28mm Austrian Grenzers

This is another unit for my Austrian army for the Italian Risorgimento project. These are Keelmen miniatures. My friend Ed gave me the tip that if I painted these up in pink facings they could also represent one of the few Grenzer units that fought for the Hungarians during the Hungarian revolution. Not wanting to pass up the extra utility I took Ed's excellent suggestion. There's also the bonus that you don't get to use pink facings and piping often when painting figures. You can read more about Ed's Grenzer shuffle on his blog.

I'm happy that Chocolate Box Wars allows you to paint units with only six figures. Any more and the piping on these might have been too much for me to handle. Even at 28mm scale, it's quite fiddly to paint accurately. I am happy with the final result, although there was some profanity involved in the process. For the pink I used a base of Pro Acryl bold titanium white with Vallejo red added to taste. The coverage of this mix was fantastic. Even over the medium brown I got full coverage in a single coat. I continue to be impressed with the Pro Acryl bold titanium white. 

 

Next up on the painting table some Piedmont Bersaglieri from Gringo40 miniatures.

28mm Austrian 1849 Grenadiers

Here are the first figures that I've painted up for my Risorgimento project. These are 1849 Austrian Grenadiers with their awesome bearskin hats. Similar to Ed's Austrian Grenadiers, I'll not hesitate to also use these for the Hungarian revolt if I choose to do that conflict with this army. As Ed says, "Everything is OK in Chocolate Box Wars!"

These are Keelmen Miniatures from their Hungarian revolt line. They're a touch larger than Perry and Foundry, but not enough to bother with. They seem quite compatible with the Gringo40 and Pirans Warriors figures that I'm using with the rest of this army. In any case, with a less popular period like this, it's catch-as-catch-can for figures. When someone makes the exact figure you need, it's a lot easier to use it than to go the figure conversion route. I'll be doing plenty of that for this project though, I'm sure.

I've used a mix of 'contrast' and traditional paints on these figures. The fur packs just cried out for some 'Gore Grunta Fur' contrast paint and the white uniforms I used Vallejo Xpress Color 'Templar White'. After that it's mostly standard acrylics including highlighting the leather belts with some Monument Hobbies Pro Acyl 'Bold Titanium White'. This was my first job for this highly acclaimed white paint and it did not disappoint with great coverage in one coat. Granted, that was applying it over an already off-white surface. 

Next up on the painting table are, some 1949 Grenzers for the Austrians.

Update: Thanks to my friend Ed seeing these in person, he noticed that I inadvertently forgot to paint the badges on the front of the bearskins on these. This has now been corrected as seen to the left.  Thanks Ed!

28mm German WWII Gebirgsjäger

These are mostly Warlord figures with a smattering of other figures from my dead lead box. With my recent completion of my Finnish army, I'm looking to play more historical games representing fighting during the Lapland war. The German army in northern Finland contained a large number of Gebirgsjäger. They likely were sent there due to their cold weather training and ability to ski. 

These figures are the second installment for me to augment my German army for the Lapland war. The first being my captured French H-35 tank. Many of which were used in Finland right through the end of the Lapland war. 

The only complaint I have with the Warlord figures are with the MG-34 gunner. His arm blocks the ammo belt feed orifice. This makes a realistic positioning of the ammo belt impossible. I've done my best to make it look as good as possible.  Other than this minor gripe, these figures are fabulous. They're properly equipped, unique and well sculpted.

 

I leveraged the strength of Vallejo's new wave of Xpress color 'contrast' style paints. The canvas jackets use Khaki Drill. The German field grey pants, caps and jackets are two parts grey, one part green Xpress color with a touch of model color field grey for opaqueness. 

Xpress colors were also used on the packs, ropes gaiters and my favorite 'Dwarf Flesh' for the faces and hands. I may paint more Gebirgsjäger in the future, but as of now I haven't acquired any additional figures for them yet.

