15mm Vietnam tests

I played a game with Ian and Steve at the Defenders club a couple of weeks back, of Force on Force, set in Vietnam, using Steve's collection of mainly Peterpig forces.  It inspired me to think about building a platoon scale force for the USA and possibly Australians, as well as VC and NVA.  I remembered that I had some odd Peterpig Vietnam figures that I had won in an ebay auction a couple of years ago, so thought I'd dig them out and try and paint them to see if I could get a result I'm happy with.  These are the result.

I figured I had enough for an HQ section, with an officer, medic, M79 grenadier and three M16 armed riflemen.  I read a few painting guides online and came up with these - the base uniform is Vallejo Russian Green, heavily dry brushed with Russian Green mixed with Deck Tan.  Helmets are Luftwaffe camo green with flat earth and Russian Green splodges.  Pouches are golden olive dry brushed khaki.  Boots are olive drab.  Some figures have red and white Marlborough cigarette packets taped to their helmets.

A rifle section of two 4 man fire teams, one with 2 M16 riflemen, an M60 gunner and M16 armed assistant, the other with three M16 riflemen and a LAW gunner, who also carries an M16.

The other section, organised similarly.

I also had two other figures, on the left a shotgun armed tunnel rat and on the right a downed helicopter crew man armed with a pistol.

The whole group.  A few more riflemen and there should be enough for a platoon scale action.

Thanks for looking.

Die-cast 20mm Taliban technicals

These are die-cast toy cars, Matchbox Datsun pick-ups and a pound store Ford pick-up.  The crews are Taliban AA HMGs (Dushkas) from Britannia.

 

Vehicles were undercoated light grey and then painted black green or ivory.  They were then distressed by dry brushing areas likely to be scrambled over or scraped with gunmetal.  Then specific areas were washed with strong tone ink mixed with a little orange ochre to simulate rust.  Windscreen and windows were painted azure and dry brushed white.

Figures are Blu-tacked in place, but I need to get some stowage to help hide the bases.

From the back.  You can see the dark red highlighted door, simulating a visit to the scrap-yard to replace a shot up original door on the Ford.  The Datsun branding was added in black grey or ivory.

Hopefully these will be making an appearance in Andreivia at the end of March.

As ever, thanks for looking.

20mm UK police

Armed British police officers from Elhiem (BAOR12/13/14).  They are armed with SLRs, Sterling SMGs, M1 carbine, G3, mini14 and pistol.  As they represent police of the 70's and 80's, they reflect a more sexist time, as the female officer carries nothing more dangerous than a radio handset.  I might have to add some of the figures from Underfire Miiniatures as they reflect more modern police officers, including armed female officers.

These were undercoated light grey, then painted NATO black, dry brushed black-grey.  Trousers and, in the case of the inspector on the right, coat sleeves, were then dry brushed medium grey.  Shirt sleeves were painted ivory.  Flat flesh for hands and faces and the WPC's legs.  Washed with Army Painter dark tone ink diluted 2:1 with acrylic thinner.  Faces and hands were highlighted in flat flesh.  Aluminium was used for cap badges and the inspectors shoulder pips.  Weapons are NATO black, dry brushed basalt grey.  I used dark tone ink undiluted on the WPC's legs to simulate the effect of semi-transparent nylons and added some flat red for her lips - well a girl has to look her best even if WW3 or the zombie apocalypse breaks out.  I have to say that painting the black and white checked pattern on the hats and the WPC's scarf was tricky and accomplished with much cursing.

A typical scene outside many military bases, especially in the 1980's, were armed military gate guards (in this case an SLR armed MP from Elhiem BAOR17) accompanied by police officers, usually unarmed though from my memory of the guards outside the old RM barracks in Stonehouse, the Royal Citadel in Plymouth or Bickleigh Camp on the edge of Dartmoor.

I guess there were similar sights in Northern Ireland, although the police officers would have been wearing a dark green RUC uniform.

The two MP figures from BAOR17, sporting some very topical moustaches, characteristic of the troops seen in archive images from the Falklands and also to be found on the top lip of yours truly in the 1980's.  These are painted as I did for the BAOR NBC section posted earlier.

These will be great for urban unrest, sci-fi (thinking Dr Who and UNIT here) and zombie scenarios, as well as protecting key military structures in the U.K. home area in the event of the cold war warming up.

Thanks for looking.

