Banzai! The Road to Art of War III - Part Two

Hello All

Last time I spoke about this project I had just picked up my first box sets and blisters. Since then I have been very busy building, painting, writing new a list, rewriting the list, re rewriting the list (still not 100% happy with it...), etc, etc. But what I have done which was successful and a solid fixture in all the list writing is the first two infantry platoons.

As you might remember from the last post I'm painting up my Japanese as the Special Naval Landing Force, this seemed like a simple task thanks to the work Mike Haught had done on his blog, but it wasn't quite as simple as I had hoped. The uniform seems to have changed quite a bit over the course of 1939 to 1943 and I wasn't able to find the an exact uniform to work off. With this in mind I decided to paint the infantry as I thought was best and chose the colours I liked the most out of the options available.

I managed to paint both platoons in two days with the ad of a lot of TV watching (I can highly recommend Ripper Street if anyone reading is looking for a new show to watch). I ended up spraying them all Russian Uniform, picking out the details in bright colours and then using my new favourite Army Painter quick shade.

The basing ended up being similar to my British Infantry but with more turfs and flock clumps as I thought this helped give them more of a jungle feel or at least look a bit like the long grass you see on the hills of Guadalcanal.

The banner was a nightmare! After twice getting the flag a nice crisp white I messed up the symbol, I tried to convert the bannerman but ended up cutting too much off and had to scrap him. The replacement is a converted Nikuhaku model, I cut away pole, carved a bit out of his hand so a piece of wire would fit and then I made a new flag out of paper and two decals I had that were about the right size. I then used some very watered down PVA glue to make the banner more rigid, I very happy with how this turned out, I could never have painted the banner to a similar standard to the decal so it ended up being a win win.

 Because I used a Nikuhaku model for the banner I was one man short, I had thought about only having three models on a base to make it easier to spot them on the table anyway and being a man light this is what I ended up doing.

There was a lot of chatter about my tank support and quite rightly I do have way too many tanks for a properly themed SNLF. I have tried to write a list with 3 Veteran Infantry platoons but I'm not sure about the balance (although having 3 platoons of Japanese infantry will be scary!). I'm sticking with the Japanese tanks for now but I think the list will turn into a more infantry focused list going forward. Also since I started this project it has been announced that Battlefront will be releasing Pacific books at the end of the year. I have read a lot about the Japanese forces in 1942/43 (the era of the Pacific I'm most interested in) so expect some more bits and pieces to be added over the summer as I try to get a head start before the book lands.

Next up I have three platoons of tanks to paint and a couple of Battalion guns. I'm also planning on picking up some of Sarissa-Precision's Far East range of builds and possible try to get a Japanese board made for the tournament as well.

Thanks for reading and until next time'

Ben