Team Yankee a Go-Go - more Combat Support

Hey folks,

I hope all is well on your end. Another week, another dump of snow…we got about another half foot or so thanks to some warmer temps compared to a few days ago. The year so far has been pretty productive and given the excitement around Red Dawn, I wanted to get a few more Team Yankee units completed and on the orbat.

For my Canadians and my 4CMBG force, I completed another 3 x M150 Tow carriers. Depending on the list you take, there are a few options for those launchers…I think you can have up to 2 x TOW sections (up to 3 x M150s per section) depending on whether your Battlegroup is Infantry or Armour based. Keeping with the overall theme of my 4CMBG build, these launchers are camm’ed up with netting and painted in NATO tri-colour. The main difference is that I haven’t included any national flags or emblems…there are some great pics online from back in the day of M113 carriers based in Canada that don’t have emblems or flags while their Euro-based counterparts sported the fancy decals. These carriers will fit in nicely with the Battlegroup, and they can also work for an at home defense Red/Arctic Dawn force for with whichever Canadian Brigade Group or formation would’ve remained.

For my Soviets, I was able to complete a flight of Su-25 Frogfoot...full disclosure, I have had these on my workbench since the time that Battlefront first released them as resin and metal cast…lol. But now is their time to shine, lol...anywho, I did some consulting of Google, found a really great modeling instruction that had a paint diagram and I also went to my stock of Osprey Publishing books and got inspired by their Air Vanguard book on the Su-25. Selecting two, I really like the variance of the schemes and for some extra fanciness, I di d NMM on the rocket pods and tried to give some impression of movement with the aircraft and added some extra highlights and contrast to give that sense...looks kinda neat, I'm quite happy with the result, and depending on the angle it makes me think that the aircraft are in a nose down attitude.

Hope you enjoy the pics.

Canuck TOW toting M113's ready for action. These ones actually have the metal figs/gunners that were intended for the model. I had robbed a couple of tubes from the BF Humvee model for my first section.

Bring on the frogs!

See...speed highlights...works in my brain, not much else to say about that.

Painted

15mm            10, +9 (Frogfoot and M150 TOWs + crew)

28mm+          4

Bought         24

Progress      -10

Fallout Painting

Hello everyone,

Keeping the momentum alive, so here is a quick Fallout Wasteland Warfare post. I can’t remember when I pick up the Unusual Allies pack, but I’ve had the NCR Ranger that was intended as a promo for a few years. The figures actually painted up super quickly and were a lot of fun. 

The Unusual Allies come with Strong, Nick Valentine, and Hancock each with a custom base. The poses are pretty dynamic with a high degree of detail to them. Similarly, the NCR Ranger has a great pose and is a really cool opportunity to get some colours and tones together that you normally wouldn’t have the chance to.

All in all, really fun figures with a good opportunity to change up your painting game.

Enjoy.

The 2023 Journey Up Plead (Plastic/Lead) Mountain

Painted

15mm            1

28mm+        +4

Bought         24

Progress      -19

A Piece Worth Fighting Over - Scratch Built Terrain

Howdy folks,

I hope all is well on your respective sides of the internet. We are finally getting some real winter weather, a couple of snowfalls to help bring in the new year…not to mention some -10 to -20C temps…so kinda nice to see.

Anyhow, I thought I’d keep up my momentum and work through some of my to-do pile as well as work towards some of my main objectives for this year. So with a 2 birds 1 stone kind of approach I took to finishing up a scratch build piece that I had started a while back and gotten around to painting. Inspired in part by some model pics, Cold War skullduggery, and some Red Storm Rising type fiction I made a refueling point parading as a ramshackle barn/shed. It should work for pretty much any game setting as scatter terrain or an objective in a scenario…but could work as an objective for TeamYankee or an action objective in a Force on Force game.

The build is with 15mm in mind…it is pretty bare bones, meant to look haphazard, with old sprue pieces for pipe works. I also took the opportunity to test out some Citadel contrast paints so the main structure was painted with a couple of those...sorry, can't remember off the top of the brainpan, but it went up pretty quick.

On the purchasing front, I had the good fortune to stumble on a 50% off sale on Flames of War so I picked up a box of US Armored Recon Patrol and M3 Halftrack Platoon both mid-war. So, an uncharacteristic purchase for me, but a bit of a score…I think I have some recce and transport for Afropia…so win win!

Here are the pics, the model is a Battlefront T72 for scale, enjoy!

 

Painted

15mm            +1

28mm+          0

Bought         +24

Progress      -23

2022...Oh What a Year

 Howdy folks,

I hope the new year has found you healthy, happy, and perhaps a little wise(r)...I could definitely use some of that...wise(r) or Wiser's, either would work. I have to say it is always a little surprising when the calendar rolls over, it comes too soon and at times has certainly taken too long to get here. 

In terms of painting and gaming, it was a journey...some models seemed to paint themselves and others took a disproportionate amount of time which in itself can be quite frustrating as it slowed progress. However, out of that I can say that I am very happy with the results of the painting, even if I had hoped for higher volumes, I am happy with the quality of the paintjob.

Compared to my thoughts just over 12 months ago, last post of 2021, I am happy to say that I chipped away at a portion of lead mountain and some of its plastic shrubbery. I didn't make any records in terms of outputs, but I am happy to see I had some consistency over the past couple of years which was an overall increase compared to a low-point I had prior to the pandemic (2019 was not a stellar year for output or gaming).

I think the biggest difference between past years was the dramatic increase in the record-keeping of my painting and blog posting - at 36 posts for this year, it is my most productive in about the last 5-6, so huge success. I don't think I was able to get more games in, but I had roughly the same output with more posts...so you got to see some of my more random thoughts and more pics...so happy about that. I didn't get as much done, so I need to get better with my main objectives, however I did get a considerable amount of 28mm and 28mm+ done.

Whats on tap for next year? 

Definitely more gaming...I'd like to see some Fallout, Legion, and give Marvel Crisis Protocol a try. 

In terms of painting...I'd like to get more output, obviously; but I'd like to chip away through more of my 15mm lead mountain AND through my collection of starter and expansion boxes for Team Yankee, The Walking Dead, and some of the bigger models for MCP.

In terms of projects...RED f'ing DAWN baby...this book has brought me back to Team Yankee and I'd like to get some of that accomplished and maybe see how I can work towards an extended campaign or psuedo-Firestorm. I’ve got the weather data, so you know, let’s see what that could give us. As well, I'd like to get the Nam Infantry Aces off the deck, and of course I'd really like to get some actual movement on my Afropia imagi-nations (this will compliment my 15mm painting objective nicely).

All that to say, Happy New Year to all...all the best in 2023!

Take care folks!!

A few notables from the year…

The Green Goblin, Marvel Crisis Protocol

Cable and Domino, Marvel Crisis Protocol

A couple of operatives, Spectre Miniatures

The Mysterious Stranger, Modiphius - Fallout Wasteland Warfare