W/WW2 German reinforcements

One of my personal goals for this year's painting challenge was to try and build up my WW2/Weird War collection a bit and bulk out the Commandos and Heer that I've done over the last 2 years.

I picked up one of those pick and mix German army deals from Warlord a while back with some discount vouchers, grabbing some grenadiers and pioneers to mix and match parts for a more ragtag looking late war feel where uniforms wold have been all over the shop.

The pioneer set is a pretty good deal, with lots of plastics as well as a few metal figures and conversion bits. Some of the metal components really don't seem to fit the plastics though, so I'm not entirely sure how they are supposed to work. One of my favourite models in the set is the Goliath. At least the German's remote controlled bomb was better than the Russian bomb-dogs, even if it was significantly slower. There is also an engineer laying down showing off his nice new hedge clippers

The box set also has an anti-tank rifle team for some of those heavy infantry squads that will no doubt appear if I ever get a game in.

We have an MG42 team that can either be put into one of the infantry squads, or take one of the riflemen and turn it into an MMG team for some more static support.

Supporting this is one 10 man squad of basic, rifle toting infantry, with one Panzerfaust for a bit of anti-armour if required. these are a combination of bits from the Grenadier and Pioneer kits. I know this gives a bit of a mish-mash of uniform styles that may cause some people to have sleepless nights, but I'm aiming for weird war here, rather than historical accuracy... so it doesn't really bother me much.

And a super assault-y elite infantry squad with an officer, 1 smg/panzerfaust and 6 assault rifles. By Konflikt rules, this is fine and dandy. I can even add the MG42 team to this to make it even more obscene. For normal BA games, these could be split across multiple squads or used as a very well (if not historically accurate) Volksgrenadier squad. In Achtung! Cthulhu these would either count as Black Sun Elite and remain as-is, or be split into pairs and spread across the Wehrmacht squads for a bit of additional kick.

Last night I got to play my first ever game of Bolt Action against another new player. We'd borrowed two forces from some of the regular players, so Matt ended up with a German force and I ended up with 1000 points of US troops to play with. I lost (as always), but there were some spectacular activations on both sides. My highlights were a tank hunter assault against a Panzer taking it out in very easily and an understrength infantry unit armed with rifles assaulting a building containing a maximum strength Volksgrenadier unit, armed to the teeth with as many assault rifles as is legally allowed in the squad.

This has given me a lot of inspiration to try and flesh out two full BA forces to play with. Unfortunately, it has also made me want to go back and improve them all as I can see a lot of problems with this lot and all the past squads. I also want to rebase everything that was on clear bases to match the ones above, otherwise mixing units is going to look off.

Winding back to '47 for a bit

In a dramatic change of pace for recent posts, we're now winding back to an alternate 1947 where WW2 is still going strong. These were originally bought to go with my Bolt Action Commandos, but with the release of Konflikt '47 they have changed purpose slightly...

I need to have a proper think about what I want my weird war to be. the Konflikt universe is... ok, but feels like a copy of Dust and SoTR blended together, with some of the more interesting things taken out and (to date) not all that much new added back in other than the automatons for Britain. I've been reading the Dust and Achtung! Cthulhu rpg books recently that make me want to go through and create my own timeline that picks the best bits form all of them to make it more interesting as I want to blend in mythos and magic with technology and super heroes.

Anyway...

The M10 Wolverine has remained unchanged, except for the addition of one of the Carrier crew being added instead of the provided gunners. While this is a really nice tank kit, I wasn't overly keen on the crew that came with it. There was something about the detailing that looked off compared to the rest of the Warlord plastics, so I decided to add one of the passengers from the Universal Carrier kit to the open turret and one of the tarps to the front for a bit of stowage.

One thing that I decided upon was that these tanks should look a little bit more lived in than would normally see service. The allies are also being pushed really hard, so all their older tank designs are rolling straight out of the factories and into the warzone without any markings as no-one has the time or resources to apply them any more. 

With Konflikt, the British forces gain more automated units as Turing turns his hand to robotics and advanced logic systems. An interesting one that is in the rulebook is an automated carrier. Technically these things are supposed to come with twin HMGs, but I decided that a twin bren on a larger hopper/turrety thing (who knows what it actually is) might be better than slapping some Imperial Guard machine guns on it. Besides which, these could feature armour piercing ammo and improved feed mechanisms, which equates to a similar thing. To make it look more like an automated thing, I've covered over the crew compartment and added some lens/light things to the front. I've no idea if it is supposed to retain the passenger section, but it is now.

And to put them in scale/context, here they both are next to two of the soldiers finished last month

Secrit Santas & an actual update!

So, it is that time of year where Chris, Ian and Cath start polling for the secret santas for this year. As always, I'll be in for both as they are the highlight of my year. Who doesn't like getting mystery presents through the post? Go sign up!

Which reminds me... I still owe a model for last year's Analogue painting competition too. Must get back to that one before this year's competition starts!

