Painting table updates

As I mentioned yesterday, it's been a while since we've had a painting update (or many updates at all come to think of it). Please excuse the rushed photos... I had millimeters left on the battery so had to rush, which has led to some shoddy, slightly out of focus bits, or edges of the backing paper. Oh the shame! When I get some of the terrain done I need to do better photos of everything anyway.

While doing some tidying up a few weeks back I came across yet more plastic Russians... it is amazing how many of these guys you get in a box! There were enough parts for a couple more riflemen, a panzerfaust, a sergeant/smg, sniper team, AT gun and a commissar!

With the Russians finally, finally done I decided to move onto some of the Crooked Dice bits I picked up at Salute this year.  The second figure in the first photo is supposed to be a power pack for a laser (second model in the second photo), but I felt these worked better as a radio operator and an LMG, so that is what they are. I've no idea why the fourth figure in the first photo has forest camo trousers, but he felt more like a commando style guy, rather than the SAS look you get by putting the gas mask heads onto the Department X troops. At some point he will get some 80's style army companions

Facing off against Department X is the dastardly Generalisimo Stanly, named that mostly because he looks a bit like Stan Lee... His minions are still sat in the painting pile and will probably end up looking like extras from the A Team in their green jump suits.

Movement on the Eastern front...

 

I've seen a number of people over on the Lead Adventure forums moaning about the Bolt Action plastics... after working on these russians and the commandos from a few weeks ago I can only assume that these gentlemen are used to one piece metals as the kits are fantastic. Ok, so some of the faces are on the podgy side and some of the detail isn't quite as sharp as the recent GW plastics in some places, but I'm very happy with their quality. 

The Russian box comes with enough parts to make 40 models. You read that right.. 40 models for less than the price of a Space Marine tactical squad. That's enough to make a 500 point Russian army list with a few figures to spare!

Speaking of GW and their plastics... I wanted to add a bit more character to this mob of Russia's finest raw recruits and make them stand out a little bit more. What could be more characterful than someone waving a big ol' banner? This flag is from the Empire State Trooper's box and I appear to have loads of them for some reason. My only regret is not taking the time to cut off the Empire arm and use a Bolt Action one instead as the scale is *slightly* off, but not noticeably so.

 

The one down side to the box is that you get quite a few soldiers laying down on the job and in an infantry platoon this just doesn't cut it, so they will have to become snipers and spotters. Originally this guy was part of a sniper team, but it soon became clear that fitting two people on one of these bases wasn't an option and one person on a transparent cavalry base just looks stupid!

Workbench update

Work on the Challenge entries has slowed down somewhat this week, so I thought I'd post a bit of a WIP update instead. The current batch of toy soldiers to work their way across the mess that is my painting table are some Warlord plastic Russians with a mystery addition in one of the photos. These guys will be used as a second Bolt Action force as well as allowing me to take our Achtung! Cthulhu game to the eastern front.

So far, these are my favourite entries and have recieved a lot of care and attention... and they aren't even finished yet. Not by a long shot!