Monday, September 09, 2013

Latest WWII Output


After a couple false starts, my minor reboot of my WWII skirmish forces has been a great success. I'm quite satisfied with my work on these figures - or at least as satisfied as I can be, given that I'm trying some things for the first time - and I'm really liking using Artizan for the vast majority of my figures. They're full of character, and, of course, they all scale well with each other.

I've now got sufficient forces painted up for a game of Operation Squad. I've been focusing my efforts on finishing up a couple terrain projects - hedgerows and a farm complex, namely - and am very close to having a game-ready collection. The RPG campaign I've been running with my wife since 2010 is due to wrap up in the next couple weeks, after which I see lots more time for minis gaming. I can't wait!

In the meantime, here's what I've got painted up so far: a British rifle squad, Vickers HMG, and light mortar team (all Durham Light Infantry), and two German Aufklarungs half-squadrons (Panzer Lehr). This is actually slightly more than I need for a game of OS, but it gives the British side some nice force-building options.

I got to take my first crack at splinter camo pattern on the helmets. It ain't great, but it's a good start.

That squad leader front and center is easily one of my all-time favorite minis. So much character: the cigarette, the Mauser pistol with the rifle stock attachment, the wristwatch - he's even got an Iron Cross hanging from his throat. Plus his smock gave me more opportunity to work on my splinter camo technique.

Despite previous posts decrying fancy basing, I decided to have some fun with the support weapon bases. In the words of Doc Holliday, apparently my hypocrisy knows no bounds. 
It wouldn't be Normandy without some dead cows, so why not incorporate it into the light mortar base?


I did a little conversion work with the infantry here - Artizan Brits don't sport any netting on their helmets, and it was fairly common in Normandy, so I modeled some on a select few - another goal of mine is to get handier with sculpting putty.
I also couldn't resist taking a crack at painting up a Panther. This was my first pass with painting 1/56 scale armor, and I quite enjoyed it. For the camo I employed a mix of airbrush and drybrush. I expect that as my airbrush skills get better, I'll use that more and more until eventually that's all I'll use for the base colors. I'm also thinking about adding some foliage to the hull and turret.

The tank commander is mounted on a rare earth magnet, so he's removable and movable.


I've gone ahead and ordered some more vehicles and guns (250/1 halftracks for my German scouts, an 88, a 6-pounder, etc.) and will be adding a painted squad of Brits and some support elements to each side in order to enable games of NUTS! or perhaps Chain of Command (which I have yet to check out but looks totally awesome). Pictures of these reinforcements will follow as they're completed, of course.

The title for the British edition of NUTS!

6 comments:

  1. I'm also working at cranking out some minis for platoon level gaming.

    Someone just loaned me a copy of Operation Squad. Not read it yet.

    Your minis look good.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey, thanks!

      What I like about OS is that it takes so few figures to get a game going. I've heard the game kind of loses its heart once you go beyond the initial setup of one squad versus one squad, which is why I'm looking at other systems to do higher-level engagements. I had a lot of fun with Baptism of Fire about 10 years ago, but Chain of Command sure does look spiffy.

      Delete
  2. These look spectacular.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I'm currently putting together a Paper Terrain farm complex, and once that's done I'm hoping to get some games in with these guys. Hopefully sometime this month. Pics will follow, of course.

      Delete
  3. That's awesome -- can't wait to see the pics of the game!

    (p.s. blogger appeared to eat my comment the first time, so if you get two comments along these lines, I apologize)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've got my comments set to auto-moderation for posts older than two weeks, so they go into a little rabbit hole to await my go-ahead. (It would be nice if Blogger would actually let me know when this happens, but for some reason it doesn't.)

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...