Modern Spearhead- BAOR Chieftains and FV-432s

Work still slowly progresses with my 1/285 GHQ armies.  I have started on the British Army of the Rhine.  The idea being that I will have two small armies of less than a brigade strength each side, to play test the rules (Modern Spearhead).

I have completed 2 x Squadrons of Chieftains with an HQ Troop.  If the playtesting goes well then two more Squadrons will shortly be added to bring them up to armoured regiment strength.

In addition to the Chieftains, I have also completed a number of FV-432's for the mechanised infantry. Magister Militum are awaiting a delivery of some more which they will forward on to me.  I have painted what I have and hopefully this will suffice for a playtest game.  Two of the FV-432's are the variant with the 81mm mortar in the rear for the Support Company.

The last one is shown with an empty .22LR case for scale. :-)

I have some other units currently in progress.  I have a BAOR British Infantry Battalion at the basing stage and an RAF Tornado and Soviet SU25-FROGFOOT in the painting stages.

I will be very interested to see how the rules playtesting goes.  It is something I have been looking forward to for months.  If the rules are good, this will assist the painting process no end.  I always find that successful rules testing inspires a painting overdrive.  I am longing to get back to 28mm figures though, and the thought of painting the new 28mm British Infantry from Warlord Games isn't far from my mind!  However,  real life is particularly busy at the moment, so whatever I do next - playtesting or painting - neither had better be too time consuming!

Modern Spearhead - T-72 M1 Soviet Armour

The latest from my painting desk: T- 72 Tanks.

In fact 2 x Battalions worth of T-72 M1 tanks with reactive armour:

These are for my Soviet army for the Modern Spearhead rule-set. That's the plan anyway.  I have never actually played Modern Spearhead yet, but I have read some mightily impressive blog reports (including the posts by the very talented Aaron alias Prufrock at 'Here's no great matter' blog) which makes me think that the rules will give me all I am looking for in a large divisional sized action, with associated rules for helicopters, aircraft, and such nasties like CBRN weaponry (and even tactical nukes....hmmm might leave those in storage!).

To get a better picture of the Cold War in the mid-1980's, I'm also reading 'Air Battle Central Europe' By Alfred Price. A very interesting (if really scary) section is from the interview with the head of NATO's 2nd Allied Tactical Air Force, where he states that a war between East and West breaking out commencing with conventional weapons would have to turn nuclear within 3 to 4 weeks, primarily because all stocks of expensive bombs and conventional missiles having been expended!

I'm now working on several battalions for the British Army of the Rhine so hopefully I can play test soon. Assembled already (I just couldn't wait!) is a Panavia Tornado and a SU-25 FROGFOOT.

I couldn't resist doing another 'scale-shot'. This time with a Vallejo paint bottle to demonstrate how 1/285 looks again.  I should be able to get loads of armour in this scale on the board without it looking like a Napoleonic battle with tanks!

I think next months major purchase will be 1/285 scale buildings and roads. These will be in resin though so I shall skip the nice but expensive GHQ buildings. Having said that it's the 'Overlord' Wargaming show at Abingdon next Sunday so goodness knows what I'll come back with!

Modern Spearhead - Cold War Soviets in 1:285

A ZSU-23/4 - a lovely model this one

It's time for a change of historic period and this time it's quite a drastic one.  It's quite a move away from the Wars of the Roses!  I recently took the plunge and purchased 'Modern Spearhead'.  Having got the rules and read them through it was time to get the models.

BMP-2

 I decided to start off with a Soviet Armoured Regiment from the mid 1980's.  This had the added benefit of the Russians still using a plain green instead of camouflage (unless my sources are incorrect!).  So I thought that painting might be considerably easier with one basic colour.  I duly sent off a good sized order to Magister Militum and ordered the GHQ 1/285 vehicles.  I have to say how impressed I am with the amount of detail in such a small model. The sculptor must have eyes like a hawk!

BMP-2  side view

I was also impressed by how little flash there was on the model.  Just a little scraping with a sharp scalpel and I had prepared a BMP Motor Battalion in no time at all.

Just like a Soviet Red Square parade - Another BMP-2

I used a painting method shown in the handy GHQ catalogue which came with my order.  I used a base coat of the main colour without highlighting. I used a grey for the tracks.  A liberal coating of a thin black ink wash was applied all over.  When dry this was followed by the main colour applied again with a buff added to lighten the tone for the scale.  A dry brush of buff picked out the details and then I painted the details such as shovels, cables, worn metal work.  Some further weathering with mud etc followed that prior to varnishing.

