I started two small Afghanistan projects around the same time, one in 6mm for the Soviet invasion and one in 15mm for the period after when various warlords vied for control. I figured I could use alot of the same scenery for both as it would be scale agnostic, small hills in 15mm would become small mountains in 6mm. While the 15mm project has stalled a bit, I managed to get gameable forces painted up in 6mm. The figures are based for the ruleset "Hind & Seek" which is available online and has some very interesting concepts to give a fun asymmetrical game. Anyway, here are some snaps of my 6mm project.
Here are some Soviet motor rifle infantry. The sculpts are all Heroics and Ros and I was very impressed with them. They are tiny with nice details and easy to paint. The picture shows four rifle squads on 30x15mm bases and two light machine gun bases on 15mm squares. The tiny dice trays are from Pendraken and will house dice to track casualties. You may notice a gloss finish, I have since sprayed them down with matte varnish for a better look.
Some of the Soviet vehicles - a few transport trucks, some BTR60s and two T-55s.
A closeup of the T-55s, very nice little sculpts.
And now for the helos. Two Mi-17 Hip and two Mi-24 Hinds. The Hips are kitted out as attack variants but will assume the role of either troop transport or attack choppers depending on the scenario.
The clear flight stands were pirated from Games Workshop and the rotor discs were ordered online from some plastic laser cutting service. They were fairly cheap and I used a small tool to find the center of the discs and drill a hole to attach them to the choppers. Much easier than I thought it would be and I am happy with the appearance.
And now some Afghan mujahadeen forces to include rifle squads, HMGs, sniper, RPG teams, AA guns and a stinger team.
Closeup of the sniper team and a twin barreled ZPU-23.
Close-up of a mujahadeen rifle squad. Sadly, I am slacking in the construction of terrain and villages but I hope to rectify this and get in a game of Hind and Seek.
Lastly, here is a comparison picture of (L-R): Heroics and Ros infantry, an H&R T-55, a GHQ T-80 and Mainforce infantry.
As I mentioned on LAF I am also very into this. A couple notes;
ReplyDeleteFor forces and battles Soviet armour only comes into play if attacking villages. Helos and artillery ruled the day there. As per the rules the Mujahideen can disappear into the ground as it were. The Soviets made a point of attempting to surround the Afghans and attack them direct with part of the force pushing them into the blocking troops. This should work well as you would be pushing the hidden forces into near contact with, usually, the more capable blocking forces (think air mobile troops delivered by heli) forcing them out into the open. Personally I like early war (intending to game through the war) so try to limit the Mujahideen as they would be early on with lack of radios and coordination while the Soviets made less effective use of heli gunships and blocking tactics.
As for H&S itself based on my play and the feedback from my opponents I have a few ideas on ways to modify the rules there. As written the rules need lots of condition counters, many of which can be assumed as part of the "standard conditions or game play" and we have a hard time with the idea of moraleing a unit to death. Takes quite a while and the affected unit is not in any way degraded as it is "killed slowly" until it is gone. About the only game effect of the morale degradation is the unit may accelerate it's demise. Personally I like the concept, especially for the Mujahideen, but am looking at some form of degradation. I would also like to include leaders, especially important for the Afghans, and variable capabilities due to equipment and supplies as faced by the Mujahideen at different times in the war.
Lastly an idea I am using for my helis is I use a simple flight base for the minis with a magnet on top. Then I glue a small nut on the bottom of the chopper. This allows me to represent landed (mini off stand placed directly on the table top, and in low flight. I haven't gotten round to high mode yet. Maybe a small (inch or two) extension to the flight stands. The small nut (4-40 or so) allows Mi-24s to sit on the table without falling over as the models have the landing gear retracted. Between the length of the landing gear on the Mi-8 and Mi-17 models either the nut is off the ground or the same height as the landing gear. I have yet to finish my Mi-6s and bring them to the table so I don't know how they will work.
Great work on the minis!
Great post- it is agame I've been wanting to gete into- thanks for the basing ideas.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Pete.
Please could you give details of the plastic laser cutting service that you used for the rotor discs...?
ReplyDeletesorry for late response, I got them from a Houston, Texas based online store called ZLazr. I measured the approximate diameter of the rotors and ordered a similar size clear disc. They come with protective paper and before I removed it, I used a Savannah brand center finder (clear yellow plastic tool) to figure out the center and drilled a hole. I attached them to the helos with a sewing needle clipped to length.
ReplyDelete