War Correspondent and Interpreter

Hi guys,

Hobby is still slow here, the solo gaming just does not seem to cut it for me. Bunker is progressing slowly after the initial enthusiasm, but an unforseen surge of modelling made me finish yet another two recycled projects.

The War Correspondent and Interpreter miniatures you are about to see both started years ago (literally) when I started working on Slovene soldiers for the first time. The latter have since been replaced with the fantastic Empress Americans, which I think was great choice as it let me finish a lot of them reasonably fast.

Still, I was left with 4 half done dollies and I used two of them to make the miniatures I wanted for a long time - interpreter and a journalist.

Below you can see them at the stage where I essentially gave up on trying to make them look any better:

 The 'terp on the left looks a lot like what my Slovenes would have looked like if they were ever finished, including the 'old' helmet cover with loads of camo stripes. He was given a walkie and a single pouch. I thought about giving him an AK and eventually settled for an unarmed version.

The correspondent was given a plain helmet (that would need slight beefing up, they both use same heads actually!), slightly different vest and a small one-hand camera. The first idea was to give him a large camera, because they 'look cool', but that would have involved a lot of work and I think someone embedded with a fighting unit would appreciate the flexibility of a lighter equipment. He was given a satchel and yet another camera, however.

The interpreter was painted in a mix of camo and plain greens to keep him interesting. I've hid his identity behind a ski-mask and gave him tacticool gloves.  While my painting efforts have lowered somehow in the past year, I think it looks quite fantastic.

 Here he is compared to an Empress US soldier, as you can see he is slightly smaller, as dollies are older, when 28mm was 28mm.

 The War Correspondent was given more civilian clothing. Green helmet was justified as a military surplus. I was not sure about vest colour, I vividly remember reading how blue vests were only good for snipers to shoot at the journalists in Bosnia. But apparently they are still in use, and if nothing else, it helps with a recognition of the miniature.

 There is not much to add, below is a size comparison photo. It was made using same E-bob dollies as the Interpreter, so there are next to no differences - keep in mind, however, that I 'grew' both of them for a milimeter or so by adding putty to their shoulders back when I started making Slovenes.

As usual,

Thanks for looking!

Mathyoo

Evergreen Fields: International Intervention Force arrives at the island.

Evergreen Fields, once lush island resort for the tourist from all over the World had a turn for the worse.

Unsatisfied by the actions of the elected government, an opposition party "Evergreen now!" staged a coup. It went wrong and two years later, the island's population is divided.

Being a peaceful place, Evergreen Fields did not have any armed forces. Grabbing any weapons they could,  the forces on both sides are mostly equipped with 20-30 years old equipment. Uniformed armies of both sides are, at some places, supported by local militias.

Evergreen Fields president, one Gideon Morrison has so far managed to keep the control of Evergreen, island's capital and some larger coastland cities. Inland and in parts of the coastline, Evergreen Now! party is in control.

Finally, after two years of considerations, the UN have decided to send a mission to Evergreen. Comprised of several nations, the mission's task is to support the government in regaining control of whole of the Island's territory and to aid in disarming of the rebels to make sure the islanders can start living to their full potential again.

The mission was named International Intervention Force (IIF). First troops to arrive were those of United Kingdom and a Multinational task force of Hungary, Italy and Slovenia. 


The scenario is set as openly as possible, to let me introduce new nations should I wish to do so. Don't hold your breath for it, however. As I am not really a fiction writer and every blog needs photos, here is what you can expect to see in in future. Apart from bragging, this collection helps me see just how far I've really came with my moderns, as all I see are things that still have to be done.

I will be using Slovenes I have been working so hard on. For those, that joined the blog at a later date, they are all conversions of Empress Miniatures' Americans. If you would like to know more about the process, see this link (scroll to older posts as I am not too conservative with the tag). Thanks again to Grekwood miniatures, Project Zeke miniatures and Ebob miniatures for all the help involved!

L to R: Rifleman, armed with F2000S; another one, also carrying RGW-90; SAW gunner with Minimi para.

L to R: a medic; vehicle crewman (converted from Empress Apache pilot crew), bomb technician (slight helmet conversion only).

 A very long time ago (time flies!) I converted some Poundland Hummers into SAF humvees. See here for the posts about the conversion work.

SAF Humvees, poundland vehicles conversion.

Unfortunately, I do not have any armoured transporters for the Slovenes, but I have a Zengdefu T-90,  that will be a stand in for both sides as a generic main battle tank.

 The rebel forces were converted from Wargames factory male survivors. Some worked better than others, but in general, I am quite satisfied. See this link for conversion work (again, scroll through posts to find them).

L to R: RPK gunner; another one; "RPG gunner" armed with a RB M-57. Sculpted from scratch, I only made one. The rest are armed with RPGs from female survivor sets (Thanks Carl and Colgar6!).

