Modern Micro Armor

 A couples years back, my gaming buddy Rob and I played in a modern micro armor game at one of the HMGS conventions. The game was a fictional battle between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the Crimea and was put on by the guys from Thunderbolt Forge Games, the miniatures and scenery were absolutely beautiful. 

Spurred on by that experience, I picked up some GHQ miniatures to start my own Russian Ukraine micro armor project. The figures languished until shortly before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine...I started painting them up as I saw the various events on TV and the internet but they could just as easily be for any point between 2014 and present. 

First up are a few T-80Us, as mentioned before these and the rest of the vehicles are GHQ. Really superb, clean sculpts. Russian green with an ink wash and light drybrush.

I thought about adding vehicle numbers or even the notorious Vs, Zs and Os of the 2022 invasion but decided to keep these plain green with the exception of a red dot on the thermal.

Some MT-LB APCs, little tiny things these are. I tarted them up with white vehicle numbers available from here. When I purchased these and the T-80s, I planned to base them off of the 200th Independent Motorized Brigade and whom uses the T-80/MT-LB combination because of the arctic type environment they are based out of. Anyway, the 200th uses yellow numbers but I went white.

Some Russian infantry (and an ATGM team). These are Main Force miniatures and they are all sculpted prone with a few exceptions. I like these as gaming pieces, I painted them in Ratnik style uniforms with white identification bands on limbs.

Next up are some Ukrainian infantry (and an ATGM team), I painted these guys in a more khaki look with yellow identification bands.  

Same guys but a different angle.

Here we have Ukrainian T-64 Bulats in digital pixel camo. It was an interesting challenge to replicate the digital pixel camo in 1/300. I think I did a good enough job for the gaming table.

Same Bulats, different angle. I painted some Ukrainian ID panels on reactive armor.

A few BTR-80s in digital pixel scheme, I don't believe GHQ makes any BTR-4s yet.

BMP-2s in digital pixel camo.

So there you go. I have about 5 of each type model (number in a GHQ pack) and plenty more infantry and ATGM teams. I plan to use the very simple (and free) Pz.8 1975-2010 wargaming rules with these. I plan to add some little add-ons like blinds and special events. I will be playing these with my gaming buddy Rob at Historicon in case you see them there!

10mm Zulu

 A project that I embarked on prior to the Pendraken Painting Competition was a smallish Anglo-Zulu War project for Daniel Mersey's The Men Who Would Be Kings (TMWWBK). I vacillated between 6mm and 10mm but opted to go with the latter. Almost all of my figures are from Old Glory's 10mm range supplemented by some Pendraken. In TMWWBK, a Zulu unit is comprised of 16 figures. I decided to use the rules as-is but with several smaller figures on a base that would normally have a single 28mm figure so I could get a nice massed look. I decided to base them on 20mm rounds and movement trays (all ordered from Litko).

Anyway, I am finished two married regiments, here is the uThulwana regiment also known as the Dust Raisers (EDIT: upon closer review of the image, this is actually the amaPhela regiment aka "Cockroaches")

Here is a closeup of one of the Litko movement trays I custom ordered. The uThulwana regiment had a white shield with brown spots.

The second regiment is that of amaPhela or the "Cockroaches". I decided to go with this regiment because I like the brown shield and their nickname. 

The two regiments massed in all of their glory. 96 total figures. I have one more married regiment and three more unmarried regiments to complete my Zulu army. Then its on to the British and their native contingents.

I have to say I really enjoy painting the Old Glory Zulus. They are relatively simple sculpts but they are incredibly easy and quick to paint and have about 6 dynamic poses. This project is all about speed painting to a wargames standard and getting them table ready. Look forward to the next regiment!

British Falklands Force

 

Mystery Uniform

 A friend of mine sent me the following picture of his wife's great grandfather seeing if I could identify the uniform. The only clues I was given was that family was from the Baltic/Polish and the photo was around 1900. I'm thinking the cap and badge might give something away, I'm thinking maybe a mounted gendarmie or something? Can anyone assist?