20mm Britannia Mastiff vehicle

At the end of November, Will kindly picked up a small order from Britannia for me at the Leeds show.  The order comprised an additional Viking apc to give me enough to mobilise a platoon, another SAS fireteam, some assorted Taliban HMGs to mount on technicals, and a Mastiff vehicle plus crew.  I intend to use the Mastiff as a bomb disposal vehicle, similar to the one used in Bluestone 42 (link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluestone_42 ).

I painted this one the same as my other British vehicles for Afghanistan.  Light grey undercoat, Iraqi sand basecoat, NATO black tyres dry brushed basalt grey, azure windows dry brushed white, all washed with Army Painter strong tone ink mixed with matt varnish.  Crew are painted as per previous posts.

Detail of the crew.

The front of the vehicle with un-bogging bars.

Still a few air bubbles require attention, but now I have some Milliput they will be dealt with.

As ever, thanks for looking

20mm Taliban heavy weapons

At the World Wargames show at Donnington Park I picked up some reinforcements for my Andreivian Turk/Taliban forces, a mixed bag of heavy weapons and AK infantry with light support weapons.  These are Britannia Miniatures Taliban from their Afghanistan range from Grubby Tanks.

First up a pair of DHsK 12.7mm HMGs in the AA role, each with three crew.  These Dushkas (Sweetie or Dear) will be providing some much needed air cover as well as some fire support in the ground role where needed.

These are three DHsK 12.7mm HMGs in the ground fire support configuration, again each with three crew.

Finally, three 81mm mortars, again, you guessed it, each with three crew.

I've used a variety of fairly drab Vallejo colours for these, mainly NATO black, basalt grey, blue grey, English uniform and Iraqi sand, with some combat jackets in US cammo green, cammo olive green and Tamiya NATO green.  Some dark reds, olive greens, white and yellow break up the more dreary colours.  All are washed in Army Painter strong tone with 2 coats of Vallejo matt varnish.

More Britannia infantry reinforcements to follow.  Thanks for looking.

British 16th Air Assault Brigade in 20mm

Last weekend at the Derby/Donnington Park show, I picked up a platoons worth of Britannia 20mm British Infantry from their 16th Air Assault Brigade in Afghanistan range.

The whole platoon, plus attached sniper, engineer and ATGM teams.

The sniper team.

The HQ section with (L-R) 51mm mortar, radio operator, officer studying map/documents, officer pointing and NCO pointing.

Rifle section (of which there are three), each comprising of two 4 man fire teams and a section NCO.  Each fire team comprises 3 figures with SA80 (one with a UGL) and a minimi LMG.  One fire team SA80 rifleman carries a slung AT-4 while the equivalent figure in the second fire team has replaced his SA80 for a combat shotgun.

The engineer team with NCO, mine detector and three SA80 armed figures.

AT team with two Javelin teams and an NCO.

One of the shotgun armed troopers.

The radio operator from the HQ section.

One of the NCO figures.

These figures from Britannia paint up really well.  They look a little stocky in the raw metal, but really take up the paint well and have lots of raised detail.  The uniform is painted Vallejo model air light brown with spots of a 50:50 mix of the light brown and English uniform, which is also used for the boots and body armour.  Weapons are painted Vallejo NATO black or Tamiya NATO green and flesh colours added.  Figures were washed with Army Painter strong tone ink diluted 2:1 with acrylic thinners. Once dry, they were dry brushed with Vallejo Iraqi sand, especially over equipment pouches, lapels, cuffs, webbing and to highlight folds in clothing.  Weapons were dry brushed Vallejo basalt grey.  Vallejo NATO black for goggles and straps with silver for mirrored goggle lenses and binocular lenses.  Base is Vallejo desert basing medium washed with diluted Army Painter strong tone.  The figures were finished with Vallejo matt varnish.

Looking forward to trying these out on the table top.  Presently hooked on Force on Force, so it will be a nice change to field a regular force rather than my more normal irregular Chechens and Taliban.  Now I've got to get hold of some suitable vehicles, plus GPMGs, medics and maybe a drone and crew!

Thanks for looking.

First 28mm Saga figure

I finally managed to get the first of my Saga army onto the painting table.  This is something of a first for me as it is my first ever 28mm figure, first Gripping Beast miniature and first Dark Ages figure of any kind.  Although the army I have to paint is Anglo-Danish, this figure is a Saxon warlord.  I've painted him to look quite important, with bejewelled scabbard and sword hilt as well as gold trimmed clothing to suggest he is a person of high rank, perhaps an exiled Saxon noble or even a pretender to the throne of a Saxon kingdom.  I used Vallejo paints and varnish on the figure.