The biggest difficulty was getting the main colour to look right for the scale (as with all models of course), in such a small scale I really didn't want the vehicles overly dark.  Under my painting lamp I wondered if I had gone too light, and then with the lamp off I wondered if I had gone light enough!  A tricky balance.

BTR-60  Regimental Engineer Platoon

I used 30mm by 30mm bases for these though I have since rebased some T-72s on longer 40mm x 30mm bases so the gun was not so exposed to bending/damage.

BRDM-2  Regimental HQ Defence Platoon

I used some of the grass patches which I had always thought looked too 'lawn-cut' for my 28mm figures. I'm very happy with how they look with 1/285 vehicles - so I can now use the box of grass patches again.

A scale shot

I find it is always easy to forget just how small 1/285 is.  I usually paint up 28mm figures so this is really quite a departure for me.  The one penny piece next to the vehicle illustrates just how much detail the sculptor achieved in such a small model.

Under the base markings

Each model will represent a platoon in Modern Spearhead. I have yet to finish labelling up unit details.  The main reason is that I was planning to cover the NORTHAG area of operations in Northern Germany and have the Soviets as 3rd Shock Army.  However, having placed an order of T-72s, I then discovered that 3rd Shock Army was probably completely equipped with a variant of the T-80.  This has thwarted my plans somewhat, so I need to find out if and what reserve divisions might have had T-72 (I knew I should have stuck to painting Romans!).

Soviet BMP-2 Motor Rifle Battalion

I'm really looking forward to getting to grips with Modern Spearhead and fielding very large formations on the table.  I find I learn new rules best with a few solo play-tests, so with a few units a side and I should get things moving.  I'll post my progress here as things develop.

War of the Roses Vignettes and Markers - Perry Miniatures

I didn't intend painting these chaps straight away when I ordered them, but when I opened the boxes I just couldn't resist getting the paints out.  In truth the paints were already out - I was halfway through a project but I stopped and put that project aside while I did these.

Simply being marker stands I should have wasted minimal time and just used washes and quick methods to complete them, but I just couldn't help using my normal more labour intensive techniques to see how they would look.  The sculpts just deserved the attention.  The pair of figures above (with helper in Edward IV's livery) was particularly rewarding to paint up. I thought the sculpting entirely believable - it just looks right! The wounded man-at-arms with his armour missing from his wounded left arm being helped away by a foot soldier from his own contingent could have come from a painting.  I did another pair with the helper in Warwick's livery which follows further on.

This unfortunate chap is another from the Perry's casualty pack.  This fellow from the Earl of Oxford's contingent has caught a longbow arrow.  I struggled with slight gloss sheen under the bulb with these photos. My previously most-trusted matt varnish has become unreliable.  I am still looking for the ideal paint-on matt varnish.  All of the figures shown in the post are from the Perry's War of the Roses metal range.

The figures are based on casualty bases made by 'Warbases'.  These are MDF and use a dial system to show the number of casualties.  I previously used the plastic bases by Forgeworld for their game 'Aeronautica Imperialis' but for reasons best known to themselves and Games Workshop, they axed their entire range and accessories.  The Forgeworld plastic bases were perfect for me as they had two dials.  Thus when playing Hail Caesar, I could keep track of Stamina and the Excess casualties on the same base.

As these bases have one dial only I created a square in the base texture for which will sit a small six-sided dice.  This will keep track of the Excess casualties whilst the dial will track the stamina.  Not the ideal solution but it is at least workable.

Ignore the strange blotchy colours around the base - I raised the base for the photo on an aerosol spray lid which I had once used as a painting pallette.

The Perry's provide a combination of men-at-arms as well as common foot soldiers in their casualty packs.

We have the vignette of Warwick's wounded to conclude with.  Livery design decals are by Citadel Six, the flora by Mini Natur, and the rocks by a company who made cat litter around 15 years ago (I still have some left but I'm going to have to buy some more!)

Hopefully I can now get back to finishing my previous project before I change historical periods. I've been solely painting War of the Roses for something like 6 months now and I feel a change coming on....

Star Wars X-Wing

This is something a little unusual for me - no historical figurines that I've spent weeks painting up!

My main Christmas present this year was the Star Wars X-Wing game.   I have always had a liking for the film Star Wars.  As a small child I made Tie Fighters from yoghurt pots and cardboard, and had them doing battle (probably by throwing stuff at them) with X-Wing fighters made out of shoe boxes and wonky cardboard wings.

Back in the present day, after having read so many blogs where the players obviously loved the X-Wing game, I decided to go for it.  It is quite a departure for me - No lines of scarlet clad infantry or blocks of medieval retinues standing beneath colourful banners.  This little project had the advantage of pre-painted models, so no distractions from the lead pile painting - it looked like I could be onto a winner.

