Quickdate vol.2

Been busy with my FoW soviets last weeks (Argh, multibased figures, argh), but this monday I received package from irishserb so the WW2 shall move to the background, at least for a few days..

About the figs: I must admit these figs are rather high quality ones! That ERC-90 F4 is propably one of the best 15mm vehicles Ive ever laid my eyes on: with exception of few small airbubbles there was absolutely no sign of miscast or missing details - and the size is correct! Only major flaw in the vehicle itself were the bubbles in wheels (some bolts missing, not big deal) and rather shoddy gun barrel (as the resin tends to be when shaped like a thin juice straw.. :P), so I decided to rebuilt it. Did it from brass rod&piping, and I used muzzlebrake from the orginal model and tuned that for a bit. And Im quite happy to the result, I try to find some time to basecoat this tomorrow.

The gun barrel rebuilt and comparision to the orginal:

 

In the event that someone does found the size comparision pics usefull, I also post this shot with Rebel Minisin VIP-fig and Peter Pigs AML-90. I was rather suprised how big the ERC-90 acctually is! The AML-90 looks like some sort of Renault Twingo when placed next to it.. :D

Long time no see, long time no ABC..

Sorry about the long silence, thou Ive been making progress with stuff, Ive not been able to take decent pictures of them :P Thou I still decided to release all of those which Ive posted into the finnish wargaming community allready, even if not so professional quality.
But yeah, just got word from irishserb that my package is leavin soon, and PPs order was dispatched yesterday - so my medium support, AFV-crews and objective markers are on their way.

But about my force:

I re-did my organisation few days back, and went more british-like organisation, thou its still more adhoc and down-scaled. lso Ive decided to add some CAS as soon as I find some suitable "old school" ground attack planes, A-1 Skyraider would be a jackpot alongside Pucara. Thou my greatest hope is Hellers 1:100 Alize ASW plane, which would be pretty much perfect; Old, but long serving tool of the trade, requires quite short TO&landing area and was less sensitive when it comes to the brushing of the airstrip..

But yeah, models:

AML-90, my main light-vehicle support alongside the AML-60. We re-made the stats for afrika, and this baby is more AT-capable, the mortar variant got upgunned AP stats so there would be some reason to even use it - alongside the indirect capabilities..
The model is from Peter Pig, and it was rather nice model for 4,5£ (around 5€ during purschase), and didnts equire a lot of cleaning. Im not so happy with the paintjob thou, I think I kinda overdid the chipping.
The transfer is from some random "we-dont-mention-that-gothic-scifi-game-over-here" sheet, and Im not so pleased on that either. The tires are weathered with tamiyas products.

The groupshot, along the old squad organisation of 2 fire teams with own GPMGs and LAWs.

And here starts the poor quality pics - the "ParaBats", airborne mercenaries which are more uniform unit than the "regulars". When fighting against irregs in COIN, these guys are the top call, alongside the "Tier 1" special forces. Those are ready too, but I think they have some kind of magical "specfor" aura as every picture I took from them was more or less blurred.. :D So sorry about the pic quality, should base these babies too,

Some PIP shots from their ride:

Im rather happy to the effect on glass, thou I took quite massive artistic freedoms from reality, didnt do much of a blending there.  Its UH-1B from Flames of War: Vietnam range - my local gamestore decided to drop them out from their quantities so they were -40% off. Couldnt resist, also picked up some M48s and M113 for my Cold War Heim-Schutzh Brigaden - must admit that M48 was "less easy" to turn up into M48A2G2..
The weapon load of this Hog was left off, I propably use those on my spare QRF OH-6 Loach to create some sort of adhoc firesupport chopper - after Ive repaired that into modelling condition. Must admit, it was propably one of the most horrific QRFs products Ive ever laid my hands on. Its quite literally covered with tamiyas putty and liquid greenstuff, and due to the small size, Im having difficulties to decide how to mount it in regular flying pole.. The FoW chopper-base/stick is way too big for it.

And for last, as a small easter egg, my "Objective" marker - the Embassador of some unidentified country, being maliciously harrashed time after time by irregulars and former army regulars in service of rebelling generals.. And time after time, being mostly saved by PMC or UN.

 

Dont mind the dust on top of that MB - didnt notice that before taking the pictures, but after I checked those out I sweeped it off and took the pictures below.

Back to School..

