28mm Macedonian Thureophoroi Re-Based

I originally painted these figures up during the height of the pandemic in 2020. They were based up for Hannibal at the Gates rules. Being a play tester for those rules, I originally painted up more figures than I needed as the rules and associated army lists were evolving as the rules were fine tuned. Three years later, these ten figures are excess as commands ended up being generally reduced in figure count slightly. 

With no prospects of these seeing table time using that basing, I've re-based these for use with both Clash of Spears and Saga age of Alexander. They'll partner up nicely with the Pike I've recently purchased and re-based. These are Warlord Games 'new resin' from their SPQR / Hail Cesar figure ranges. I forget exactly which. Other than being slightly annoying to clean due to them needing to be scraped but not sanded, these are fantastic figures. Great detail, only weapons and shields for assembly and they look great as a unit. 

I painted these as I was learning to use Games Workshop's Contrast paints. I think those type of paints do a good job on helmet plumes and cloaks for Historical figures. This officer and musician are fine examples of this. Since having access to GW Contrast, Army Painter Speed Paints and Vallejo Xpress color, I think my preferred brand for this type of paint is actually Army Painter's Speedpaint line.

Ten figures re-based for my annual totals.

I realized that I never posted photos to this blog of the previously posted 'ready to base' figures based up. Here is a Thureophoroi and Thorakitai 'division' command of four units based for Hannibal at the Gates. It's possible that I never have posted photos of the Thorakitai as they were painted during the pandemic when my life and my blogging were somewhat chaotic.

28mm German Pioneers and Tank Hunters

These two groups of figures I've recently completed in order to enable me to run Chain of Command games with my Finnish and German armies for the Lapland War conflict in Finland. Although I've considered my German army more than complete for quite some time, Chain of Command requires pioneer teams and squads as support options. I had a flamethrower team in my collection, but I lacked proper German engineers with wire-clearing tools, explosives, etc. 

I considered getting the Warlord Plastics, but that was a waste considering I only needed a handful of figures. I also wanted whatever I purchased to be able to have some figures able to be re-purposed as German-equipped Finns. The pioneers in this group are Black Tree Designs pack WW2241 - Wehrmacht Engineers. Excellent figures with just the right equipment for my needs. I list the exact pack because finding such figures using Internet searches proved challenging and consumed more time than I'd like to admit. Hopefully Google will index this blog post and that might help someone with this same challenge in the future. I have no relation with Black Tree Designs other than being a happy paying customer.

The four engineers. I will add appropriate infantry to these to make up a full squad. They'll need an LMG and loader and an odd rifleman or two. Left to right, a wire-clearer with cutters and explosives, a grenadier with bundle grenades, an NCO with supply pack (satchel charge?) and an engineer carrying a mine. All in all a fine selection able to pose as any Chain of Command removal team as needed.

The 'tank hunters' are from Black Tree's WW2043 - Tank Killers pack. Some of these figures, primarily the ones with bundle grenades, were re-purposed as part of my Finnish pioneers. 

Seven painted 28mm figures for my annual totals. I have to admit, this year I'm definitely going to fail my goal of painting more figures than I purchase already painted, but this small effort helps towards that goal.

28mm Macedonian Pike re-based

Just a quick post of 24 Macedonians with sarissa (pike) that I bought off of ebay, touched up and re-based for Clash of Spears. 

24 figures purchased, 24 figures re-based on my annual totals.
 

 

 

 

28mm Bavarian Chevaulegeres Re-Based

I purchased these figures from Ebay. They were nicely painted, but well used, severely worn, and had received significant damage in shipping. Although I've labeled this as a re-basing project, I also spend upwards of of a dozen hours repairing and re-painting every figure and every horse. In the end, they came out looking quite serviceable. They were painted in a 'toy soldier' style and I tried to keep true to that in the restoration efforts. Six bases re-based in the annual painting totals.

