WIP: GIs, Airborne and more Fallschirmjagers

OK. It's been awhile since my last post. So to fill that gap here's a few snaps of my current work in progress dry brushed and ready for color. First are GIs that I'm repainting for my buddy Willy. He and I scored on some pre-painted 28mm. So if you happen to know which manufacturer these GIs are can you please drop me an email. I suspect that they're BTD but someone puh-lease confirm. At any rate, I've never painted Americans before so I offered to repaint these 10 figs for him. We haven't figured out what brand they are but definitely good sculpts that will paint up nicely.

Standard GIs

Standard GIs

Airborne

Airborne

More Germans on the way to supplement my Fallschirmjagers that Black Tree Design finally sent me. I still have a few coming but for now...

MG42 Team

 BMW Troopen are coming. Slowly but surely.

More PanzerGrenadiers

Oh boy! I just got some new toys to supplement my existing PanzerGrenadier force. A few days ago I acquired 2 packs of BMW w/sidecars with troops and

4 SdKfz 251 HT

Phong, who I got these from, is a great painter and a long time gamer with an awesome collection. Lucky for me he was divesting himself of some excellent 28mm WW2 minis. Always on the lookout for items that'll fit in the Eastern Front, his stuff will be a welcome addition and a compliment to mine.  

I'll eventually change the paint scheme of these half-tracks to gray, not to mention acquiring some gunners and crew in the near future. But for now they're pretty enough to go on my table for some posing and gaming along with my newly painted pzgrenadiers.

Here's the command 251/10

"Nur Bewegung bringt den Sieg."

(Only movement brings victory.)

Heinz Guderian

Coming soon: More Bugs! Look for it.

Bugs for my BDay!

For my birthday I decided to buy a game that I've had my eye on forever. I finally bit the bullet yesterday and went to my local hobby slash game slash toy store in Houston. They had one box left on the shelf so I quickly snatched it. Good thing too because most of the sites are sold out of this out of print bad boy.


More than likely I'll be using THW's 5150 rules with some Nuts! and CR03 thrown in. Ya hear that, LTL Dad, we're gaming this next!

Box contents from a promo pic I got off the net.

First up are the bugs. They come in hard plastic and these Arachnids are pose-able to a certain extent.

Assembly line ready for production that'll yield 20 bugs in different poses.

Since my table was already set up with some urban ruins for a Nuts! game I played last weekend I couldn't wait and posed a few completed bugs attacking my strelkovy (Black Tree Design). I'll put the MI (Mobile Infantry) together after I get done with the bugs. They're not painted yet but the models looks cool.

"Comrade Captain, here they come!"

Strelkovy about to be OVERRUN! Dasbedanyah!!

Next up: Mobile Infantry

PanzerGrenadiers

Just finished a small unit of ten 28mm PanzerGrenadiers from Battle Honors for use with Nuts! They'll supplement my Fallschirmjagers nicely while duking it out with Strelkovy. A bit smaller than Black Tree Design. However the poses are pretty good aside from the obligatory prone figures and grenade throwing hero.

Urban Ruins: Accessorized

Any table would look wunderbar with buildings and ruins. However to kick it up a notch I've always believed in adding some real world representation of mundane things we take for granted that would breath a little more life to my gaming table.

(click on the pix to enlarge)

For urban settings I've used a Soviet army blanket I found at a surplus store. I like the texture and grayish brown color that looks like dirty concrete and paved surfaces. If you're like me, surplus stores are a great place to find gaming materials and surfaces to drape on your table.

Alternative and cost effective ways of representing cobble stone streets were my initial challenge. Because of my era and area of choice (Eastern Europe), asphalt paved streets would be anachronistic and inappropriate. 

I borrowed an idea from another excellent blogger and terrain maker, Sbminisguy. After admiring and drooling over his urban ruins table on his post: http://sbminisguy.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/nuts-ostfront-demo-game-aar/ I contacted him directly for questions and advice. He was very helpful and gave me lots of information. I preferred his street because it didn't layout flat and static thereby looking artificial. With felt or fabric one can simulate real world dips and bumps.


So a quick trip to my local fabric store yielded the right shade of greyish felt that I would use as my roadbed. Further scrounging at my local train store resulted in the perfect stamp to use in simulating a cobble stone street. I found a 5" wide x 12" long wall section (HO scale) made by the Ultimate Scenery System. A quick removal of the top stone cap made it flat enough for stamping along with some light gray latex paint. 

To make things simpler I didn't bother with sidewalks. Another added detail were the ubiquitous manhole covers that seemed to be typically ignored in most tables that I've seen. At first I thought of using buttons but I didn't find anything to my liking. Truth be told I just bored searching for the right one at my local fabric store. Another option was actual O Scale manhole covers available at Model Railroading online catalogs. However, I just got impatient and needed them NOW. Sound familiar? 

As a flash of inspiration, I Googled manhole cover images, printed them on card stock and glued them onto washers. I painted the edges with a reddish brown to give it a rusty hue. I love washers. I use them on everything as you can see.

Next, I needed telegraph poles and/or power lines. I didn't bother with stringing actual power lines and decided to include a few strands instead. The power lines would just get in the way during the game. Here are the completed poles with along their basic components.

Willy (LTLDad) suggested the addition of dead trees and I couldn't agree more. Rather than going scouring the internet or my local train store all I had to do was go no further than my front door.

 Dead trees scrounged from my yard

based, flocked and dry-brushed.

Back to the net for some street lamps.

Based, flocked, painted and weathered. Excuse the bad focus on this pic.

In context.

Here's my park and monuments.

All I'm missing now are vehicles.

Urban Ruins for Nuts!

My Urban Ruins table set up for Nuts! Greyish building ruins by me, red building ruin by Justo aka Uncle Greasy, streets courtesy of Willy aka LTL Dad and dead trees provided by Mother Nature via my yard. 

This really isn't a full on batrep, just a top line summary of the events with pix. :D

Since I'm a relative noob to Nuts! (meaning that I've only played a few games) I'm always in dire need of practice and any excuse for gaming is all that I need to set up a table. Besides I've got to play with my newly completed Strelkovy and Fallschirmjagers. 

Willy ran the Ruskies. 

While I got the Fallschirmjagers (FJs).

We played a few scenarios where my FJs were holed up in a building while his Russians came on the table to clear out the hated Fascisti invaders. Bottom line: more Russians were needed as in another squad of 10 AND 2 less FJs. Or a single T34/76 or SU76 for added support would've given the Soviets a fighting chance.

4 of the FJs were armed with FG42s

  

2 with 1 shot panzerfausts and MP40s

A lone sniper (prone) and the ubiquitous MG34 LMG team as shown above (you have to squint a little b/c I substituted a Soviet DP LMG team since my MG34 is still enroute from the UK). 

Urrah! Urrah!

Skirmish line

A picture's worth a thousand words...