Painting Update - Soviet Tanks and (more…) Cangames Prep

Howdy everyone,

I hope all is well on your side of the internets. We are slowly getting our way into Spring, although we’ve had a few frost warnings, so those always seem to get folks horrified and whatnot. So Cangames is a few days away, and admittedly the last few weeks have been rather busy, I haven’t had much chance to get to game planning until the last day or so…

The general idea of my game is to take the Tank Aces campaign from Flames of War and adapt it to the Team Yankee mid80’s timeframe. I have plenty of NATO and Warsaw PACT forces, and my recent bout of painting has helped that out. To fill out the ranks a little, I did manage to finish some Soviet or Czech T62’s…depending on your flavour. 

I wanted to try something a little more unique with these tanks and did a bit of a deep dive google search for painting schemes for Soviet tanks. I then focused onT62 tanks and I found a bunch of colour plates with a variety of green schemes. However, I struck paydirt when I saw reference to the Soviet version of US MERDC. The colour plates looked pretty cool, and I found a few other reference pics…so, I was sold…I ended up going that way for my T62’s. I ended up going with Vallejo Reflective Green for the base, and then Saddle Brown along with Tan Earth for the other colours. I hit them with Army Painter StrongTone, and then again with a wet layer of the 3 colours which let me get some hard-edge camo effects the scheme.

All in all, I am pretty happy with the results. Enjoy the pics.

2026's Trek up Mt. Shame

Painted

15mm         44, +8 (tanks + crew)

28mm+       16

Terrain      +38

  

Bought        0

Progress   +98

Homemade Terrain - Seeing the Forest and the Trees

Howdy folks,

Picking up from my last post. I have since been able to finish all of the scratch-built trees and terrain. All in all, there are 16 x 4 inch tree stands, 16 x individual trees, and 6 x treeline segments approximately 6 inches in length. Within all of this, there are over 105 trees, 16 coaster, 6 strips of MDF, and a large number of wooden tokens. Not to mention the homemade basing compound, the overlay using AK diorama mud compound, and half a can of dullcote.

The process was somewhat involved. The trees that I got from Temu did not come with bases...very annoying, but I did get about 70+ trees for about $40...I took some wooden tokens or chips that I got from the DollarStore and drilled into the middle so that I could use these as individual bases for the trees and also on the strips and stands. The 4 inch coasters were a bit of a gamble, in that I wasn't sure how durable they would be, but I needed a quick low cost solution. As I was putting the compound on them, which had a fair amount of water in it, I figured that given they were coasters that they should be able to handle any moisture without warping. 

Happy to report that they did not in fact warp.

Anyhow, after I put the base compound and AK diorama mix on, I then used a layer of Cinnamon Brown crafters paint. I then did a drybrush layer of Territorial Beige...which turned out okay, but wasn't overly pumped by it. I took a semi wet/dry brush layer to the overly beiged up parts using Vallejo Beige Brown. Surprisingly, this did not take a large amount of paint to rectify. I then took some Vallejo Stonewall Grey (I think) and painted up some rocky elements to give the eyes something else to look at. I followed this up with some Army Painter Soft Tone to accentuate the rocky features and give some light variation in some of the recesses of the basework and then hit everything with a very dry brush of Vallejo Tan Earth.

Very satisfied with the result, I then took everything outside to the sunny 18 degree day we were having and zapped it all with a matte overcoat. This was to give some protection to the base, but also some stability to some of the trees. Surprisingly, the Michaels trees were somewhat 'foamy' and some pieces were coming off, so I was hoping the dullcote would seal the materials in.

Here are the pics...next stop, the gaming table.

2026's Trek up Mt. Shame

Painted

15mm         36    

28mm+       16

Terrain      +38, 38 pieces of terrain 

  

Bought        0

Progress   +90

CanGames Prep - Scatter Terrain and a Buttload of Trees

Howdy folks,

We are sitting at just under a month until this years CanGames (https://cangames.ca/) in Ottawa. I decided to throw my hat in the ring for running a table this year and while I took some time to settle on a ruleset and setting, I realized afterwards that I would have to get moving on prepping things up. I hadn't played Team Yankee in some time, and I had a few models kicking around that I could paint up (cough cough, horde!), so I thought I could give a shot at TY. At the same time, I didn't want to settle on a traditional TY or Flames of War fight and instead dove into the Tank Aces Campaign and rules from a bunch of years ago for a solution.

