Reinforcements

Last night I finished off my first (Warlord) Japanese platoon.

 

 I think this guy might need to be redone- I didn't notice the flash lines were quite so...obvious lat night. I think i need to get some glasses!

Then today some reinforcements from The Assault Group arrived- the rest of my Japanese and 14th Army forces. Not only that but my Perry order (Stuart, Bren Carrier and an 8th army platoon) and also my 3x AirFix jungle outposts turned up too.

I think I am going to be busy!



Craig

Forgotten 14th-Take 2

I decided to go over the highlights to tone them down a bit- I used vallejo gunship green lightened with some buff and am happpier with the final result.

As well as redoing the highlights I painted up my platoon HQ teams:
1x officer
1x NCO (or a second officer)
1x medic
1x radio operator
1x rigleman
1x mule team (objective marker)

Craig

The Forgotten 14th

I started my Forgotten 14th project tonight, painting up  section of Chindits (including a LMG) and a 2" mortar. I decided to mount both the bren gun and 2" mortar of the 45mm wide square bases that I have lying round from the Perry ACW figures mainly for quick recognition on the table top- easier for my tired old brain to do it that way than figure out how any men are left when firing the rest of the section (one of the men in the section acts as the LMG loader in BA). I'm not going to get into the points of LMGs in Bolt Action arguments except to say they were a section level support weapon so shall be included in my forces. We will see how they fare in the game but we may end up adding an extra die when firing as seems to be a popular house rule with them.

All the figures are Warlord Games.The figures uniform is a base of Vallejo Gunship Green and the highlight is Uniform Green. It appears a bit bright in these shots but looks a lot less harsh to the (my) natural eye. I'll see how it looks in daylight tomorrow and if it looks to bright then will touch up the highlights an dull them down a bit.

Craig

28mm Japanese- test figures

My first few 28mm Japanese test figures. The are all from Warlord Games. I painted them using Vallejo Japanese uniform as the base and highlighted with Japanese uniform lightened with a drop of German Camo beige. 

 This morning my rulebooks for Bolt Action arrived.

There were a few bits and pieces such as a Chindit HQ and 2" mortar team. There was also a  pleasant wee surprise in the form of a couple of extra blisters of Chindits that "were lying round on the table" at Warlord. It's the occasional little gesture such as that that really makes a difference in choosing who to spend ones wargaming budget with- many thanks Warlord Games, very much appreciated. 

Now I have some reading to to do...
Craig

More Jungle Terrain

I have been rereading the Trail of Infinite Sorrow while I await my orders to arrive. To defend Buna and Gona the Japanese felled a large number of trees early on in the campaign to make emplacements and bunkers. The fast growing jungle foliage quickly grew over the bunkers making them difficult to locate  by the Australian and American troops when they attacked the Japanese positions. This inspired me to make some felled trees for cover today.

3mm MDF bases, covered in plaster which I then added some large twigs. Once the plaster had dried the bases were undercoated, painted and flocked in my typical methods and then some palm trees added to make them more jungle-like. Simple yet effective.

My first two (Warlord Games) Japanese squads arrived in this morning's post so I will endevour to get started on them on Sunday evening. At least now I have a reasonable tables worth of suitable terrain to game with.

Craig

Black Powder Napoleonics

Kent and stephen popped orund for a quick game of Black Powder Napoleonics, using Stephen's new Prussians (3x regular, 2x landwehr, lancers + dragoons?) & a Russian brigade (4x regulars, 1x jagers)

vs Kents 10x regular French, dragoons & lancers.

Lighting in the new room is still a WIP- haven't seen the electrician in a week so I jury rigged some lighting. Hopefully I will get the lights wired up soon. 

The French deploy

 My Russian brigade deploys.

 Stephen's Prussian command

 My infantry advance on the far right flank.

 And in the distance the Prussians advance.

 Kent advances and in the next turn we charge a battalion of infantry.

 On the right the two armies close.

 Each sends in some cavalry support.

 Stephen manages to destroy a French battalion.

 One of Kent's infantry battalion forms square and somehow survives two rounds of assaults, which allows his lancers to charge home routing the Prussian battalion. The French Cavalry then does  a sweeping advance into the Prussian lancers (bottom left of shot) destroying them!

 

At this point Kent had to go- the battle was definitely in the balance. The French infantry brigade in front of Stephen has just been broken but both our commands were the worse for wear, another turn and it could have gone the other way but we will claim a hard fought minor victory.

Our first Napoleonic game since Borodino last year, was lots of fun and hope to have  a rematch next week and fight to a conclusion.

28mm Jungle Terrain

My plastic aquarium plants arrived today so I made a start on my first jungle terrain. These palm trees and ferns are my favourite and are a great representation of terrain from New Guinea to Burma- I like them so much I'm about to order a lot more! 

I based them on MDF and then added a layer of casting plaster to which I pressed the plant. Once dried I covered in pva, added sand them let dry again. Painted black, then a dark brown drybush followed by light brown highlight and some static grass. I also did a light drybrush over the trunks to make them look slightly less plasticy.

Craig