Speaking of getting back to things, today has been the first time in weeks that I've not been working (I kid you not), so it was nice to unwind a bit with some painting. My Commando force now has some slightly heavier support. The base is still waiting for some flowers to go on it, but nearly done. The white at the front is my impatience... so the glue on the grass was still wet when taking this photo ;)

Step back in time

With the recent release of Clockwork Goblin's Konflikt '47 and the beta version of Modiphius' Achtung! Cthulhu skirmish rules, I've finally managed to find the time between work projects to do a bit of painting and start to piece together some figures to go with the original theme of this blog and bring it back on track.

Here we have two British officers, a medic, comms officer and a body guard type. On the painting table is an Automated Carrier (a bren carrier with an AI driver from Konflikt '47) and an A10 Wolverine to provide some mobile support.  I just need to find some time away from learning to be a Scrum Master to put markings on the tanks and start the weathering process...

Scatter terrain

It has been quite a while since I've posted any new painting  and with the upcoming Analogue Challenge, I thought it was about time to get the brushes back out again and put paint to plastic (or MDF in some cases) to I wasn't quite so rusty. The first two are some bits of scatter terrain for use in a muddy English village, or a railroad town in the Old West. The well is one of the pieces of terrain provided with Dungeon Saga. Thanks to the Kickstarter bonuses, I have three of these; which I think is highly unlikely to occur in any adventures... 

The other piece of scatter terrain was this little chicken coop from Warbases. Again, destined for an English village circa 1943, or an Old West town.  One thing I have realised is that quick snaps with my iphone are not going to cut it for the painting challenge as the colours in these are well off. I'll take some better pictures when I clear off the dining table and set up the lightbox.

Cold Ones

 

Cold ones are semi-corporial shades composed of snow and ice; found only in areas of the bitterest cold these servitors stalk their prey by appearing near (or around) their chosen target and freeze them to death.

The models are from Modiphius' Acthung! Cthulhu range (again).

Cultists of the Old Gods

The next batch of Achtung! Cthulhu models to get completed are the cultists of the Old Gods

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!

MI57 recruits

Last week I mentioned that the figures turned up from the Acthung! Cthulhu kickstarter. As I was finishing off the commandos, I decided to paint up the two heroes that would fit nicely into the force.

They are shown here with some of the plastic Bolt Action figures for scale. Corporal Singh (right) is about right for a 28mm force, but Commander Harris (left) is really short. So short that in the bottom picture you can see the kneeling Observer is almost as tall!

Watch your head

I wasn't expecting to get the vehicle submission finished on time, but thanks to a last minute burst of inspiration, here she is.

This is a Luther walker from the original Dust Tactics starter set. H ad a spare Sigrid model laying around, so decided to make this walker her own personal one, which involved some careful prising apart of the top hatch.

 The Dust models are 1:48 scale, rather than the 1:56(ish) of 28mm figures, so it's not great placing the figures together. The vehicles on the other hand look fantastic next to the smaller infantry as it gives a much more imposing look on the battlefield.

Dust RPG

I woke up this morning to an interesting announcement from Modiphius, the producers of the Acthung! Cthulhu RPG... they have acquired the license to produce the official DUST RPG.Earlier this year, during their A!C kickstarter campaign, they approached Paolo Parente to produce an official crossover book as a bit of fun. It seems that book has been going so well that it's spawned a full RPG of it's own.

I like the idea of the campaign books including Tactics and Warfare scenarios as well as the RPG material, allowing for a good mass combat system to be in place when needed. According to the Modiphius forum, the RPG system will not be using any of the systems A!C currently supports; it will be using the dice and some of the mechanics from Dust Tactics/Dust Warfare. Having now read this, those new scenarios make more sense. There will also, apparently, be a guide on porting characters to/from DT/DW and the RPG system.

This raises an interesting question though... recently Paolo announced that Warfare and Tactics stats/campaigns would come bundled together in the future, allowing both systems to expand at the same rate. I wonder if this announcement will extend out to include RPG stats for new characters and units next year? It makes sense and would be a great cross-sell for everyone.

And now the official announcement.

British publisher Modiphius Entertainment has announced a licensing deal with Paolo Parente’s DUST Studio to create a tabletop roleplaying game set in the DUST universe.
Scheduled for Spring-Summer 2014, DUST Adventures will consist of a core rulebook and setting guide and will be followed by supplements and campaigns. The books will feature both new artwork as well as stunning photography of DUST miniatures.

The campaigns will also feature DUST Tactics and DUST Warfare missions allowing fans of the miniatures games and roleplayers alike to enjoy the DUST universe in new ways. The system being written for DUST Adventures draws heavily on the elegant systems of DUST Tactics, uses the same familiar dice, and aims to easily bring characters from DUST Tactics in to the roleplaying game or roleplaying characters in to your DUST Tactics or Warfare games.

Campaigns will explore the background behind the major events in the DUST universe as well as presenting new storylines for players. Allowing players to create heroes from the Allies, the SSU, or independent factions, the game system is designed for both first time roleplayers as well as offering advanced rules for experienced players.

From: http://www.modiphius.com/dust-adventures.html