..and back into photographing studio :D

So summers out, and back to routines - must admit that I didnt do much of a modelling during my holidays, and even less I tried to take photos in my poorly lighted flat..

But yeah, I got something made, after all, first of the the Unimog DPVs is ready and willing to fight.

Thats Peter Pigs excellent Unimog truck right there, with some medium modifications - the canvas was quite horrible, I must admit, fitted poorly and required a lot of cleaning up - thou, when seen in price-quality comparision, this is is pretty much perfect for anyone who requires large umbers of medium/light trucks. But yeah, about the modifications - the orginal is "soft" version, with canvas cockpit. This one got hardened, it flattened the roof with putty and added "full" doors from plasticard. The HMG is PPs Dushka. Im not happy to the front either, I still have one of these babies WIP, I propably add rolled tarpaulin or winch in front of the vehicle so the drivelights and cooler intake would be covered..
So this is the mercs vehicle brought in when the "Guntrucks!"-fog card is drawn.

Whoooops, I slipped sum PIPs here :D

But yeah, there you can see PMCs medium support AML90 armored car, and basic "fireforce" APC, the modified Alvis Saracen. The Saracen is QRFs work, (AML from PP) and like most of the time when it comes to the QRFs products, it was decent, but required quite a lot of cleaning. Fex. the wheelcenters needed to be covered due to the large amount of miscast, and the sides of the passenger comparement were like, well, the very casual daywalk thrue hell and fire to clean.. But Im trying to get these finished ASAP, as our "mega" game is ~1 month ahead, and Im going to need my helisupport and parabat-mercs in paint too!
For those who are interested, I reworked the hatches for saracen, largened the turret and replaced the L7 GPMG with trustfull workhorse; Dushka! So this baby is going to be closer some sort of light IFV than actuall APC due to the lack of AT weapons of insurgents.

Quickdate - another merc squad. Got 3rd squad readied up for painting, but that may take some time as our campaign is in the point where mercenary "special forces" break the stalemate and free the peacekeeper POWs which were taken in one of our first matches.

Im waiting those spec-ops to arrive from postal office this week, as the order from PP was despatched @ thursday. Going to use these as a basis for them, with advanced weaponry, heavy body armor (+2D) and something special which will come up from the pics then ;)

But yeah, that and the fact Im working with cold war mega-battle (which is closing in) propably makes me to take a break from Afrika and concentrating on finishing the Berlin suburb Polizei-platoon and my VDV troops.

 

And the squad leader, in Belgian "jigsaw" camogear and with FN-FAL rifle. From PPs vietnam range, australian SAS if I remember correctly.

Back to work, got 15 VDV troopers to finish tonight :)

Finaly, pictures!

Been a while sine the last update - been busy re-organizing my VDV for Cold War Gone Hot.

Must say, that if there is some more well kept secret in former soviet bloc than the VDV organisation at the late 1980`s, Im not sure do I want to know it.. Literaly, its been thrue hell and fire to found few comparable TO&E tables, and none of them was excatly what I looked for! Anyway, got some time for Afrika project as well.

My prototype Merc squad, five men:

Quite "international" unit, I tried to give them much more multicultural feeling than the two other "homogenous" armies of the campaign are having, as the U-N peacekeepers are european, and the african tribesmen are, well, local folk alltogether.

Most of the mercs are wearing (former) uniform or service item of some sort, so theres going to be a great mix of different camos and gears together.

Oh, and one (oldish) WIP picture too:

As I mentioned earlier (or did I?) most of the merc operations include Unimog RPV (Recoinassance & Patrol Vehicle), soft skin (or up-armored soft skin) with good carrying capacity and HMG (on AA mount) on top of the cabin.
The model is conversion from Peter Pigs Unimog, shame I didnt take any more pics, as you may notice the vehicle is "hard top" variant - not totally happy to the result, but Im still having few tries left as Im going to need at least two of these babies.

For armored support, Im working with PPs Panhard AML-90 armored with minor modifications and two Quick Reaction Forces APC, (allmost) modern Alvis Saracen :P Still not sure what to do with the saracen, I propably remove the rear GPMG and upscale the frontal turret, not so keen with the hitting power and size of the "main gun" - after all, its mostly the toughest thing mercs can bring in to battle, so Im propably going to scale up the turret and equip it with HMG or AGL, OR the I remove the turret alltogether (wich makes the usage harder, thanks to the Force on Forces unbuttoned-rule, but looks kinda badass) and mount the PPs American HMMWV gunners (with headswap) on the place.

