Recycled French Pt. 3

So I have managed to create a total of eight V&B infantry stands out of the preloved French I acquired from the Archduke in May. After removing them from their bases, I gave them the briefest of retouching where the original paint job had peeled off or cracked. Very little was done in way of attempting to improve the existing paintjob, as the purpose of these stands is to give me a fieldable force to use against Frank while I finish off painting my Airfix French. I am strongly considering buying a box of the Hat 1808-1812 Line Infantry to add into them, as a source of Grenadiers, Voltigeurs, and Officers on foot. Plus, the figures look awesome!

Looking down the line.

 Currently my French forces stand at eight infantry stands, three artillery stands, and one command stand. of these, only the command stand was painted by me. The rest were all acquired painted, with the exception of the replacement cannon on the artillery stands.

Washed, flocked, and matt varnished.

Moving down the line - more French infantry.

And some more infantry stands...

The flags are all from Warflag, a great free resource.

I also took some photos with Frank's British forces, and plan to do a post featuring his work soon. I did ask about him starting a blog to showcase his work, but he said he doesn't have the time to do so currently.

French vs. British.

Two infantry stands vs.  cavalry.

Another view of the same.

French infantry on the advance.

More French stands.

Airfix artillery crew with Esci guns.

Both lines meet.

 Overall I am very happy with the look of the finished stands. While the flags probably aren't the right size, a number of flags are sans eagles, and many other faults are present, these stands will allow me to field an ok force on the tabletop.  Most importantly, they will allow me some breathing space to finish the painting of my Airfix horde for use against Frank!

French Generals - More recycled French (Pt. 2)

I took the photos for this post about two weeks ago, but have been quite busy with other matters (work, computer malfunctions, etc) that have precluding making any posts until now. Christchurch is experiencing a snow, and currently half the city is off home from work.

The figures are part of the haul that I obtained from the Archduke back in May, so I was very pleased to acquire some nice command figures for my French forces.

The three generals debased.

The first is a metal 25mm figure that the Archduke suspects is a Minifigs figure.

The figure certainly has plenty of character.

The Archduke believes this is also a Minifigs figure.

Again, the figure has plenty of character.

The final figure is an Italeri Prussian officer, from the Prussian Infantry set, mounted  on a horse that is from the Italeri Austrian and Russian Allied General Staff set.

The figure sits rather awkwardly in the saddle. Hopefully, carving away some plastic will remedy this.

The simple green vat.

Rather than just give a wash over the existing paint jobs, I decided to remove them and start afresh. The figures are very nice, and I wanted to see if I could to see if i could paint up some reasonable looking command figures.

Recycled Frenchies!

I acquired off Archduke Piccolo today a number of second hand painted 20mm plastic Napoleonic French. The Archduke had recently acquired them himself, but was persuaded to part with them upon receiving appropriate trade goods.

A group photo of some of the French.

Close up of some of the stands.

A command element. there were three stands like this.

The paint jobs on these figures are quite average at best, and the figures have had a rough life - I have been told that they fared badly in the earthquakes - which easily explains the missing paint on many of them! In defense of the figures, they are good enough to put on the table, and Napoleonics are not the easiest of figures to paint. It also looks like some of them were painted with hobby craft paint, which would increase the difficulty in producing a top paint job. By and large, this would have been a fieldable army that hopefully the original painter had fun using.

First I cut them out of their stands. these Voltigeurs will form a skrimish line on each V&B stand.

The figures are largely from the HaT 1808 -1812 French Line Infantry set.

I then start to figure out where the figures will go on their new home.

 I am basing them up for use with Volley and Bayonet, as a way of quickly getting some usable french forces on the tabletop. After the success I had with putting a wash over my second hand WW2 Italians, I was curious to see if I could do something similar with other second hand figures. I present the following for you to judge:

Two French stands without benefit of washing.

The French on the left have received a wash of GW Devlan Mud

Front view of the almost finished stand.

The rear view of the French stand,

Side view. The printed paper flag was washed too!

I followed advice from the Archduke and used ink on the coloured edges of the flag to remove the white cut edge.

The printed flags most likely were sourced from Warflag, and the flagbears were mainly converted musketmen. For the completed V&B stand, I nicked an eagle from an Italeri French Line Infantry flag, (a number of the figures are from that set, and from others too!).

Overall I am very pleased with the results achieved from recycling these figures - and from the looks of it it seems that some of these figures are on at least their third rebasing!  With luck I should be able to get another two V&B bases with command figures on them, and enough figures to do another four.

WW2 Italians WIP Pt. 2

Some more work in progress for my growing WW2 Italian forces. First up is the beginning steps in creating a 20mm Solothurn anti tank rifle stand. Each Italian infantry battalion has one of these stands. My plan is to replace the LMG on the prone LMG gunner from the Esci Alpini set with the anti tank rifle I have created by cutting down a suitable 1/35 scale weapon into a passable match for the Solothurn S-18/100.

Donor gun was a L7 GPMG.

To fit the weapons I had to use larger stands. I try to only do this for support weapons.

I then undercoated it, and some metal 45mm mortar stands with black spray paint. the next step in the Italian upgrade was to start touching up the paint jobs of the ones I  already have painted and then apply a wash of Devlan Mud.

The one on the left has been washed, the one on the right is unwashed...

Rear view of same stands. The wash really improves the paint job.

