First attempts at painting 15mm!

Hi Folks,

Andy here with an update on painting my first Flames of War and also first 15mm scale models.

I had originally bought the Open Fire box on the strength of the US Airbourne plastic models and I particularly love the prone MG teams. However my dilema was that I had never tried painting any models of this size before and I was worried I'd make a hash of my favourite models in the set if I attempted them first. So after buying Easy Company to accompany the Open Fire box I then decided to completely abandon the allies for the time being and start on the Germans.

A Beginners Perspective

Hello All,

I'd like to introduce the latest addition to the Breakthrough Assault Team, Andy Croft from the Fully Painted 40k Blog. I'll leave the rest of the talking to Andy.

Hello All,

Firstly I'd like to quickly introduce myself. My name is Andy and I've been wargaming and painting on and off for about 15 years now. Up until recently this has revolved entirely around Warhammer 40K and my main interest has always been the modelling and painting side of the hobby, with gaming being a more of a side effect of collecting models. However recently I've found that many of releases from GW have unfortunately have failed to inspire me and it slowly dawned on me that I should perhaps just try something new.

Its probably been about 3 years now since I saw Ben's first FoW models and I loved them. They're not the most detailed models in the world, sculpting in 15mm just doesn't lend itself to that. What interested me instead was the balance between nice looking models and the ability to paint whole armies in a reasonable time frame. Now I know there are some people out there who can knock out 28mm armies in no time at all. Others who can consistently paint each new model they buy and over time build very nice well painted armies (thats you Adam!). Then there are people like me who buy lots of models, slowly paint some of them but then get distracted and buy a load more. The result being boxes and boxes of models either undercoated, half painted or in some cases mdoel which never even made it off the sprue. The only consolation is that I know I'm not alone!

The Drawer of Shame!

US Paratrooper for Market Garden - HQ Section

Hello All

Ben here with a painting update, this time for my 101st Airborne Market Garden army.

For the HQ, I decided to use the Easy Company heroes as the command models for a few reasons. Firstly they are very nice models, secondly it means I can do Easy Company from Normandy to the Bugle and finally there is only 2 US Para command models, the blister adds in quite a few more models to the mix. To make the commands different from my Bulge army and to keep it historicalish everyone got a downgrade. So Winter's has become the Company Commander instead of a Higher Command model, Lipton will be a Platoon Commander, etc.

Tale of Two Winter Gamers - Month Two - 101st Airbourne

Hello All

Welcome to my second months post for Tale of Two Winter Gamer. For my first month I just a platoon of Infantry pianted, so for the second month I need to paint up some HQ's for my company as part of my and Adam's targets. For this I picked up the Easy Company Heroes so I added Speirs and Lipton to the list. I love the set, they really got the character of the guys from the TV series down to a tea.

Next up I wanted a little change so next up on my list was so Glider Artillery. I think these are a great little unit, you get a nice points break as the direct fire option isn't great, but I don't think you can complain about 115pts for 3 guns with a good firepower and smoke.

After these two platoons I focused on the 2nd Paratrooper platoons. I decided to use the metal US Paratroopers instead of the plastic models for this platoon and I think it was a better choice. While the metal models are a lot smaller they did suit my painting style a lot better than the plastic ones did, in my option I think the detail of stands out a lot better than it did with the plastic paras.

Overall I'm happy with how they turned out and thankfully they don't looking to out of pace compared to the first platoon I painter.

For the terrain I snowed up some Battlefront rural roads. They still need a second lot of snow flack on them but I ran out of the flock.... I'm burning through the stuff.

Well thats it for month two, my plans for the third month is a LMG platoon, some recon Jeeps and a second Glider Artillery platoon.

So until next time, thanks for reading.

Ben

Easy Company Heroes

Hello All

A few weeks ago I picked up a blister of the new Easy Company Heroes to go with my 101st Airborne Company I'm currently collecting. I'd quickly like to say I love the set, they really got the character of the guys from the TV series down to a tea. I have only got the HQ painted up so far but expect to see the rest of the Taccoo Sergeants as more squads get painted up.

Winters and Nixon, love the fact that Nixon is drinking!

Spiers, running of course! I like this model but part of me wishes they had gone for him jumping through an explosion as he does on the way to taking over Easy Company in the Foy episode.

Lipton. Not much to say on this model.

Overall a great set. Even if I wasn't doing Easy Company I would probably pick up the set to add some nice characters and individual models to a company of Paras.

As always thanks for looking and until next time.

Ben

A Tale of Two Winter Gamers : The Battered Bastards of Bastogne

Hello All,

So as I spoke about last week, myself and Adam are doing a Tale of Gamers Challenge based around the Battle of the Bulge. It was decided that I would collect the US forces while Adam would paint up the Axis (see Adam's post on his plans here). So I see about reading through Blood, Guts and Glory, Devil's Charge and Nuts to see which US lists interested me. I have always liked US Armoured Rifles and Tank Destroyers but to me the Bugle is about the PBI (Poor Bloody Infantry) trying to hold the German advance while the Armoured forces raced to the front, so they are for now out (well until April/May time). So looking at the Infantry there really was only one option for me Easy Company! I know some people out there will roll their eyes at that but Band of Brothers is in my top 3 TV series of all time (The Wire and BSG being the other two) and US Airborne were my first FOW army way back during my first failed attempt to get into FOW; so I also feel I have unfinished business (plus I can add lots of Band of Brother quotes in the AARs!).

So army decided I moved onto the models. The Battlefront Winter Paras all have winter coats which is a little wrong to me as every account I have read about the 101st Airborne during the Bugle is how under equipped they were for a winter battle. Fortunately I have a load of US Paras from a failed Market Garden project I was going to coolect, so I plan on mixing the bases up a bit have a 50/50 mix of winter clothed and normal clothed infantry.

The list was a lot harder to work out! Every list I wrote seemed to be 35pts over or under with nothing easy to take out or add in to get to 1750pts. But after a complete re think I finally got a lost sorted. I'm happy as I have included all but 2 of the Easy Company Warriors, not only does this give the list a real Easy Company feel but it would also give me alot of points to mess around with if I decided to play a non Easy list when I want to mix things up.

The list:-

HQ
-Spiers (I'm not sure he's worth the points but it's Spiers, he's to cool not to take)
-Lipton - 100pts

Para Rifle Platoon
- Extra Bazooka
- Toccoa Sergeant
- 'Shifty' Powers - 315pts

Para Rilfe Platoon
- Extra Bazooka
- Toccoa Sergeant - 295pts

Para Engineer Platoon
- 3 Bazookas - 275pts

4 M18 Tank Destroyers - 410pts

6 105mm Glider Artillery - 210pts

4 Airborne Recon Jeeps - 110pts

AOP - 40pts

1750pts

So the first month is only 17 days away as I write this. I have bought most of the list already, I'm now mostly waiting on the Winter Paras to turn up but I really can't wait to start this project.

As always thanks for reading and Currahee!