Theres is no harder thing than gettin started

Its been 3-4 years since I first time thought about creating own wargame blog - so it didnt take so long, didnt it? ;D

Few weeks ago me and few members from my scholar gaming group decided to start new gaming project in 15mm/1:100 scale, and the first "lead-order" was sent few days ago, so I decided its now or never situation.
The project itself..we decided to go for the Africa. Unknown mostly imaginary middleafrican country during early 1990`s in the blink of civil war, roamed by local militias, hired henchmen, international peace keepers and national army. At the moment we have three guys going with the project, but I hope we can include few motivated inviduals more at some point.

Between the peter pigs (PP) built-for-purpose african rulesystem (AK-47 Republic) and Ambush Alleys universal Force on Force (with oncoming bushwars addon), we decided to go for the Force on Force (FoF) - first of all `cos I allready had the rulebook (and we had few cold war gone hot games at the backround) and `cos we wanted invidual based game with insurgency (Assymetric) option.
Mostly the games will be symmetric - after all, main part of the armies are "real" armies - mostly lacking advanced training and tactics, sometimes even basic tooling to perform their job, but after all, they think themselves as army, and thats all that matters.

So, as Im still waiting my part of the lead mountain and lacking camera to show-off my older works, I cant do much but list the stuff&plans of the armies.

First of all, my friend Matts peace keepin force:

Based loosely to finnish and german forces of the 1990`s (the peace keepers are from imaginary country too, from Fairylands 1st jagerbattallion :D), its going to be rather small in number, with limited equipment & assets, but decent training, morale and excellent supply level. Lacking all true air assets (its peace keeping operation, after all) with excepltion of MEDEVAC, all indirect assets (at least at this point - might include light/medium mortar support availibility later if the army provides to be too downgunned) and all true heavy support.
The basic squad is around 7 to 10 men strong, with heavy-barrel G3 as a LMG. The AT support is rather limited too, scenario based number of armburst LAWs available from APCs storages.
Squads are mounted in the wheeled APCs (Fuchs), and vehicle itself is equipped with MG3.
For in-call "heavy" reserve there will be (propably) wheeled Recon vehicle (Luchs) and in later point some stuff we see fit.

With Peace Keeping Force (PKF) we need to deal out rules how to represent the reluctance in open full-scale confrontation and importance of keeping the casualtys in minimum.

Second, the "all African" technical riding group:

Im not acctually sure how Veikko will see his army working, so cant tell much of it. Its the "traditional" group of poorly trained and equipped militiamen in pickups, so there will be a lot of RPGs, AKs and toyotas :D
Still, these are (at least in paper) much more prepared to full scale confrontation, with (ancient/obsolete)MBT available, which in this point seems to be old, trusty and ineffective Sherman M4 (not sure about the variant, but propably A3 or A2). At some point these guys will get air-assets too in their support pool, but not yet - but when it happens it will propably be some civilian (bi-)plane with improvised rocket launchers or old helicopter. Indirect (medium, later also heavy mortar)support is unreliable, but available.

Third, my force: Private Military Contracting force (PMC) , in Africa known as less "hypocritical" mercenary.

These will be former members of professional armies, from western and neighbouring countries. Relatively large in number, working for oil-, diamond- and other high-value companies (or pretty much anyone) for cash. Good with guns, but lacking most up-to-date equipment - the supply level is from Ok to poor, and morale is pretty much random (well, their paid, but how well?), never higher than D10 and even that should be rare! Mostly D6 to D8, skill is from D8 to D10.

In this point seems like Im arming these fellas with L1A1 SLRs (or FN-FAL), M60s, RPGs and LAW-72s. Lacking truely heavy support, but compensating that with better skill and sheer number of medium eqipment it shouldnt be so difficult to operate against any force.
Mostly riding in light trucks (Unimogs or Land Rover 1 tonne, aka Forward Controll) but also capable of small scale airmobile operations (UH-1 or OH-6 variants) and wielding small number of wheeled Saracen APCs. The patrol support is offered by AML-90 armored car.


We propably still need few players more (as ATM the player pool is way too western based), but lets see what this turn up to be when the PPs order arrives - and yeah, were still lacking the name!