Beginning work for the Italian Risorgimento (Italian Wars of Independence) - 1849-1860 Austrian Line Infantry

For a while my friend Ed from Ed M's Wargame Meanderings has been working on a post-Napoleonic 19th century wargame rule set called Chocolate Box Wars. The premise is for armies to be made with a smaller figure count, so an army can fit inside a 'chocolate box'. Each army consists of 12-16 stands of troops and an officer or two. 

I've always been enthralled with the Italian Wars of Independence, or as they call it the Risorgimento. The story of the daring Garibaldi and his thousand men kicking off a revolution in their red shirts, French-backed forces, Austrians, Papal forces and all in a myriad of uniforms. This period is beyond approachable in any large figure count rule set, but in Chocolate Box Wars, it's a much more approachable task to attempt to amass armies for each of the combatant forces. I had suggested to Ed, should he get the rule set off the ground, I'd start making armies for the Risorgimento based on his rules. 

I had intended to start with Garibaldi's rebel army as my first force, but these 1849-1860 Austrian Line infantry somehow appeared on Ebay and called out to me. To say painted figures for this period listed on Ebay is a rarity is an understatement. In fact, these were in the USA, originally purchased from a figure reseller in the United Kingdom. So I snatched them up, re-painted some facings and touched up some wear-and-tear and re-based them for Chocolate Box Wars. Four line infantry units done. This is the Core of my Austrian army!

 

I contacted the original seller from Ebay and inquired as to if he painted the figures and he told me the history of the figures. I looked into the original figure manufacturer, Pirans Warriors, and I noticed that the painting style looked quite similar to the sample photos on their site. Pirans also does commission painting, and after some back-and-forth emails, the owner confirmed that yes, he did paint these figures and yes, he was willing to accept a commission from me to paint more! I ordered up some additional units for the army that I hope to receive sometime late summer, early fall.

In the meantime, I've ordered up a few more units that I will be painting up myself. Look for more of those coming soon!

Note: Previously I posted that I was abandoning this blog in favor for Instagram. Although I will likely be posting more content on Instagram than I do here, I find this blog a fantastic diary of my wargaming projects and once I started this one I realized that I value that highly. So, I will continue to post here, particularly for this project, but also for other projects.

28mm BM-13 Katyusha Rocket Battery

A 'battery' of two 3-D Printed BM-13 Katyusha rocket trucks. These are more vehicles for my all-3D-printed defense of Stalingrad army for my friend Scott's campaign. I'll likely sell one of these after the campaign as I really don't need two. Printing and painting two at once took advantage of some economy of scale. Hopefully selling one can help defray the resin cost for this army.

This adds two more 28mm vehicles to this year's painting totals.

28mm Bavarian Napoleonic Artillery

These are five Bavarian artillery batteries based up for Napoleon's Rules of War or Electronic Brigadier. I purchased three of these guns and all of the gunners pre-painted from a seller on Ebay. Since there were many more crew than I needed for three batteries, I printed up two additional French 8lb Gribeuval cannons from my own STL files (available for free on Thingaverse).

These figures are the last of my current batch of Napoleonics re-basing. They include 14 purchased painted figures/guns and two 3-D printed and painted by me guns. Definitely a mixed bag!

This photo, a close up photo of the 3-D printed guns made from my own designed STL files. They're nothing super fancy, but serviceable on the tabletop and I've given the files away free for non-commercial use. I hope you get some use out of them!

Even MORE Napoleonic Re-Basing

Here's the other group of Napoleonics that I promised to post earlier this month. These are another two groups that I picked up on Ebay already painted. I just needed to re-base them to fit my favorite rule sets, Napoleon's Rules of War and Electronic Brigadier. 

These very nicely painted Bavarian jagers will represent a small two-battalion regiment of light infantry.

These Austrian line infantry are quite sharp with their purple facings. That's the primary reason I picked them up. I didn't really NEED another large three-battalion regiment, but the purple facings sold me on grabbing this unit. Also it was a good value for the quality of the paint job.

Further losing pace on my purchased vs. self-painted figures. These represent another 56 figures in the purchased column.