James Scott, Duke of Monmouth

I managed to paint the final piece for the 2022 Pendraken Painting Competition. This one will be entered into the Single Base category. For this entry, I chose to paint up a command stand for the rebels at Sedgemoor. The stand consists of James Scott, Duke of Monmouth charging into the fray alongside a cornet from his Lifeguard who is carrying a flag with the Duke's royal cypher on a gold background. 

For inspiration, I chose this painting of the Duke in a red coat faced white with a blue sash, riding a white charger.

Here is my version, a bit simplified:

Pendraken offers up a lot of mounted command types in wonderful poses but I only possessed one of these sculpts, so the same pose serves double duty as commander of Grey's troop of horse. I actually like this pose for Monmouth as it captures the dash and elan I associate with him. 

Here is a different angle, you can see the cypher a bit better and you can also see a casualty of the uprising. The Duke himself seems rather indifferent to the plight of his fallen man on the ground. So that bring a conclusion to my painting for this competition. I managed to paint three entries in 3 weeks: Colonel Brandt's scythe battalion, Lord Grey's troop of horse and the dashing Duke himself. It was a fun and challenging mad dash to the finish line but I am glad I can relax a bit. I will probably snap a few pics of my British Para force for the Falklands and enter that into the Army category. 

 

More Pendraken Painting Competition 2022!

I finished painting my second unit for the Pendraken Painting Competition. This entry will be for the "Mounted" category and it depicts Grey's Horse, a rebel cavalry formation during the Monmouth Rebellion. I decided to keep to the theme of my initial entry, which was Colonel Brandt's Scythe battalion at the battle of Sedgemoor. 

Grey apparently wasn't the initial leader of Monmouth's cavalry. Grey, while brave wasn't terriblt experienced and he failed to press home his attack across the rhine on the British camp. Had he been more aggressive, who knows what would have happened. As befitting a hastily gathered rebel army, I depicted these riders in a hodgepodge of clothing and gear. There are a smattering of the purple faced red coats that Monmouth brought over with the initial invasion force.

I also decided to add some of the Falklands stuff I painted up in 2021. I painted the Argentine infantry in late 2020 and early 2021 and then tackled the British Para infantry and the vehicles in mid 2021. First up is an Argentine Panhard armored car.

Next up is a British Scimitar (or is it a Scorpion? I think its a Scimitar..). These were fun to paint, I added some antenna sourced from old toothbrush bristles. 

Lastly, I have included a British Para platoon (minus the support weapons). I have to give credit to Doug from Dougie's Wargaming Blog. He provided the roadmap on how to paint the DPM camo.

 

Well, that's it for now. I am currently working on my final entry for the painting competition which is none other than the Duke of Monmouth himself! Wish me luck, I only have a week left to get him done!

Pendraken Painting Competition 2022

 Here is my entry for the Pre-20th Century Foot category, Colonel Brandt's scythe battalion at the battle of Sedgemoor. In Stephen Carter's recent work, Fighting for Liberty, the author notes that many of the scythe companies were possibly converged with the Lyme independent company to form an honor guard of sorts. Carter also notes that the "Fear Nothing But God" battle standard was recovered near where the scythe battalion would have been positioned and may have accompanied the scythes.

I tried to go with a subdued color palette to reflect the tradesmen that would have mustered into Monmouth's army. There are a few purple coats faced red mixed in to represent the coats distributed to the original rebel soldiers. There are also some red and grey militia coats sprinkled in for good measure.

I created the flag from merging several different images in MS Paint and then resizing and tweaking the contrast and brightness in MS Powerpoint. After mounting it, I had to touch it up a bit. I should say that I acquired these figures from the prizes I won in the 2015 painting competition. Last year I entered some Falklands Argentines that placed, hopefully these gents have similar success! I hope to paint and enter some additional entries before the deadline. Wish me luck!