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.

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.

Two 28mm Komsomolets artillery tractors for my Finnish army

These are two 28mm Komsomolets artillery tractors for my Finnish WWII army. The Finns captured a bunch of these during the Winter War and used them to the end of WWII and beyond. These are both 3D printed. The one on the left a filament print gifted to me by my friend Mark D., the one on the right printed by me in resin on my new Elagoo Saturn 2 resin 3D printer. Mark, thanks for the wonderful gift!

Both of these were weathered up with some mud in the tracks and splattered throughout. This 'mud' was made with Mig 'European Mud' pigment and some acrylic medium. A nice coating of dust was added using Valejo dust weathering wash, which I actually like a lot. I've intentionally left off the Finish markings on these. Some were pressed immediately into service, so this is not all that a historical. Also this will allow me to use them with a Russian force should I ever get around to making one. 

 

I'll count these as two 28mm vehicles painted in my annual painting totals.

More 28mm Russian Militia Crossbowmen

This is the completed unit of Fireforge City Militia Archers that I converted to crossbowmen previously shown in a WIP post. These figures were painted for the Saga Thorsday painting contest announced in their most recent video.

These Fireforge resin figures gave me some trouble. Some of that was completely my fault and was a result of me being a very amateur sculpter and figure converter. If I had a chance to do this project again I would have made some different decisions in re-posing and re-sculpting the figures. The rest of the trouble was due to the texture and flaws in the resin. I normally do a process of base coloring, washes, then highlighting. For these figures I was afraid washes might bring out the wrong detail, so they were only used on the fleshy bits. Instead of washes I used more dry-brushing and intentional highlighting.

I'm super happy with the faces on these, and they look the part on the table. I'm proud enough with them to submit them to Rodge at Saga Thorsday for his contest. This adds twelve 28mm figures to this year's painting totals. Next up on the painting table are some Crusader Cavalry and a ruin terrain piece for Saga.

 

For the contest, here's the obligatory 'thumbs up' from Rodge photo!

Recently Painted Figures and Terrain

I like to take my photographs outside on an overcast day. Winter and early spring here in New Hampshire haven't been kind to going outside to photograph toy soldiers. Spring has finally sprung, so here are a few items that got finished this spring. First up eight hearthguard for my Russian Princdoms Saga army. These are meant to represent the Samogitian Nobles and carry two-handed axes classified as 'heavy weapons' in Saga. These are Gripping beast figures. I modified them by replacing the axe handles with steel wire requiring some fancy drill work in the hands and axe heads to get everything assembled.

Two incendiary pigs to be used with my Eastern Princes army when using it to play Warlord Games fantasy rules "Warlords of Erehwon".

Final addition to convert my Eastern Princes to Warlords of Erehwon - a Cyclops toy purchased from Amazon pre-painted. Required minimal touch up and basing. I'll count this as one 'Terrain/Misc' in the painting totals.

Warlord Games 28mm Stone Bridge - I've given this one my lead shot treatment to make it a bit heavier, then painted with liberal dry brushing, two color stone work and some muddy wheel tracks to make it lived in. Nice easy terrain piece and looks great on the tabletop.

Total effort in this post: Ten 28mm painted figures and two terrain/misc items.

28mm Eastern Princes Warriors for Saga

I'm a big fan of warrior units in Saga. I like the balance of durability, offensive power and number of figures. My Eastern Princes box set only came with one unit of eight warriors. This is a second unit that I made up by converting some Gripping Beast Pagan Rus warrior figures. Some only required a shield swap. Some required carving off the rectangular shields more characteristic of the Pagan Rus and some were used as-is. Decals are more LBMS from the same batch as my other figures.

Next up on the painting table, some German WWII armor. They've been on the table since before I started the Saga figures, but were stalled due to me needing to order some air brush parts. Now that the parts have arrived, the armor should be next to finish.

Lithuanian Hearthguards for Saga

These are two points of Lithuanian hearthguard for my Eastern Princes Saga army. The figures are Old Glory's ME-37 Lithuanian Light Cavalry from their Mongols in Europe line. Side to side with Gripping Beast these are quite compatible. Gripping Beast figures are a bit more stout, but size is similar for height. Shield transfers are more Little Big Man transfers.

Although these are sold as 'light cavalry', the Lithuanians used hides and leather armor almost exclusively during the early part of this period, so I'm comfortable with calling these hearthguards. They'll also be appropriate for mounted warriors should I choose to field the Lithuanians using a Mongol list representing the Lithuanian forces that fought the Mongols primarily on horseback. I'm counting these as 16 figures in the painting totals. Next up on the painting table are some scenario objectives for the Saga escort scenario.

Saga Eastern Princes - Hearthguard, Warriors, Warlord

Since I'm hosting a big Saga game day on Saturday, getting the shield transfers onto these figures was top priority. I cracked on and got it done and here they are. Most of these figures were painted last week during the World Series games and have been based and flocked just waiting for the transfers. This group shot shows all the figures not previously shown. All of these are from Gripping Beast's Russian Princedoms starter warband box. As far as figure count is concerned, I'm counting this effort as 26 figures.

 Hearthguard unit number one.

Hearthguard unit number two.

The Warlord. Most reviews of this boxed set give this figure low marks. I think the sculpt has good detail, but the pose is a bit awkward. 

The Warriors. I really like this unit. I have a second one to paint up that's just waiting on an order of shields. I'm going to convert some Pagan Rus figures as more city militia to give me additional poses. I've only played a few games of Saga, but so far I'm really liking warriors with melee weapons as good all-purpose troops.

Getting the (war)band back together. Here's a group shot of the entire six point warband. A video, which actually shows the figures more clearly is below.

After finishing up the army I also designed a set of Saga measuring sticks for club use with our club name and logo. These were cut and engraved from arctic birch plywood on my laser engraver.