I liked the idea of running a standard table with a reduced number of forces, and I also like the Force on Force (FoF) ruleset, but at the same time I didn't want to get too bogged down in rules and minutia. I really just wanted to focus on having models on the table. So, Tank Aces will give me the chance to whittle the force structure down to more of a FoF friendly size, and using Tank Aces, I will be able to have folks move around as independent teams and all that comes with that nuance. Anywho, maybe more on that later or in another post.

So, I had the setting - Cold War (which was where my original FoF thoughts were going) - I did a deep dive google search into table layouts (found some eye-candy and great looking tables at Sparkers Wargaming page), and took them as inspiration. That meant that I had to finally beef-up and invest in some scatter terrain that I could be proud of.

Again, going to google, I tried looking for something similar to what Battlefront offers, but the price point was a little much for me at the moment...and, the biggest consideration, every site I looked at had the Pine Woods or similar tree terrain sold out. Well that kinda solved the concerns about the cost...

So, DIY/Scratchbuild time! I ended up buying an assortment of trees from Temu and Michaels…over 100 of them. I picked up some coasters to base the trees from Michaels along with some regular felt pieces (12x9 inch and 12x18 inch) and some textured felt, which would be great for some farmers fields.

I made up a mixture of sand, pva glue, drywall compound, hearty craft paint, and some water. It made a pretty solid mortar for the bases and it didn’t take much to tidy up the bases with a second application. 

Next step is the painting and dry brushing. Cheers.

Painting Update - Horde of Team Yankee Americans

Howdy everyone,

 

Whether you are in the midst of spring or the [alleged] last storm of winter, I hope that all is well on your respective sides. I have been rocking the best of both seasons, although I have not had any of the big snowfalls that other folks have been experiencing...which is both great and horrible all at the same time.

 

I have been taking it somewhat easy over the last few weeks, enjoying some time off from work...and while I have and have not accomplished anything, I have at the very least worked my way through a number of vehicles that were sitting on the painting table waiting their turn for the brush. Between picking up starter boxes that were well priced (the first release of the Complete Starter Set and Ryan's Leathernecks) or supporting local gaming stores on my travels, I had amassed a bit of a small-ish horde of vehicles for Team Yankee.

 

Over my time off, I was able to paint up the 6 Humvees from the Leathernecks box, the M1 Abrams and the Bradley's from the Compete Starter Set, and a box of Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles. This also gave me a chance at trying my hand at the M81 Woodland camo pattern for US uniforms. I am pretty happy with the results of the uniforms and have a Rifle Platoon to get to next...and the vehicles, I painted most of them in the MERDC pattern that I had used prior, and did 2 Bradley's and 2 Abrams in straight green no camo...having looked at a wide variety of images, I thought the mix would work. And certainly it helps in distinguishing small units on the table...and the green vehicles can work well for Red Dawn type, as in my mind green feels more continental-US.

 

Anywho, I'm very happy with how they all turned out. Enjoy the horde of photos to go along with this.

 

Cheers.

The horde…enough kit to field an understrength M1 Armoured Combat Team with multiple Bradley recon teams and Humvee recce support.

The Bradley’s…M2A2/M3A3’s with a pair of M2/M3’s…enough for 3 support teams for the M1’s or enough for their own Armoured Cavalry Troop (with M1 support).

Some Humvees on parade…enough for a couple of Scout sections.

Some M1’s…can combine with the previous couple I had painted up for a small core formation.

2026's Trek up Mt. Shame

Painted

15mm         36, +27 (crew and vehicles)    

28mm+       16

Terrain        0

  

Bought        0

Progress   +52

 

 

 

 

 

 

Painting Update - Russian BMP/BRM 1's

Hello everyone,

I hope the day is finding you all well...the freezing rain that was supposed to hit us seems to have stayed south and/or just avoided our area all together. 

 

This is another post showing off some more 3D printed items from my buddy Duncan. He gave me a few printed BMP's to try out and throw some paint on. Admittedly, I've had them a while, but working through the palette cleanser, they made it to the painting table. I had to do a little work with the turrets as they were a little tight...I ended up filing/cutting down the turret ring on the hull of the vehicles and bringing the turret themselves down a little. It didn't take too much work, and they are now fairly free.

