BEF - 2" Mortar Team

Another of the items that came in the first (larger) box of my BEF troops from Warlord Games was a 2" Mortar Crew.

 

From what I am reading they are more or less designed to lay smoke & only have 3 rounds of HE to expend. But thats OK. Smoke will be a boon to mitigating MG fire from advancing German troops.

 

I received my Empress Miniatures order yesterday which has some more items to compliment my BEF force. Things like a leader armed with a Thompson, one of the options available. The progress continues... 

BEF - First Squad Reporting, New Arrivals in Cherbourg & Mustering the Troops

I managed to finish off the Bren Team for the 1st Squad of my BEF force. This consists of a 3 man team.

 

And here are the happy lads all together.

 I also recieved the first of my reinforcements from a couple orders I did with Warlord Games. I did this first order consisting of 4 rifle squads

A command Blister & BEF AT Rifle, 2" Mortar Team

 

A Vickers MMG, & 3x 2lb AT Guns.

As I was about to check out, they had a note about adding items to cover additional shipping costs....sure enough The Matilda II was one of the options!

 

So the next day of course they posted they were having a sprue sale...so I added some more stuff for the BEF force as well as a couple sprues of weapons etc. And just as before, there will be a 2nd Matilda II free to cover the shipping pains.

Now with all this done, I went through a bunch of my boxes of WW2 stuff to see what else I had.

2 Morris Armoured Cars likely bought from Ian Crouch

 

A 2nd Matilda I, (I ordered a 3rd one from Warlord Games to complete my troop)

3x Scout Carriers from Army Group North Miniatures

5x Mark VI B's, again from Army Group North. I will need 4, but I am hoping I can swap the weapons on the 5th one for one of the variants.

An A-9 Tank purchased from Ian Crouch

And lastly my remaining Matilda II from Army Group North.

So at some point I will need an additional 2 A-9's & a Troop of 3 A-13's & that should deal with all the armoured forces I need.

So I guess you can see what my future paint sessions will be all about, so stay tuned!

 

BEF - 2nd Squad "Secure Your Bases!"

So as the title of this post states, I am in the process of getting the 2nd squad ready to start painting. Which is when I thought, perhaps I could show how I do my bases for those interested. There are many great ideas out there & this is mine.

First up, I base all my figures on washers now. In some cases I can glue him straight onto the washer & cover the hole. However thats not always the case, so here I used the plastic base that came into the box first, then glued the figure to the plastic base. Why do I do this? It makes the models heavier & less likely to get knocked over by a flying die. Also if the fall off the table *heaven forbid* they will often land on the washer side & hopefully save the model. I also use magnetic sheets in my travelling storage to help prevent movement of figs in transit.

 

Secondly, I then apply Liquitex Black Lava over the base. This 'paste' is spread around to cover the edging of the figures metal base to the plastic base, in effect to hide the sharp edges. I buy this product at Michael's & I know that the Vallejo basing compounds are now also available at the various hobby / game stores. I've picked up a couple, but have yet to try them. Be careful when applying the Black Lava that you don't get it on the model. If you do, remove it as best you can with your modelling tool.

 

I then stick a couple small stones / pebbles into the wet Black Lava. This will allow them to be pushed into the 'ground' & will be secured by the dried compound.

 

Once it dries it appears Black

 

Next its onto priming the figures & bases. I then use a coating of black gesso over the base. You may wonder why I prime & then use in effect, another primer. This is to coat the washers more than the models base, but this keeps it uniform & makes for a dark ground base.

 

Then its onto the 4 stage base colours. Starting with Burnt Umber, then drybrushing of Yellow Ochre. This is followed by some dabbing of Olive Green & lastly I touch up those stones using a Sand colour.

 

This is the extent of basing until after the remainder of the model is painted.

So this brings me to the next 2 Riflemen of the First Squad (who happen to have had the final base materials applied).

 

This time of year is perfect for gathering up some washed sand/pebbles in the drainage along the street curbs (unless the street cleaners have already been by) I am lucky where I live, in that the system drains by gravity & being at the end of the street, I often get a buildup of water (meaning the silts carried will buildup & remain in front of my house) I then get a small plastic pail & shovel, to collect it, then put it through a sieve to remove the bigger bits.

 

As well I really enjoy sunflower seeds & there are often quite a few bits of Sunflower stems mixed in with the seeds, which make great wood bits for your base! (As can be seen with the guy holding the grenade). Now all that remains is another nice day to matt overspray them.

So up next is the last rifleman for the 1st squad, as well as the Bren Team & 2" Mortar. 

Thanks for visiting! 

BEF - Matilda 1

Quite some time ago, well before Warlord Games released Bolt Action,  I was collecting early war British vehicles for other systems. At the time, finding early war vehicles was somewhat a crapshoot unless it was the Matilda 2. There were some folks out of the UK who had them however & this is where I picked up this Matilda 1. In fact its plausible I bought 2, & will make the 2nd one at a later date.

