Quick wargaming Terrain: Quick Ruins

In this post I will go through how I have made quick generic ruins suitable for various games including frostgrave & Bolt Action.

I started with an empty box of dishwasher tablets.

With a pair of scissors I cut out "ruin" shapes, and some window holes.

There you have it 4 ruins in less than 10 minutes, that's a result if you ask me! These could be used as they are on the tabletop straight away but I wanted to add a little more depth.

So, using a glue gun I glued the card to 2mm PVC sheet that had been cut to size. I then cut the ends of "lolly sticks" and snapped them in half to get a broken/jaggered effect, then glued them down using the glue gun. I also added small pieces of balsa wood as window ledges.

I then sprayed the ruins black, then sprayed them grey.

I painted the wood with Besty Brown (72.043).
I applied PVA to various points and added large ballast, I then spinkled small ballast over the piles.

The wood was washed with Army painter Strong tone.
Areas where the Besty Brown had spread over were touched up with Cold Grey

There you have it, simple card ruins suitable for various systems

Painting Bolt Action: Soviet Weapons team

So after dealing with my infantry, and finding a scheme I was mostly happy with I have painted up my weapons teams.

Below is a summary of how I did it.

Undercoat of Army Painter Desert Yellow

• Flat Earth (70.983) for the webbing
• Cam Olive Green (70.894) for the helmets
• Luftwaffe camo green (70.823) for canteen, grenades, Mortar, Maxim MMG and magazine box
• Tan Earth (70.874) for the bedrolls and bags
• Beasty brown (72.043) for the gun stocks, handle of the knife and some hair
• Black (72.051) was used on gun barrels, ammo casing, boots and some hair
• Gunmetal grey (70.863) for the guns, followed by a black wash
• Gunmetal (72.054) for the bullets of the MMG and the mortat shell
• GW Mephiston Red was used on the Soviet Stars on the hats and magazine case
• Army Painter Strong tone wash over the majority of the model, but not the flesh.
• Uniform drybrushed with Plague Brown (72.039)
• Helmets, mortar and MMG are drybrushed with Gunmetal (72.054) to give scratched look
• Boots are drybrushed with Stonewall gray (72.049)
• Webbing with Leather Brown (72.040)
• Bedroll and bags with Khaki (70.988)
• For the flesh I took my time compared to the infantry and used Dark fleshtone (72.044), then Tan (72.066), then Dwarf Skin (72.041)
• Some AP dark tone around the face to act as facial hair (this is applied then dabbed off with a tissue)
• Matt Varnish (70.520) all over

Painting: Bolt Action - Soviet Infantry

So for a little while now I have been working on my soviet infantry.

This has certainly been a learning curve and I'm still not quite there; essentially I had ideas of where I wanted to go but not quite how to get there, so trial and error have been my only option.

I have followed the same initial process for all 40 models:

Undercoat of Army Painter Desert Yellow

Then following the guide on the soviet paint set, which are from the Vallejo Model color range:

• Flat Earth (70.983) for the webbing
• Cam Olive Green (70.894) for the helmets
• Luftwaffe camo green (70.823) for canteen, grenades, molotov bottles 
• Tan Earth (70.874) for the bedrolls and bags

then outside of that paint set I used the following from the game colour range

• Beasty brown (72.043) for the gun stocks, handle of the knife and some hair
• Black (72.051) was used on gun barrels, ammo casing, boots and some hair
• Gunmetal (72.054) was used on the catch of the canteen, blade of the knife/bayonet, anti-tank grenades and drybrushed on the helmets
• The boots were drybrushed with Stonewall gray (72.049)

The fire of the molotov was painted with a base coat of GW Iyanden Darksun, then Sun yellow (72.006), then Bloody Red (72.010) around the edge.