I'm very pleased to report that I absolutely love it. What a superb game it is.  I won't go into all the rule mechanics but I will say that I was struck by the simplicity of the rules, and how it all flowed.  Someone has clearly worked very hard to design a game that is playable and an awful lot of fun.  It comes with a 'lite' version of the rules and the main rules. There isn't a huge amount of difference between the two so after a few lite games one can just switch with ease to playing the slightly more detailed version.

My regular opponent Ian visited at the weekend.  The plan was to play a game of X-Wing first so I could demonstrate it to Ian (not having played or seen it before) and then after that half hour we would play a large War of the Roses game with Hail Caesar.    Well, the Star Wars game was so much fun, we played four games of it instead and ran out of time for Hail Caesar! There are three scenarios in the rule book and we played two games of the first scenario and two of the second scenario.  Both were a lot of fun.  The highlight for me was getting my X-wing fighter to pop out behind an asteroid at just the right moment to deliver a close range volley (probably not the correct sci-fi term...I am a historical gamer after all!) into the front of an Imperial Ace pilot's Tie Fighter - delivering 3 hits and causing an instantaneous explosion of Tie Fighter!

Now of course we are talking of getting double size playing area, several squadrons of fighters each and some larger spacecraft...it's amazing how quickly these things can get out of hand!

Comedy moment of the evening had to be the above picture. I couldn't resist giving the traditional stream of white smoke from the back of the hit Tie Fighter.  This lead to a discussion on how smoke trails would look in space (if indeed they are possible) and a retro-desire to have done slightly better at physics at school!

I can see X-Wing getting a lot of playing hours in on my board!

Edward IV's Bowmen - Wars of the Roses

Having enjoyed painting the Duke of Exeter's bowmen recently (see last blog post), my enthusiasm carried me on to paint another box of Perry's Wars of the Roses bowmen.  This time I painted Edward IV's men. For too long now my Edward contingent has been formed of his men-at arms, but backed up with Levy Militia billmen and ad-hoc crossbowmen and handgunners to give him the firepower.  Not any more though! These bowmen are a very welcome addition and further improve my Wars of the Roses collection.

Even though I had just completed a box of the Perry Bowmen, I still found it an immense joy to assemble, prepare and put the colours on them.  I still marvel at the detail of the casting and the characters one creates as they are assembled.  I could carry on with saying how good I think the Perry sculpts are, but I imagine you know that all ready!

The command group was enhanced by the banner set from Citadel Six.  I have become a big fan of their wonderful flags and banners.  The banners are transfers/decals which adhere to a metal sheet, which is carefully wrapped around the flag pole.  Flag poles are provided in their sets, but I decided to use the existing Perry's pole (largely because I had already painted it up!).  The flag went on with no trouble at all and I really like how it looks.

I used my rather labour intensive painting methods as used to paint the Duke of Exeter's bowmen.  It means it takes me a month of evenings (and some weekend days) to complete a 30 man unit but I like to get the figures looking as good as I can.  One can always go further with detail of course - but there is a point where you just have to stop if you want to finish them and see them on the table!

The paints used are mostly Vallejo and Citadel and Miniature Paints.  Basing flora is again by Mini Natur.

The livery badges on the fronts and rear of the livery coats are again by Citadel Six.  I'm getting much more confident in using these.  Despite their small size, they are easy to use if their detailed instructions are followed, a really sharp blade is used to cut them and decal softener is applied. I'm now happy to slice them apart to use where just a hint of badge shows, whereas a little while ago I would have tried to paint them on instead.

So what to paint next?  Well these were so much fun that yesterday I spent the entire day assembling and preparing the Perry's mounted Men-at-Arms set.  Today was the undercoating phase.  I would like to continue a bit longer with my Wars of the Roses collection before getting side-tracked into something else.

The inspiration comes each month when I drive up past the location of the Battle of Stoke Field.  I would like to have sufficient Irish and Mercenaries to form Lovell and Lincoln's forces, but so far only Old Glory appear to make the Irish and I have yet to examine those figures (O.G. can be very hit or miss!).

I'm also desperate to get into 'Chain of Command' and Spearhead (both WW2 and Modern).  2013 was supposed to see me make more progress with my AWI collection - this might have to wait a little longer. Being given the 'X-Wing' Star Wars game for Christmas is a wonderful distraction too, but thankfully the models being pre-painted it shouldn't impact on my major projects too much.

Here's to a great 2014!

Best wishes,

Jason