 

I bought the kits from Ian Crouch who eventually sold his line of kits to Warlord Games, which have since been redone. So the kit I have is all metal. A heavy little tank.

 

Relying on super glue, the 2 smoke dischargers on the turret sides came off a couple times during the build & I expect when on the table, this is likely to occur again unless the players are careful....well they will be coming off again. Some will think that I may have missed some spot painting the base colours, but that is in fact intentional, do denote scratched off paint & weathering.

 

Here is an image with a couple riflemen for scale. The Matilda 1 is not a large vehicle, even accounting for the fact the soldiers are on higher bases. 

 

As seen in the image below this appears to be scaled correctly, so I am happy with that.

I've got 3 more Riflemen on the paint table now & am gluing heads onto a 2nd squad. 

BEF - Riflemen & completing a set!

As my week off comes to a close, I completed 4 more Riflemen for the 1st Squad.

 

As with the others & likely many of them, these are all metal Warlord Games Miniatures.

 

As well when I was out on the weekend, we did another stop at Giant Tiger where I figured I would take a look to see if they had that missing vehicle from the Construction series...

 

 They did! So I was able to snag the dump truck. While not a full size truck, this is more in line with a 1 ton

 

On the paint table are the remaining Riflemen, as well as the Bren Gun Team & a 2" Mortar team. Also the Matilda 1 is now put together & is getting is fresh coat of paint, before I mess & muddy it up. 

BEF - Juinor Leader & Rifleman

I spent a couple hours today working on more of the BEF troops. Today I managed to complete the 1st Squad Junior Leader & a Rifleman (Junior Leader is on the right wearing the leather vest)

 

Again these are metal figures from Warlord Games. I believe I am happy with the choices of colours for the palette & can now forge ahead with the remainder of the squad.

 

I am also in the process of gluing together a Matilda 1 to paint up once this first squad is completed. 

The BEF is coming

With the rise of Germany's aggressiveness, Britain has begun sending troops to bolster the French & Low Contries stance to counter it.

Here we have the first British Officer, preparing the way for the troops to follow.

 

This is a metal Warlord Games figure & represents a Senior Leader (for my purposes likely a Platoon Commander). These will be used for Chain of Command to assist Scott's French forces.

 

So you can expect this is the first of many Early WW2 figures from me. I have 1 of the box sets based  which gives me enough for a Rifle Squad including the Bren Team, a 2" Mortar crew, & a couple other odd's n' sod's. I've pulled out the book so that I can also create the options for this force. 

 One change that will occur going forward after this squad is basing them directly onto a washer vs the combo as seen here. 

Temple of Chac - Tatiana & Martin

With the long weekend winding down, I was able to finish off the last 2 adventurers for the Temple of Chac. Today we have Tatiana Bregovic & Martin Fletcher.

 

Tatiana's adversaries say she is cold as ice & her rivals are always amazed when they see how fast she can move in freezing water. Her special ability is swimming.

 

Martin Fletcher is a charismatic adventurer & an unrivalled runner, which has always pulled him out of many tricky situations...until now. His special ability is sprint.

 

So that completed the Temple of Chac project. While I could indeed paint up the few terrain pieces, they really don't need it. The grey boulder would likely still be grey when painted, etc.

Up next is the first of my Early War British, with 1 squad based & on the paint table. (This should make Scott happy). I am still debating how I want to identify the various leaders as I have quite a few old 1/35 scale decal sheets. One option is to place the rank on the base, or maybe I will just buy the correct scale decals to deal with it. This squad will be my test palette to see how I will do the others when ready. 

Temple of Chac - LenTso,Markus& Trevor

Another good paint session today, seeing me complete 3 more of the Adventurers. I was so happy I quickly snapped their photos (realizing that the dip hadn't all dried yet) You will see...

 

First up is Len Tso Yau. This young Chinese explorer is a brilliant handyman. His exceptional dexterity has often saved his life. His special ability is Lockpicking.

 

Second is Markus Brassler. A true genius of crime, this infamous character only cares about the cash he will make when he sells his plunder. His special ability is Lockpicking. (Yes there are 2 adventurers each with the same special ability)

 

 

 

Lastly we have Professor Trevor Griffith. An ancient & esoteric languages expert, he can quickly identify strange glyphs. His special ability is Linguistics.

This leaves 2 more adventurers to complete the Temple of Chac project. Thanks for visiting. 

Temple of Chac - Vincent Gerondeau

Continuing on with Adventurer 7, today we have Vincent Gerondeau.

 

This bouncing Frenchman is the youngest of the adventurers. Despite his young age, he has already shown the qualities of becoming a great explorer. His special ability is Leap

 

This little fellow would also make a good digger figure for any Pulp exploration groups that are out there.