That was the basics after that things didn't stay as consistent as I wasn't happy with the results:

On some models the gun barrels were painted with Gunmetal (72.054), then washed with GW Nuln Oil. I wasn't keen on this as it resulted in overly shiny guns. So I tried Gunmetal grey (70.863) which is much darker and provided a better look for the weapons, this was then washed with GW nuln Oil. This can be seen in the flesh pictures below.

The flesh on most of the models were painted using Bronze flesh tone (72.036) then a wash was applied which was then drybrush/highlighted with Elf Skintone (72.004) but this gave the models too pale skin, everyone looked scared or drained so multiple different techniques were tried for the remaining few that hadn't been through this process.

I tried:

1. Tan (72.066), then Dwarf Skin (72.041), then Elf Skintone (72.004) on 3 models
   
2. Tan (72.066), mix of GW red wash and Army painter strong tone in the gaps, then Dwarf Skin (72.041) on 2 models (courtesy of this guide: http://www.talkwargaming.com/2015/03/tutorial-how-to-paint-bolt-action.html?m=0) although the mix ratio wasn't quite right so ended up a little more red than I had hoped.
   
3. Tan (72.066), Dwarf Skin (72.041) soft tone on 2 models
   
4. Bronze flesh tone (72.036), soft tone, Elf Skintone (72.004) on 2 models
   

Processes 1 - 3 had improved results but I still want to find a quick process for painting flesh, as these processes are too long winded in my opinion for infantry. I don't mind spending time on characters and specialist units but for standard infantry I want something that can be done quickly and easily.

Further to the issues with painting flesh I was unhappy with how I washed the troops; 20 were washed with Army painter dark tone, although this looked good it meant that any highlight didn't work so well unless it was bright and a bright highlight didn't work (various paints were used from plague brown to bone)

The next 20 were washed all over with AP strong tone, this produced a much better look that allowed the uniform to be drybrushed with Plague Brown (72.039), the bed roll with Khaki (70.988) and the webbing with Leather Brown (72.040).

The bases! the bases almost drove me to insanity! By all accounts they shouldn't be that difficult to add sand to a base and paint it but I encountered two issues;
one some of the positions (in particular the laying down models) were difficult to cover in sand, resulting in some locations getting missed.
The other issue was having to paint the sand on 40 bases! this took ages and lots of black paint.
Going forward I will cover the bases with sand, spray black and then glue the models (I know that's a bad idea, so maybe I'll just do it to the laying down ones and invest in some childrens acrylic black paint so not to use my own "expensive" model paint)

After this I added some static grass and some foliage.

So overall, what I feel is working is:

Undercoat of Army Painter Desert Yellow

• Flat Earth (70.983) for the webbing
• Cam Olive Green (70.894) for the helmets
• Luftwaffe camo green (70.823) for canteen, grenades
• Tan Earth (70.874) for the bedrolls and bags
• Beasty brown (72.043) for the gun stocks, handle of the knife and some hair
• Black (72.051) was used on gun barrels, ammo casing, boots and some hair
• Gunmetal grey (70.863) for the guns, followed by a black wash
• Strong tone wash over the majority of the model, but not the flesh.
• Uniform drybrushed with Plague Brown (72.039)
• Helmets drybrushed with Gunmetal (72.054) to give scratched look
• Boots are drybrushed with Stonewall gray (72.049)
• Webbing with Leather Brown (72.040)
• Bedroll and bags with Khaki (70.988)
• Matt Varnish (70.520) all over
• Gloss Varnish (70.510) on Molotov Bottle

So now I need to find a quick, yet effective flesh painting process...

Miniatures: Bolt Action - Soviet: 82mm Mortar

This week I have been working on the Bolt Action Soviet 82mm Mortar that came as part of the Warlord Soviet 500pts deal.

The Packaging

Standard blister pack, where some pressure can pop out the back panel, allowing reuse of the pack if required.

The models

This pack contains 3 crew, 1 mortar (2 pieces: stand & mortar) and a base.
The models are nicely detailed however one crew member appear's to be wearing a longcoat which doesn't really fit with my summer uniform force. This, of course, is a minor issue.

