AB 20mm US army - more progress

Things have slowed down a bit for the Christmas and summer holidays, but I've managed to keep the US infantry platoon project for Chain of Command slowly moving along.  Another twelve figures painted and all the figures painted so far are now varnished and bases flocked.  I'm close to the halfway mark with the figures, but that's not counting the vehicles and guns.  It never ends....

There are thirteen riflemen finished, so another 17 to go for a core platoon, plus another ten if I want an additional squad for support.

A baker's dozen of riflemen

I have painted six BAR men, partly in anticipation of playing the '29, Let's Go!' pint sized campaign, where all squads can have two BARs.  Looks like you can never have enough of those.

I've made more than enough Lieutenants, Sergeants and Corporals for a core platoon, but in anticipation of needing a Corporal for a support squad and additional junior leaders for support weapons I've added a few more.

Senior leaders on 40mm x 20mm bases and juniors on 20mm rounds.

And to keep some variety to the paint job, I've made up a bazooka team for the platoon HQ and a 30 cal team as a support option.

Next in the paint queue are more riflemen, another bazooka team and the FOO team.  Onwards!

Aussies sir...fousands of 'em

Well, not quite thousands, but a platoon plus force for Chain of Command at least.  Here are the Eureka Australians in slouch hats.  Figures are finished but bases yet to be done.  As I said earlier, I much prefer these sculpts over the ones with helmets, but there are enough decent sculpts with helmets to give me 4 sections, enough for a full platoon and an additional section for supports if needed.  The figures will get a coat a gloss varnish (Tamiya acrylic Clear X-22), then when properly dry a coat of matt varnish (the unbeatable Testors Dullcote).  Flocking of bases after that and then these boys are ready for the table.

Owen guns aside, these should also pass off as Chindits.

Come on you Aussies....Pacific Chain of Command

My regular group of gaming friends are mainly board game players.  Wargamers, but board gamers rather than miniatures.  Many have commented on the miniatures games I've run at our monthly meeting at Paddington RSL in Sydney and several have expressed an interest in playing something in the Pacific.  So with this in mind I'm putting together an Australian and Japanese platoon with some supports (and scenery, of course).  I searched for 20mm figures and found a few Australian sets out there, but the most comprehensive seemed to be from Eureka.  I must say I had a few reservations about the Australians based on the Eureka website, some of the proportions looked a bit off.  In particular large heads and some of the faces seemed very caricatured.  On the plus side they had sets with helmets and with slouch hats and my thinking was these would also work as British for Burma, including Chindits.

First off I started on the figures with helmets.  My hunch was right on some of the proportions.  Not all figures, but some have to my mind horribly caricatured faces; heads that are too big and helmets that are too small.  Then there are others that I really like, so it's a mixed batch.   I also wanted to hold final judgement until I had some paint on them. Overall then, with the exception of one or two figures I'm happy with the way they look.

My order included the bren teams in slouch hats (I had ordered them in helmets), but I so liked these figures I was happy to keep them.  The slouch hats either hide the large heads or have been sculpted differently, either way these figures look much better proportioned.  I have an order of more figures on the way, this time with slouch hats, so I'll be interested to see if this applies to those figures as well.

Interestingly the Japanese don't seem to suffer from the same problem despite being from the same sculpture, the only figures with over sized heads are the NCO/Officers.

So here are some work in progress pictures of the first two sections.  I'm particularly happy with the way the bases have turned out.

A Senior leader, Junior Leader and section with some initial paint on.

Figures painted and first stage of flocking finished. 

Bases and figures finished.  Two sections plus a Senior Leader ready for the table.

The full platoon in various states of painting.  

Last, but not least, I've carried out an initial trial for my first Japanese figure to try and get the uniform colour the way I want it.  The Vallejo Japanese uniform mix is way too yellow to my mind and I'm looking for something more Khaki.  This is heading in the right direction:

"Banzai!"

Dig In!

I've been wondering how best to represent entrenchments on the table and I've opted for two different approaches.  AB Miniatures do some very nice entrenchments and half figures to match.  I thought these would work very well for times when a side is on the defensive and likely to stay in their entrenchments for most if not all of the scenario.  On the other hand there are times I need a bit more flexibility and so wanted a way to put full figures in entrenchments but move them easily if I wish.  For the latter I've made up some entrenchments that are not really holes in the ground, more above ground barriers, but they will work for gaming purposes.

So first up the ready made entrenchments and occupants from AB.  These are the British Airborne figures in an early stage of painting:

The entrenchments themselves are separate casts and what I've done here is mount them onto a piece of MDF and blended them in by using filler.

The dried filler was then coated with PVA glue and sand applied.  Once dried they were primed and ready to paint.

Once figures and entrenchments were painted, the figures were glued into place and the bases flocked.  Here are the British Airborne safely ensconced in their new homes.

I was happy with these, so also invested in a set for regular Heer Germans and British:

Pea Dot Cammo

Ah, the SS......what to do?  I'll be honest, these are not something I delight in having in my collection.    After all, this lot are Hitler's ideological warriors - the armed enforcers of the twisted, Nazi world-view.  So, what's to like?  Well nothing really, that is save their uniforms.  There are some great camouflage schemes that scream out to anyone who fancies their skills at painting miniatures to have a go at reproducing.  So with the flimsy excuse of playing the Operation Martlet Chain of Command pint-sized campaign that features the 12th SS, I thought here was an excuse to try to paint up a platoon.  These are AB Miniatures 20mm SS and they are beautifully sculpted and cast figures.

I took my inspiration for how to paint these from the Too Fat Ladies Christmas Special 2015 and a very useful article by Ben Fiene on painting German camouflage.  So all credit to Ben for the guidance.

Various schemes applied to these late war figures

Overall I was happy with the way these were going.  To some extent the pea dot is over scale but I think for gaming purposes this works very well.  Anything smaller would be impossible to see from a distance.

Not much to show in progress, so here they are finished, based and flocked: