Saga army finished at last

My main Christmas 2013 present from the missus was a 6pt Saga Anglo-Danish army from Gripping Beast.  I started work on them in September 2014 and I finally managed to complete the last unit a week ago, a little over 2 years after I started - how's that for progress?

The last unit completed were a group of 12 sling-armed levy.  I've kitted them out in some rather drab brown, beige and grey colours with some washed out greens and reds, on the basis they would be dressed in homespun  clothing dyed with natural materials.

The complete warband.  Levy slingers in front, two units of 8 unarmoured warriors in the second rank and a unit of 8 armoured warriors in the third rank.  At the rear is the warlord, armed with a Dane axe, plus a similarly armed unit of 4 hearthguard and a Saxon leader, representing an exiled Saxon advisor/hero.

From the front.

From their left flank.

From their right.

Looking through the centre of the ranks.

Bearing in mind the snails pace of progress on the Anglo-Danes, I have no idea when these will be wrapped up, but my son persuaded me to buy him a pack of Gripping Beast Late Roman plastics.  I tried painting one of the leaders and a musician as a try out.  I don't think they have turned out too badly and he seems pleased with them.  I was going to try and paint the shield designs by hand, but on seeing the decal examples from the Baggage Train, I decided to get a couple of packs to kit out the pack.  So the officers shield will need to be painted out in white before applying the decal.

 
So, with a big 6mm game coming up I've been finishing off the last of my 1980s Turks, in the form of an F-4 Phantom, my only air support, which is currently drying on the bench after being varnished.  Now to decide which is the next part finished project to wrap up.

As ever, thanks for looking.

6mm modern US aircraft

Continuing from the previous post on Russian aircraft, here is a flight of four A-10 Thunderbolt IIs (Warthogs).  Again, these were in the bring and buy box from Gauntlet.  I painted these up using the three colour scheme from the Team Yankee rule book, although I used Russian uniform, Gunship green and mig-grey.  The front two aircraft are from Heroics and Ros, the two behind are from another manufacturer and while OK are not great.  Whereas the H&R versions are modelled with hardpoints for weapons load outs, the other two aren't, so will probably be retired when I get around to buying the weapons loads.  I'll probably add decals when I do the load outs.

The Heroics and Ros models.

Another view.

Unknown manufacturer.

Another view.

As ever, thanks for looking.

6mm modern Soviet airforce additions

I've been trying to get my miniatures collection stored in a more efficient and less space consuming way, so have been delving through the lead mountain.  This has had the side effect of putting a smile on my wife's face as parts of her conservatory come back into view.  For me, it's put me face to face with various unstarted and partially completed projects.  So, I've started to go through them to decide whether they are going to be sold on or completed.  One timely find was a large box of unpainted modern aircraft in 6mm, which had lain neglected since I picked them up on the bring and buy at Gauntlet in 2015.

Without further ado, here are three Mig-21 Fishbeds ("Balalaikas").  I'll use these in the ground attack role in Cold War Commander, so have painted them in a tricolour camo scheme based on some images I found on Google.  I went with a sky blue underside colour, not sure how correct tht is, but you don't really see underneath as a player when you're trying to blast a NATO tank company out of a wood.

Another view.

Then here are three more Mig-21s in a uniform aluminium finish.  I thought these better represent an earlier scheme (1960s-70s) or in a fighter role.

Another view.

And finally, for this post, a Yak-28 Brewer, which I will use either as a tactical bomber or an ECM aircraft.  I again went with a three colour camo scheme of sand, green and earth as random splodges, again based on a 1980s/90s image on Google.

Another view.

A better perspective of the camo scheme.  There is something about this aircraft that really appeals to me, it looks like it was meant to move quickly, which of course it was.

So, that more than doubles my Soviet airforce and trebles my Soviet fixed wing aircraft.  There were many more in the box, which I'm sorting and, in some cases, trying to identify both aircraft type and manufacturer.  I think all of these are from Heroics and Ros.

As ever, thanks for looking.

Soviet 6mm air support

We played a game of Team Yankee on Thursday evening, pitting 200 points of Soviets against a similar points value of British and West Germans.  One of the Soviet players had no 6mm forces, so I made up a battlegroup from my collection, but realised I'd never got round to any fixed wing air assets.  So, I dug out a pair of Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoots (Rooks) and gave them a paint job as recommended in the Team Yankee rule book, which seems to match contemporary images that I could find on the internet.

Although I've got loads of unpainted Soviet aircraft (most the fruits of a Gauntlet bring and buy purchase a couple of years back), the following pictures show the current extent of their readiness.

A pair of Mil Mi-24 Hinds (Flying Tanks), which I've already posted pictures of a while back.

A pair of Mil Mi-8 Hips, again I've posted pics of these previously.

Then the pair of Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoots (Ravens), complete with their hand painted red stars.

I need to add another pair to have the full flight functionality for Team Yankee.  In our game on Thursday, the Soviets took a flight of 2 Frogfoots and 6 Hinds.  The 2 Frogfoots were nuisance value as they came on individually and the West German air defences were able to deal with them.  The Hinds rampaged through the British armour as the Brits had left their air defences behind so relied on their AA MGs, but came a cropper against the West Germans.  The 6 strong Hind flight attempted a strike on an M109 battery in the West German rear, but this was in range of the 3 local defence AA .50 cals on the M109s, as well as 2 Roland batteries and a Gepard battery.  Scratch 5 Hinds for the loss of a single M109.  This seems to reflect a general vulnerability of the Hinds in Team Yankee, which belies the Flying Tank reputation, as soon as they come up against any serious AA assets.

Thanks for looking.

28mm Cowboys

The local games club has a growing interest in Dead Man's Hand, so I picked up a copy of the rules and some minis to see what all the fuss was about.  At around £20 for the rules and a similar amount for three sets of figures, I thought why not, so headed out to the Wargamestore at Brimstage to pick some up.  And cowboys and Indians were amongst the first toys I played with, having inherited a massive set from my brother, sadly long gone now.  So, a full circle, so to speak.

First up, Cowboy Posse II (all figures are by North Star).  I wanted these to look a bit like the regulator posse from Pale Rider.

The we have Lawmen Type I.  The guy in the middle is painted like the regulators above, so he can join their gang.  The guy on the left wears a white hat and an old cavalry shirt, so he has to be a good guy (Randolph Scott or John Wayne).

Lawmen - the Earps.  Enough said, smartly dressed, big moustaches, marshals badges.

So, there we have it, three posses ready for the table.  The club has loads of Wild West scenery, so I'm all ready to go.  Now to try out the rules.

Thanks for looking.

Ratte and Dora

These are shots of Steve Black's (Corwin) Ratte and Dora, for posting on the Blitzkrieg Commander forum.  He's having problems posting pictures at the moment.  The Ratte has 2 each of comparatively lightly armoured E-100s and Maus for scale comparison.



 

Thanks for looking.

6mm 1980's West Germans

Team Yankee seems to have captured the imagination of the Flames of War players at the club.  While most have built up 15mm forces for Russians and Americans, there has been a lot of interest in 6mm, based on cost, the ability to build larger and more varied forces and a better look to the game on the tabletop.  For me this is perfect, as I already have 6mm forces for US, Russian, British and French.  With the publication of the Team Yankee supplement Leopard, I decided to order enough vehicles from Heroics and Ros to build up a force - I can always add more later if I like them for use with CWC.  Infantry are from Mainforce.

I decided to paint these in olivegelb (yellow olive) rather than the later NATO three colour scheme.  Vallejo yellow olive wasn't grey enough for me, so I used it as a base coat, but dry brushed it mixed with mid-grey and then added a little white for a lighter dry brush.  Tracks are flat brown, tools are beige brown and flat aluminium, crosses are hand painted in black and white.  Vision blocks are azure blue.

So, without further ado, a Leopard 2 Panzer Zug.

A Leopard 2 Panzer Kompanie.  I suspect these could ruin a Russian regimental attack on a good day.

The panzergrenadier zug from the panzer kompanie, transported in three Marders, comprising two sections of infantry, each with Milan firing posts, and the command section.

A Roland air defence battery.

A Gepard air defence battery.

A Jaguar 1 jagdpanzer battery, HOT ATGM armed.

A Jaguar 2 jagdpanzer battery, TOW ATGM armed.

Not really represented in Leopard, a Leopard 1 ARV.

A Leopard 1 zug, from a panzeraufklarungs kompanie.  These are rather more brittle than the Leopard 2s, but cost significantly less point-wise, so you can have a lot more, and they pack a punch.

A LARS raketenwerfer battery, with OP in M113.

A fliegerfaust gruppe, armed with Redeye hand held SAM missiles.  The rules allow one stand for each weapon in a Gepard or Roland air defence battery.  Apparently these troops represent the two spare crews available for each battery to allow 3 8 hour shifts to cover 24 hour air defence.

M109G panzerartillerie battery.

A Luchs spah truppe.

A Fuchs panzeraufklarungs zug, three infantry sections and a Milan firing post, with three Fuchs transports.

So, I now have enough vehicles and infantry to field a panzer kompanie, panzergrenadier kompanie and panzer aufklarungskompanie, plus supports.  I still need to add flights of West German Tornados and Bo-105P PAH helicopters to complete all the functionality of the Leopard forces.  I'm hoping to get some or all on the table top some time in the next few weeks.

As ever, thanks for looking.