aircraft version is on my secret x-mas wish list.

Hope to bring a big zombie next time...

Armageddon finally comes

Hey again,

It took a while to assemble something and update the bloggy with, but I guess it's still better than nothing. I didn't expect whole the study project started this year would become such a time consuming black hole.
Hobby time that is.

But the Rubicon has been crossed and money spent so all I can do now it trying to benefit as much as possible on the whole thing, and get it finished the best way possible.

So as for the hobby matters:
a while back Shadow War: Armageddon was released.
I must admit I didn't give a f%ck about it initially, as much as I don't really care about "modern" EE releases. In my book GW released most of their interesting models in ~90's, and later it was just getting worse.
But my trusty old foe is less radical and he purchased copy of rulebook. It turned out new edition made oldie Necromunda rules smoother and more game-friendly (at least that's what he says), so we decided to give it a try. Besides it would be nice to take a deep breath of fresh, toxic air from ash wastes after recent months of Bolt Action gaming.

After browsing gangs available the only acceptable choice for me was Chaos (what a surprise...). Not only because evil armies are usually more cool that goodie-goodie ones, but also because I could base the war party on models which has been waiting for some action for a long time: mostly on Nurgle combat patrol, painted for the contest some time ago.
For cultists I chose 2 scavvies  models and mad cultist from old RAFM line. They fit the group really nicely and are perfect candidates for full member servants ov Khaos.

I am quite surprised until now there was no occasion to test those rotten guys in action, hope Papa Nurgle will be satisfied about their service.
And number of souls they will provide for everlasting Chaos glory (Ia! Ia! Ia!)...

So, ladies and gentlemen: Armageddon finally comes!

And we're back on the ground, in Europe invaded by evil Germans.
Some time ago I added a jeep to my small force - haven't used it yet, but the idea is to arm it with medium machine gun and give it a role of pain-in-the-ass-intantry-hunter.
On the battlefield I often see small enemy units or single characters staggering quite safely - such tinies are easy to hide and often - not worthy of attention of whole units or tanks.
That ends now hopefully.

But at this stage I am trying to get it assembled. While attaching wheels, driver and shooter was not a big problem, installing machine gun definitely is: it's quite small element standing on thin stick and I am quite sure unless I make something up there might be a problem with transporting the piece on the battlefield. Obvious thing would be using pin to connect the gun with shooter's hand, but it might be risky - even using 0,6mm drill.
I am also considering replacnig metal gun with spare placcy from M3A1 halftrack (I have no idea what happened with photobucket - pics are not displayed on blog anymore but they work if you click the miniature.)

Any ideas are more than welcome.

And the last thing - I managed to paint something!
Very small something but it still counts for annual statistic...
Last week buddy of mine opened own office, so I thought I can support him with big bottle of something tasty and self-painted lucky charm. It is said frog sitting on coins brings luck in business.
We'll see.

Thant's it for now, hopefully see ya next month!

Bolt Action in action!

Hey again,

Last month turned out to be absolute painting success in 2016 - at the end of a day 10 pieces were moved from the shameful pile.
It was mostly caused by Bolt Action stuff. I wasn't sure about these sculpts while browsing rulebook for the first time but now I know the game and miniatures range has the potential. It's just nice to finally see all models properly scaled, without stupid skulls or spikes plus WW2 vehicles are damn cool. Mechanics is also nice change after years spent in Necromunda's ash wastes. My only regret is models from other manufacturers than Warlord and Artizan are damn hard to get here. Oh well - at least there's not much stuff required to play 700-1000 pts games.

So since the previus post my US force got some painted support.
First piece is paratroopers light machine gun team. The guys originally come with separate bases but I decided to place them on single 60mm round one.
For several - mostly practical reasons: I could add some more terrain features, gun barrel doesn't stick out beyond bases edge so it's safer in transport, models are connected by ammo belt - it's pretty fragile element and I wouldn't like to see it broken off after a game or two.

I tried to keep the very same color combo as on the other paratroopers - not sure it has much in common with original uniforms but it works just fine for me. Warlord made smart move with releasing boxed unit: there's 10 models inside, everyone has different pose so you can paint them all before getting bored.

Probably...

The other painted bit is the bazooka team:
While I like paratroopers sculps a lot I cannot say the same thing about all minis from regular infantry line. I guess it's because I haven't got used to them yet.

Painting faces is much more demanding then in other brands I've been collecting so far - since models are properly scaled the faces are much smaller seem to be less defined than in EE line for example. Nevertheless I don't need these two for beauty contest but rather for ripping off enemy vehicles so there's no plastic surgery planned anytime shortly.

And the last piece - the model I like a lot and wanted to see it in my army since I chose playing US: M3A1 halftrack.
I just love the idea of it and the design, period. Really have no idea how it's gonna act in the field but the concept of 3 medium machine guns + heavy machine gun running through battlefield and gunning down enemy infantry is  just sweet. Terrifyingly sweet!

Base colors are same as used on Sherman and M8 scout car but this time some more washes and dirt were applied. There's also less chipped paint and thick mud on tracks - which is something I might work on sometimes later.

Painting this toy was fun - sadly there's probably only one more vehicle I might see in my force ever.  I decided not to glue machine guns yet since I have no idea how it's gonna perform in action.

And the maxitaxi equipped with maximum firepower.

And last but not least - we've finally managed to play Bolt Action match!
Even though only I read the rules we still managed to have lots of fun: rules are playable, game quite unpredictible and fast.

So far we managed to organize some terrain features: my opponent purchased some ruins, woods and lake, I made two more trees sets and some bushes. We placed all on oldie Warmachine dedicated table and whole everything looked much better than I expected:

And some more shots from the match: some questions were born during game mostly about visibility but I hope next time everything will work much smoother.

Cheers!