28mm 3-D Printed Aufklärungspanzer 38(t)

 Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a sucker for all variants of the venerable Czech Panzer 38(t). I've been wanting an Aufklärungspanzer 38(t) to add to my collection of other 38(t)-based variants for a long time. I've considered scratch building one as I did my Flakpanzer 38(t) but I never got around to it. Thankfully there's now a great model of it in STL form on Wargaming3D from Night Sky Miniatures. I cannot recommend this model enough. It's dirt cheap and quite accurate. It comes in high-detail and low-detail. This is the high-detail print with open turret. 

Although the closed turret version is likely more durable, I couldn't resist the open turreted option with it's included crew. The turret magnetizes easily to make tabletop use easy. I printed this using some 'tough' resin which I hope will help with durability. 

One more AFV scratched off my bucket list and put onto the annual painting totals.

3D-Printed WWII Soviet 'Army'

My friend Scot has organized a defense of Stalingrad campaign with a bunch of his gaming friends and I was invited to participate. Since I don't yet have any Soviet WWII troops and they make for excellent enemies for both my German and Finnish forces, I chose to be on the Soviet side of the campaign.

I thought this would make for an excellent opportunity to see if I could 3-D print the entire army while also trying out the 'slap chop' painting method to paint them. Painting has been going fast and furious in order to get my 500 point force ready for the first game. There were some hiccups in my understanding of which troops would be acceptable for the first game, so I'm about 1200 points in to field my 500 point force for the game. This dark photo is the army so far sitting in my figure case. Detailed photos below of each unit.

Two nine-man infantry squads of NKVD infantry in their khaki uniforms and sharp blue caps. Each squad with an LMG, an SMG and seven riflemen. 

Below a close-up showing the LMGs, SMGs and a great figure carrying a grenade. 

The weapon teams. An 82mm mortar left and a Maxim MMG team below.

 

Command and specialist teams. Lieutenant and his runner to the left. Below a Commissar with assistant and a sniper and spotter.

Twelve-man 'factory worker militia' squad. Bolt Action allows the Soviets to get a free 12-man inexperienced squad as part of their national characteristics. Quantity has a quality all its own I guess. These are a mix of figures from two different sculptors and I love all of the sculpts and how they work together. Favorites are the guy in the back smoking and the guy in the front with the sawed-off double-barrel shotgun!

Support vehicles: a Gaz truck with quad Maxim guns on an AA mount and a BA-64 light armored scout car with LMG/MMG. 

A squadron / platoon / 'zug' of three T-60 light tanks. Many people know about the T-34 factory in Stalingrad that was making tanks and sending them directly into battle un-painted or in primer. There was also another factory doing the same for T-60 light tanks. These will be part of my 'tank platoon' when we do the urban Stalingrad games.

These and everything above amounts to a total of 45 figure and five vehicles painted in the past 5-6 weeks since planning for the campaign has begun. Not bad starting with liquid and ending up with a sizeable army in that amount of time!

This squad of eight SMG-armed infantry and a converted Flamethrower figure I purchased off of Ebay when I thought I might not make the deadline for the first game. I'll still include them here, but they are not part of the 3D printed figures. I believe these are Warlord plastic figures. 

The 'flamethrower' is an MG ammo box on the back of that figure. I WILL be replacing it with a proper 3D-printed replacement.

More Napoleonic Re-Basing

 This group of Prussian regular line infantry is the most recent addition to my Prussian Napoleonic army for Electronic Brigadier and Napoleon's Rules of War. I purchased them on Ebay along with some other figures that will be the subject of future figure re-basing posts. 

These are plastic figures, probably either Warlord or Perry. I can't figure out which as I'm not much of a plastic figure aficionado. They're painted to a good wargaming standard and based up into two medium-sized and one large battalion. I was excited with this group as it also included a mounted officer and a foot battery.

Not much else to say. This adds 77 figures to my 'purchased 28mm figures' totals for the year. It looks like I'll be upside down again this year on painted vs. purchased figures. Keep an eye out on this blog, as there will be a considerable bit of figures that I did paint myself posted soon.