 

 

Last of the 28mm Finnish Infantry

I'm starting to come to the end of my 28mm Finnish Continuation War / Lapland War project. These are the last 'infantry' figures, including the gunners for the captured Russian 45mm AT gun. 

Remaining on the project are four vehicles, a T-34/76, a T-26 and two Komsolets artillery tractors. The latter 3-D reprints to replace the under-scaled ones I've already finished. 

 

This is a captured 45mm Russian AT gun. The Finns received a batch of these from Germany. Ter German designation was PaK 184 (r). Finland also captured several in the continuation war. I've painted this in flat green without the characteristic Finnish camouflage, as a majority of the in-theater historical photos appear to show it being used this way. The gun and crew are by Great Escape Games from their Iron Cross figure range.

Five Finnish combat engineers. These are converted Great Escape Games German engineers. I've done some head swaps and cherry-picked the figures with the least amount of characteristically German kit that wasn't given to the Finns. Helmets of course were donated in huge quantities.  These could also fit in as 'tank hunters' easy enough as most are carrying bundle grenades and panzerfausts. One figure also has an anti-tank mine. These will be augmented by my already painted flamethrower team.

I needed an engineer squad so I can use this army for Chain of Command. The CoC support points include flamethrower teams, engineering squads for tasks such as mine clearing and barbed wire clearing as well as full engineering squads.

 

Finally, the last dregs of the 'dead lead' box. This handful of infantry figures comprises the absolute last of the unpainted Finnish infantry figures I had. I was saving these few in case I needed an odd crew for an AT-gun, etc. While I was painting the AT-gun crew and engineers I figured I'd take advantage of economy of scale and get these finished up.

Total figures for the project - 13 figures and the AT gun.

 

Roman Re-Basing Project

I recently purchased the figures shown to the left from several Ebay auctions from a single seller. I was looking for a quick start on a Roman army for Saga and Clash of Spears. These figures were well loved, but arrived in good condition, although I wanted to re-base them on circular 25mm bases to be consistent with my other Saga and Clash of Spears figures. Due to transit damage and just normal wear-and-tear, nearly all of the figures had some touch-ups needed to bring them back up to snuff for tabletop use.

First up I tackled the allies. This unit of six Samnite figures also required I hand-paint one shield which was missing, lost in transit I believe. This is a unit for Clash of Spears, or a partial unit for Saga to be combined with figures in the below two units as 'warriors' in eight-figure units.

A second unit of allies, these are Italiotes, Etruscians, Campagnians, etc. A single unit of Warriors for Saga, or a large unit for Clash of Spears.

This unit, a mix of 'allied legion' Italiotes. A full unit for Clash of Spears, combined with Samanites above to complete a unit of eight warriors for Saga.

A unit of Triarii with white shields. Just under two units of hearthguards for Saga, or a large unit for Clash of Spears.

A group of red-shielded Triarii. This would make two and a half hearthguard units in Saga or likely two units in Clash of Spears.

The two mounted figures in this photo I've posted earlier. The four stands of foot officers can be used as warlord figures for Saga or officer figures for Clash of Spears. Clash uses single figures for officers, but the multi-figure bases take the guesswork out of knowing which is the officer and look better in my opinion. For game purposes each base will count as a single figure.

These were thrown in for free in the deal. They look more like Macedonians than Roman allies. Let's call them captured soldiers from Pyrrhus' army pressed into Roman service. They might serve as stand-ins for more Velites or even as filler for an allied legion unit.

Two very lonely Velites. I'll paint up some more from my unpainted lead collection to flesh this unit out.

The bulk of the Hastati and Principes, 15 with white tunics and red shields, 12 with red tunics and red shields, an officer, musician and an odd Triarii that got missed in the lot above. 

Here's a group shot of the above as well as previously posted ancient units for Saga.

Group shot of the bulk of the Roman infantry and officers. 

Project totals: 87 figures re-based, 87 28mm painted figures purchased.