The painted 75mm AA gun.  I am not entirely happy with the colour.

i am till working on a gun crew stand. According to the TOE, it should be a double sized stand.

The MMG stand. crew are an Airfix Italian and an Atlantic generic gun crew figure.

The view from the other side. I mixed the uniform colour, but am now going to use Vallejo 888 Olive Grey for the rest of the Italians.

When I went to purchase the olive grey paint, I discovered that one of the local hobby stores was having a sale, and had model Italian equipment in stock.  So I was able to expand my Italian forces by adding some armour, and a SPG 90mm AA gun. Finding kits you want on the shelf is hard enough in NZ. Finding said kits on the shelf, and on sale is pretty amazing!

A good match for the diecast M13/40 from the 'Combat tanks Collection'

 I got a box of Italeri fast assembly M13/40 tanks (with two tanks in the box), a similar Italeri set except it contained two Semovente M40 75mm SPGs, and an Italeri fast build kit of a lorry mounted 90mm AA gun.
All went together very nicely and have increased the numbers of my Italians quite nicely!

Tanks and 75mm SPGs. I must get them ready to field against Mr K.

Autocannone 3 RO with 90/53 90mm AA gun. Very nice. I'm sure Mr K.'s Sherman's will love it!

So some more painting new stands, washing existing stands, and scratchbuilding some support stands should get the infantry component out of the way. I also want paint up a small force of Italians for the desert, and a small force up for the Eastern Front.

WIP Mk 1 Nod Flame Tank

I have been slowly working away on this vehicle for quite some time. after the earthquakes in Christchurch, it required a bit of repair work. the base of the vehicle is the tracks unit from a toy plastic excavator (purchased in a set of four from The Warehouse several years before). The fuel tanks are empty NOS bulbs, that had been discarded used on the street during the NOS craze in Christchurch several years ago,which I picked up because of their modelling possibilities.

Flame tank next to light truck.

The flamer nozzles on each side are  fashioned out of GW vehicle flamer bits that I was given as part of a trade. Giving this vehicle stats for use in CD3 has been an interesting exercise. Without giving too much away, it works as per a normal vehicle flamethrower (but with extra shots), and is barely an armoured vehicle.

Side view. Paint job needs tidying up.

Front view.

This flame tank is more of a terror weapon, than a battlefield weapon, so it seems appropriate that I make one up for my Nod forces, as this goes well with the background I am using for them.

Rear view

The main use of this vehicle will be as table decoration, or as part of a special objective for a scenario. I had fun making it, and I really enjoyed using flame tanks in Command and Conquer.

A warm day in Bosnia: Part 3.

Shuffling armour in the woods.

Turn 4. I manage to reorganise my surviving armour, by disengaging one platoon back into the woods, swinging another round into a firing position to guard against an advance on the left flank, and moving back into the woods with the remaining T-34/85s. Frank dismounts his mech infantry, and seizes the remaining hill. Nod now controls the high ground on the board.

The high ground is all Frank's...

 The BDRM fires a Spandrel and destroys one of my T-34/85s as it advances into the woods. I return the favour by using a TOW stand to destroy the BDRM.
 

TOW vs. BDRM 2.

The other TOW damages a T-55 putting it on red, forcing it back, while my T-62 fails to damage the T-55 it is shooting at. Poor shooting is not limited to just the Bosniaks - a battery of Nod twin 23mm guns opens up on my infantry on the edge of the woods for no effect. The Noddist T-55s open up on the infantry and TOW stand, destroying the TOW stand and chewing up the Bosniak infantry. In return, the infantry brew up a Nod recon buggy that advanced into effective range. Frank uses his 120mm mortar on the other TOW stand for no effect, but one of my infantry infantry companies pin in the morale phase.

Poor dice stops the T-55 from sharing its neighbours fate.

Turn 5. Frank advances his T-55s, and his infantry on the hill shoots at the TOW stand. The TOW engages and fails to damage a T-55, and the T-62 fails to hit the other T-55 in the opportunity phase. In the general fire phase, Frank finally gets artillery to conduct a mission, pummeling Bosniak infantry advancing in open towards the woods on the right.

 The sole remaining TOW survives further attack from a T-55 firing direct fire HE, while Frank's massed APCs on the left flank conduct long range fire at the Mujahideen occupying a BUA, doing little damage.

Massed Nod APCs - a perfect target for an airstrike. Sigh...

Bravely holding on.... but it's just a matter of time until they have to fall back further into the BUA.

At this point I decided to call the game, as we had been going for around 4-5 hours, which was the allotted time frame for the game. Frank's forces had advanced further along the board than I had, but were not in a position to advance further.  I had abandoned ideas of advancing some time ago, as I simply didn't have the numbers to advance in the face of Frank's artillery (battery of 120mm mortars, and a battery of 122mm SPGs), or his virtually unscathed infantry forces.That being said, Frank was very reluctant to attempt a further advance down the road in trhe face of my surviving armour. As such, I viewed the situation as being a marginal Nod victory.

The BDRM-2 with its Spandrels had been an unpleasant surprise for me, and the rapacity of advance by Frank's mech infantry is always troublesome. My lack of artillery support in these games is an area that I am working on, as it is artillery that seems to save Frank's bacon in most games. Still, a very enjoyable game, that has left me pondering a number of points.