The building of the models

These models had a lots of flash and mold lines, which took several minutes to remove. The mortar was carefully clipped free of it's metal tag then glue was added to the rest part of the stand and the legs, these were then positioned on the base. Glue was applied to the base of the mortar then the mortar was carefully aligned with the stand. Once the mortar was in position the crew was positioned around.

Once the models were tidied up, it took no time to set up the base, I'm looking forward to painting these.

Miniatures: Bolt Action - Soviet: Maxim MMG

This week I decided to crack on with putting my outstanding Bolt Action Soviets together, so I can have a game with something other than infantry. In this post I am reviewing the Maxim MMG.

The Packaging

This blister is like most "modern" blister where no cutting is required and just a little pressure from the front will pop out the back panel, releasing the models from their sponge walled plastic prison.

The models

Inside the blister are 3 crew, a Maxim MMG consisting of 4 parts (chasis, two wheels and the MMG) and a large round base.

The crew are nicely detailed, but the MMG lacks depth. (hopefully paint will resolve this)

The building of the model

The crew contained a fair amount of flash and mold lines that needed removing, as did the MMG with the added difficulty that the MMG wheels and chasis are made of a thin light metal so care had to be  taken to clear off excess metal.

The MMG was a little fiddly to build, and did result in me super gluing my fingers together along with a wheel. Despite this the building of the model wasn't challenging.

The MMG and crew were positioned on the base without glue then, once I was happy with their positioning, I glued them down. The gunner needed to be held in the correct position while the glue dried; as he is in a kneeling position I found he couldn't be left on its own otherwise he would fall out of position.

All in all this took little time to prepare and glue together. I'm looking forward to painting it up

FOR THE MOTHERLAND!!

Miniatures: Bolt Action - Soviet Infantry

After months and months of trying to convince me to get into Bolt Action my friend Grum finally persuaded me and I invested in the warlord 500 point Soviet set (http://store.warlordgames.com/collections/soviet-army/products/500pts-soviet-army)

As per the link it consisted of a box of infantry, a mortar and a medium machine gun.

In this post I will be looking at the box of soviet infantry

In the box you get 40 infantry; 5 sprues each with 8 alternative posed bodies on them.Then there is more than enough arms and heads to build all 40 and still have spares, as well as lots of detail items such as magazine cases and entrenching tools

Further to this there is 3 weapon sprues which contains rifles, PPSH, PTSD rifles, an LMG and all sorts of other accesories.

Now those of you that have read my previous posts about the Warlord products you'll know that I don't seem to have much luck with them (although to be fair they usually resolve any issues quickly). This case is no different and inside my infantry box were instructions for winter Soviet infantry, which I quickly learnt meant the arm layout didn't match those on the sprue.

After raising a query on a Bolt Action Facebook page some kind soul provided me with the correct instructions, and I have now inserted them here to help any other gamers who finds them-selves in the same situation I did.

Now the issue I have with these instructions as they don't really explain the arm layout; so for example if you wanted some aiming arms or "charging" arms it's unclear which to select and results in painstaking moving of arms and associated weapon to get the look you desired - unless i'm just being an idiot.

So Warlord if you read this please adjust the instructions to reflect clear definitions of what type of arms they are.

The models themselves had quite a few mold lines, which are easily removed. However it seems I was quite lazy and impatient in my building process and I have noticed quite a few still have these as I paint them,

The models come away with relative ease from the sprue, and again any excess plastic can be removed.

Now while I'm talking about plastic; I used ploystyrene cement to put these together, now I haven't used this glue is some time. As such I don't know if it's my lack of recent experience with it, if the glue strength has changed or if it's the plastic warlord use, eitherway I have found that the plastic has melted.
I know this is part of the process of using poly cement on plastic but the melting has turned the hands into indistinguishable blobs, and you can see the telltale melting marks in other locations on the models, so heed my warning fellow gamers and use the glue sparingly or use a different glue