Overall I'm pretty pleased with the way he's turned out.  Now I just have to work out how to mass produce figures to get multiple units painted up.  This has also given me the confidence to paint up the Warlord Games ECW Battalia that I received as a Christmas present last year.

Thanks for looking!

FoW Jagdtigers

It was a wet morning here, so a good time to get to work on a couple of Jagdtigers that Phil at the Defenders club wanted painted - in return for a troop of Churchills.  So, here they are, airbrushed in Vallejo Dunkelgelb primer with a web-like cammo pattern in NATO brown and NATO green proxies for the exact colours.  Tracks, tools and MG are picked out in gunmetal and beige brown for tool handles.  Air intakes were picked out in dark tone ink.  The commander is in field grey uniform with flat flesh skintone, black headphones and white and pink waffenfarbe.  They still have to be matt varnished, but that can wait 24 hours while the paint completely hardens off.

For the photographs, I tried to experiment with the camera settings.  The first image is a standard exposure using the auto and macro functions on the camera.  The depth of field is very narrow and large parts of the left hand model are out of focus.

So, I set the camera to manual aperture priority and whacked the aperture down to F22.  The image is much sharper with good depth of field, but underexposed and very dim.

So, I upped the ASA rating from 125 (standard setting) to 8000, which has given a much brighter and pretty much correctly exposed image.  On my screen the colours match pretty much with what the naked eye sees.

So, I got in close to see what the depth of field was like.  Looks like the tip of the gun barrel is just beginning to get a little fuzzy.

Then closer still.  The depth of field in this image is excellent - I'm very pleased with this one.

So, I'm convinced, aperture priority with the aperture stopped down and shutter speed 1/15th second or faster to minimise camera shake and the ASA/ISO rating up pretty high.  On screen, the pictures zoom a long way before getting too grainy as well.  The image has a feel for one of those propaganda images showing how the new wonder weapons were going to throw the allies back and lead them to the negotiating table.

Quite pleased with these, hope Phil is too.

As ever, thanks for looking.

Revell 1/144 scale Typhoon

I happened to call in to Hobbycraft on August Bank Holiday and impulse purchased this little kit for the princely sum of £2.  On opening the box, I was at first a little disappointed as the parts seemed really flimsy, there was a lot of flash and the parts were connected to the sprue by thick and chunky feeds.  However, the flash was easy to clean up with a craft knife and the chunky sprue connecters were easily filed down.  I found the kit straightforward but fiddly to put together, largely due to my sausage fingers.  In particular, the rockets are really fiddly and required some adept use of a pair of tweezers.

Once assembled (I used Humbrol polycement), I undercoated in Vallejo light grey primer, then painted the underside in light sea grey and the upper surfaces in medium sea grey with a tiny drop of Prussian blue added.  Reflective green cammo patterns were added and the wheels, prop, exhaust manifolds and cockpit bubble canopy painted in NATO black.  Yellow prop tips were added along with white fins on rockets and reflective green rocket bodies.  The cockpit was then painted in azure blue and white.  I added the decals supplied - again fiddly, but no problems - and used a matt varnish to seal paint and decals.  Finally, a gloss varnish for the canopy.

This should provide some much needed air cover for my FoW British companies.

The model with the box it is supplied in.

Looks OK to me!

Another view.

I then had an experiment with the camera settings to see what I could achieve with depth of field.  This picture was taken in manual mode with aperture priority set to F15, which allowed a 1/15th second exposure time, about the slowest shutter speed for hand held work.  The picture has much better depth of field, but the colours are more washed out than the others above, which I took on full auto macro mode.

I do like the extra depth of field though, this should help with photographing my 6mm/1:300 collections for the future, although I'll have to look at the lighting again.

As ever, thanks for looking.

FoW Henschel HS129

I painted this FoW Henschel HS129 for a friend, Phil at the Deeside Defenders club.  This is a nice little model, I think in 1:200 scale.  I sprayed the model in Vallejo grey primer, then the upper surfaces in Model Air Light brown and the underside in sky blue.  Next I picked out the panel edges in Model Air NATO black, which I also then sprayed to form the cammo splodges and used to paint the AT gun, prop bosses and wheels.  Finally, the cockpit canopy was painted NATO black, azure blue and white, while the prop bosses were painted white and red and the AT gun was dry brushed gunmetal.  I finished it off with a coat of matt varnish and picked out the glass in the cockpit with gloss varnish.  I was really pleased with the finish and so, thankfully, was Phil.  I'm looking forward to seeing it when he has put the decals on.

Apologies for the graininess of the photos but I took then on my phone.  As ever, thanks for looking.