 

The BMP's themselves are the reconnaissance variant, the BRM and in this case the BRM 1. I'm not too overly worried on complete accuracy for how I'm going to employ them on the field, but from an OCD perspective they have a variety of subtle differences between the BMP and BRM. In terms of where these models will go, I think they will more than likely fit in the Imagi-nation world and probably find a home in Afropia as one of a number of potential belligerents for the Petoriastan Defence Force (PDF).

 

Anywho, they painted up fairly quickly and the 3D resin took the paint really well. I ended up having to snag a couple of Soviet crewmembers from my Team Yankee pile and cut them down as 2 of the BMP/BRM's had the drivers hatch open...so in went a crewmember.

 

Overall, the prints weren't too bad. I ended up snapping part of the tracks off and then gluing and refusing them to the hull...it worked well and looks like they should have the strength to stand up to the 'war'.  

 

Enjoy the pics. 

2026's Trek up Mt. Shame

Painted

15mm           9, +5    

28mm+       16

Terrain        0

  

Bought        0

Progress   +25

 

 

Painting Update - Soviet Gaz 66 Utility Trucks

Hello Everyone,

I hope that all is going well on your respective side of the internet. We are in a fairly slow weather transition here between winter-spring-winter-almost spring-more winter; we have had some fairly warm temps and some fairly not so warm temps with about a 30-40 degree swing and maybe a bit more if you count windchill.

Regardless, the paint has been rolling on. I wanted to share this quick post with you to highlight some 3d printed models that I received from Duncan some time ago. I had actually painted one of them up really quickly to see how they would handle the paint - and then I promptly forgot about the other three. So, I totally rectified that last week and finished them up.

I like the mix of models that I received. Each truck is sporting a different load with only one of them having the full canvased back for troop hauling or other somesuch. The others are much more about the cargo, and one of them has nothing in the back so I can make up some random cargo loads...or technical gun mounts, should I choose. I did paint them up in a mix of civilian and military paint scheme and I think they will suit very well for Cold War and/or imagi-nations.

Enjoy the pics.

2026's Trek up Mt. Shame

Painted

15mm           4, +4    

28mm+       16

Terrain        0

  

Bought        0

Progress   +20

Painting Update - 02 Hundred Hours

Howdy folks,

I hope all is well in your slice of the world. I am sitting her listening to the sound of the wind and sadly seeing all of my snow disappear. Just a quick post today, but wanted to share some progress that I have been making with the Grey For Now games 02 Hundred Hours starter box.

I had posted a while back my absolute joy in having completed the SAS commandos from the starter box, and can happily say that I think I am half way through the German side. Admittedly the progress has been a little slow, with more time taken that I would have liked to square away the painting scheme that I wanted to follow for the German sentries. Yes, I did go down an OCD rabbit hole, but at the same time I found a few excellent blogs and tutorials that I have adapted. As you will see in the pics, I have a mix of early war to late-ish war patterns for my troops. I had never tried early war before, so that was a great exercise and opportunity to use other colours for my Germans beside Vallejo 830.

As much as my OCD was struggling with the paint scheme decision, hands down the activity that took a large amount of time...and literal skin...was the assembly process. The figures are excellent, there is so much detail opportunities in each one. Very very frustrating was the finnicky nature of some of the components, i.e. gun slings breaking, dog leashes being nearly impossible to salvage let alone take off the sprue without any breakage.

I hope you enjoy the pics...more to follow in the future. One thing I will say, these figs as frustrating as they were to assemble are just excellent and were a really great palette cleanser from my Marvel Crisis Protocol push.

Cheers.

Group shot so far…

Two troops kitted up as Military Police…

Not part of the starter box, available separately…German sentry rising late for watch.

Trying out a few different uniform schemes.

German NCO in late-war uniform…and a couple of dogs (there are 6 available in the starter set)

German officers…with and without greatcoat. The figure on the right, I elected to paint-up emulating Henry Cavill’s character from “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare”. The game allows for a commando being dressed undercover with various conditions and movement options. I painted this one up using the coat gets from the raid to liberate Apple.

A few more shots of Herr Cavill. I took one of the arms from the SAS sprues that was sporting a sten smg and I ended up adding a suppressor to go along with the characterization from the movie.

2026's Trek up Mt. Shame

Painted

15mm         0    

28mm+       16, +12

Terrain        0

  

Bought        0

Progress   +16