28mm Minefields for Chain of Command

These are three 6"x6" minefields for use primarily with Chain of Command, which prescribes minefields of this size. They can also be used for other 28mm WWII games as well. While mines might not typically be visible, I find this representation to be quite recognizable by the players on the tabletop. The mines are 3D printed. Two of the bases are turfed MDF bases and a third, on thin clear acrylic for placing minefields across roads, or in urban areas.

These are minimally populated with terrain decoration to allow infantry figures to be placed on them. This would be appropriate should the mines represent anti-armor mines, or for engineering teams during the mine clearing process.

Still to come, barbed wire emplacements and road blocks also sized appropriately for Chain of Command.

28mm Finnish BT-42 Assault Gun

This is the Warlord resin model for the uniquely Finnish BT-42. This vehicle was made by adapting a captured BT-7 chassis by making a custom box turret large enough to hold a pre-war British 4.5" howitzer. 

Although intimidating in looks, in practice the overloaded chassis proved anemic in power, and the howitzer under performed in it's intended role. Also when pressed by armor, the HE gun was unable to take out enemy armor. Many of these were lost in 1943, with the remainder fighting on to the continuation war in 1944. Eventually all were replaced with German Stug-III and Panzer-IV tanks. 

I know these are of dubious value in a historical force, but I couldn't resist having one of these uniquely Finnish vehicles in my collection. 

 

28mm Finnish Weapons Teams

This is a collection of 28mm Finnish WWII weapons teams I finished up last week. It contains a mix of manufacturers and also includes a 3D printed Pak-40 gun printed by me using my resin 3D printer.

This set will go a big way into getting my Finnish army ready for some Chain of command Lapland War games as it fills out a lot of the support team options for Chain of command.

Left, a Pak-40 anti-tank gun, sold to the Finns by Germany for use during the continuation war against Russia. This was the same gun that the Germans used prolifically during the later years of the war.

On the right a Pak-97/38. This was made by slinging a pre-war French 75mm cannon to ah Pak-38 gun carriage. These bastardizations were an improvisation used during early encounters with T-34 and KV-1/2 tanks. Pulled out of front line service, many where shipped to Finland as a stop-gap solution while Pak-40 guns were manufactured to send there.

Three panzerschreck teams. Armed with the German-provided 88mm shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket system. The Finns used these as one of their primary anti-tank solutions in the Lapland war. 

Maxim medium machine gun and 60mm mortar teams.  The Finns received precious few MG-38/42s from Germany and made do with copious Maxim guns captured from the Russians during the Winter war. 

The 60mm mortar, while not overly plentiful, supplimented 80mm and 120mm mortars, primarily also provided by the Russians during the Winter War as captured trophies. 

Three LMG teams using captured Russian DP-27 'record player' LMG's. Named due to the shape and size of it's round magazine. This gun was similar to the well-known British Lewis gun in how the magazine worked, although the size of the magazine was much more comical in size. Still in use in low numbers in the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022/3, the Finns much preferred this to the domestic Lahti-Saloranta M/26. The latter being available in insufficient quantities.

 

Finally a flamethrower, the Finnish Liekinheitin M/38 was an improvement over Italian and German designs of WWI. It had a rifle stock for the flame projector and was capable of ten 'bursts' with a range of up to 120 feet. This will be used in Chain of Command as part of a 3-man flamethrower pioneer section or as two figures in a full engineer platoon. 

This adds 25 figures to my 2023 totals. I'm not sure how to count the two AT guns, they're not vehicles or figures, so I'll leave them out for now.

28mm BA-6 Finnish (captured Russian) Armored Car

During the winter war and continuation war the Finnish army captured several BA-series armored cars, among them several BA-6. The Fins, having none of their own, were quick to slap some Finnish markings onto these and press them into service. 

This is the Warlord Games resin model. The BA-6 is essentially a T-26 turret on an armored car chassis. Crew of four with a hull mounted medium machine gun and a 37mm anti-tank gun in the turret.