US APCs - or how I decided never to do decals again

 I had a thought. For my next project I would do a US Infantry armoured infantry platoon. US forces are not often on our battle fields and I've always thought they looked cool, too much time watching the Bridge at Remagen and Kelly's Heroes.

So a platoon is 56 figures in 5 M3A1 half tracks. I bought the halftracks from Dice and Decks - limited range but very cheap, they are the Warlord ones, and I bought a US infantry box and 60mm mortar from Perrys. Whole force will have cost £90 plus the tanks I'll get. I want Grants (or Lees - can never remember which was US and which was Brit and can't be bothered to look it up), however they only fought in North Africa and I want to use them for all the war. I'll probably end up with Grants and Shermans!

On to the pictures

The models were OK to build, provided you don't follow the instructions too closely. There are extensive decals and i added some of these, however the hood star was too big for me to apply without wrecking and therefore I used the last intact one as a template and handpainted them. Liberal dry brush hid the fact the stars were not that star like.

All have .50 cal HMGs and I made the gunners from the spares box. In theory each APC could have 3 additional .30 cals but that seemed a bit mad and so I gave the APC carrying the 30. cal section 2 extra ones to represent these guns.

Overall pretty pleased

Not content with WW2 APCs I had 1 more Vietnam vehicle to paint, a Gage Commander. This is from Empress and is a nice model

There are loads of pictures of these nad only found ensignia and marking on MP vehicles so let them off

It did get a name though, Lil' Abner. The crew were extra from Empress

Overall it's a nice model but as it's resign the flanks are too smoother to dry brush

Right off to paint US infantry

Unboxing a Warlord Games Mystery Box

 I do love a mystery box. I've started and finished many a collection with a Northstar Lucky bag, I do miss them, So around Christmas time Warlord were offering a mystery box for £45 with at least £85 of stuff in it. Be in no doubt that with will mainly be stuff they couldn't shift (the end of line and slow moving stock). But as you will be aware much of my collection is a bit random.

So here we go

A box, incase you didn't know

An open box with stuff

2 terminator genisys Sci Fi trooper sprues - nice addition to Sci Fi collection

Laser pointer, nice to have one of these

Cruel Seas Russian Bronekater with Katyusha. Don't play this but the club does so I now have side to play

Blood Red Skies, 6 Mustangs - don't play this but it's 6 aircraft for Flames. Although they are blue!

Jersey Barriers - useful

6 Dr Whos and K9 - who doesn't love Dr Who

Dice - can never have too many

Another pointer - line not dot

Char B1 Bis - Perfect for my French WW2 force

Judge Dredd Rules - have some figs for this, but no Judges

So overall only 1 miss (Mustangs) but uses for the rest even if it is just an interesting painting task. So I've been and checked out the prices and it adds up to £154 at full price. Marvellous

World War 2 Early French Army

It's been a while since I posted. Normally that means my mojo is away but not in this case. In the month since I last posted I have painted an entire 28mm Bolt Action 1940 French Army. I know you all say "WHY". You have an entire 6 year war to play and you pick a month in 1940 and you have painted an army that got totally pummelled.
Well the French Army was actually quite good, good equipment, excellent armour and interesting units to paint. The problem was that they were designed to win the previous war. The tanks were slow and the tactics were defensive and static. They were totally unprepared for Blitzkreig, everybody was totally unprepared for Blitzkreig,
Also Matt has a large early war German army so I have somebody to fight. So hold tight there are a lot of them

The whole army, 2 and a bit platoons of infantry, 7 tanks and armoured cars plus enough support

1st up couple of Hotchkiss MMGs, been trying for ages to find a use for the piece of concrete

Both warlord figs

Next up 2 medium mortars. The regular one is Warlord but the Senegalese one is a conversion from a VBCW one. The mortar is hand made and the figures are Border Reiver British with head conversions, Crusader figures come with spare heads, which is nice.

Warlord Games 25mm Light AT gun

Warlord 75mm artillery piece. Varnish still curing so a little shiny but I am very impatient

Boyes AT rifle. These used to be firemen in VBCW and I just painted the uniform the correct colours

Random officer types

Regular Infantry Platoon.

French infantry sections are 12 men strong with an LMG and a grenade launcher rifle that acts as a light mortar or a rifle. Figures are mainly Warlord with a few Crusader minis. SMGs were incredibly rare in the French infantry and there is only 1 in the whole army

 4 Senegalese sections. These are the reason I started the whole project. I really like colonial troops and these were a Crusader bargain.

Next up the armour

Panhard 178 with light AT gun and MMG - Warlord

Somua S35 tank with 47mm AT and MMG - Blitzkreig

I do like the camo

2 relic FT17 tanks. Whilst the French had 400 of these they knew they were colostomy and they only fought right at the very end. They are only armed with MMG and have been repurposed from the VBCW collection. Think  rubbish, slow moving AC

Finally Char 1 Bis platoon - Italieri boxed set

These are both great and rubbish. Slow, very well armoured with 47mm AT and 75mm howitzer, Think cross between a Matilda and a Lee

Overall it's an interesting army and will fight differently to my other forces. Off to play Matt at ther Battle of Hereford on Sunday, was supposed to be Saturday but England are still over in Japan and have to play some colonial types on Saturday. 

Austrian Hussars and an Armoured Car

I think this will be the trend for the next few months. I have loads of 10mm Austrians to paint and other random stuff to paint as the mood takes me. So as I sit and watch the Rugby World Cup I will paint and type

So the Austrians 1st. Hussars are mad, the uniforms can be almost dayglo and very pretty in a psychedelic way, think Donovan on a horse

The Austrian Army I'm building is the one from the Battle of Lobositz, 1st big battle of the 7 years war and there were 2 Hussar regiments in the vanguard. Hadik Hussars on left and Banayaya Hussars on the right

Banayaya Hussars - Lime green, red and light blue. FFS just get the LSD off them, I have a battle to fight and I need them to hide in a paint factory

Hadik Hussars, much more natty in blue and red

To calm down I'm building a and early French WW2 army in 28mm. already have a couple of FT17 tanks and to complete the armour this is a Warlord Panhard AC. Nice model and I even put decals on it

Right laundry, prepping for Monday's start of term and rugby to watch. Gonna be a steady weekend

More Random Stuff

Painting is occasionally randomly. Since I finished the Pontic army I've struggled to find something to paint. I have bought a load of 15mm figs from ebay - always risky but these are fine. 120 hoplites, 2 elephants, couple of artillery pieces (catapult and ballista) and some odds and sods. Top of this list is 50 mongol cavalry, always wanted a mongol army and this is a good start. Bascially I paid full price forthe mongols and everything else was free.
I've painted some of the odds and sods to add to the pontic army

Couple of bases of Galatians / Gauls

Unit of Persian archers

I've been slowly increasing the size of my Sci Fi collection. 

Pick up the APC from a bargain bin at the Border Reiver show, was a tenner and is resin. I added the gun, spare from a steam tank. Looks pretty good

 Couple of months ago Warlord were running a sprue sale and I picked up some Gates of Antares sprues, and some moderns, for £1 each. These will match up nicely with my Hasslefree figs to give me a sinister regular inf squad.

A robot thingy, don't have a significant sci fi gaming knowledge

from behind!

Infantry, black with electric blue visors

These are a doddle to paint and look good with a foundry charcoal black dry brush.

I've been reviewing my lead mountain and it's pretty small, relatively speaking. If i never by another figure then i've enough for 2 painting challenges. But then again I need a 15mm Marian Roman army to fight Mithradites (Christmas present I think), and I have a Norman army to finish painting.