To give them some mobile firepower, I started working on technicals a while ago, but I didn't came anywhere with them since. Perhaps starting a campaing will give me the boost needed to make at least something of them.

Awful vehicles, but they should work fine.

Governmental forces will, at least for the time being, be represented by a conversion of Warlord's WW2 Marines. More about them here.

As for the armed branch of Evergreen Now! party, they will be represented by Under fire miniatures' East Germans (thanks Pete and Bill!). They might seem a bit out of place for a campaign set in today, but I would really like to use them. More on them here.

L to R: PK gunner; rifleman; RPG gunner.

While playing, I found my board pretty dull with the absence of civilians. To make use of what I have at hand (and to make me want to play some zombie games - unrelated to campaign!), I will be using zombies. Some of the Studio miniatures zombies were converted in actual persons (see different basing), but I only have 3 so far.

L to R: Studio miniatures Reporter conversion (note the camera!); Wargames factory Soldier conversion (not the helmet!); Studio miniaures zombie converted to a rebellious civilian.

Additionally, kicking off the campain made me sculpt again! I used old Ebob dollies and turned them from a failed SAF infantry project into something useful. Needless to say, I am not satisfied with the end results, but practice makes perfect.

L to R: two half done dollies before project was scraped and I used Empress miniatures for the basis of my infantry; dolly turned into an unarmed interpreter; field reporter, needs beefing up and a camera or 3.

I have also started working on a long-planned idea of a wounded Slovene. It is based on Studio miniatures torso and needs a lot of work. It also comes with a twist!

Torso on stretchers. I dread the idea of sculpting his boots.

It fits on a humvee!

 Lastly, a photo of a project on hold:

Top to bottom: F2000S with an UGL; Empress M4; sniper to be; another sniper; .50 cal to be; Automatic Grenade Launcher to be. They probably won't see the light of the day.

I will  be making up scenarios and happenings as I go. I can not promise too much, but I have already played one game. I will post it in a few days, as I have to trim down the text a bit.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Underfire miniatures: 28mm East Germans team 4

Hi guys,

I would like to wish everyone happy holidays, and  - assuming my posting trend continues - a happy new year, too.


In December, I painted up 4th team of East Germans, which is something like a command pack with assorted figures. It includes two leaders of some description (one even has a personal radio, which surprised me and made me wish there was a proper radio man, too!), another RPG and a sniper designated marksman. As you would expect, I am not quite satisfied with my paintjob, but all in all it isn't too bad.

I honestly tried making better photos, but it appears the more I try the worse they get.

I have 16 now that would make up two squads. That's more than enough to fill the tiny 3x4 table I game on.  I will mainly use them in my moderns campaign as the organised bad guys, assisted by the rebels I've been using so far. I got some ideas for the campaign in my head already, but I'll probably play a few random games until I'm satisfied with the rules and while I insist on keeping the games free of politics, I think some sort of background would still be in order.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Underfire miniatures: 28mm East Germans team 3

Hi guys,

I barely caught my November post (could you imagine I once had plans to post twice every week?) with another pack of Underfire miniatures East Germans. I had them on my paint table for about a month or so, sitting half done waiting for me to sit down and finish them. The camouflage is really a bugger and I think I am getting sloppier, but even with a bit of a drop in quality, the result is really worth it. I need to go invest in another tiny brush so next pack I do can be even better.


Without further ado, I present you team 3. It includes 3 East-German-AK guys and an RPG gunner, which I really missed in the earlier packs. For some reason, I really like backpacks on my guys and I plan on revisiting my RPG armed rebels and adding them some rocket packs.

I apologise for crappy photos, but at least they are no worse than usual. You can see they all carry their bags, including the RPG gunner! There are two things I miss with these packs, however. One is the RPG team assistant with extra rockets, the second more RPKs!



Here is a nice video I stumbled upon while searching NVA troops. It is just one part of many and it is about the breach. It shows you just how little things have changed from WW1 as they charge cross open ground, albeit with the tank support.

Thanks for looking,
Math-yoo

FUBAR Afghanistan test game

 Hello guys,

Last month or so, I found new set of free rules for modern games. Now, there are some great ideas in Breaking news, but I got lost in all my additions (that were never written down), plus they aren't quite finished, so they proved problematic often.

I decided to give FUBAR, one page rules, a try. I am using the Afghanistan supplement and I opted to use some of the alternate morale rules (just casualty chart for first game). As if this weren't enough, I also decided to play a scenario from their Afghanistan missions that includes civilians. Because...well, it sounds like it should be plenty fun!

FUBAR core rules, 4th edition
FUBAR alternate morale rules
FUBAR Afghanistan supplement
FUBAR Afghanistan missions

I decided to play the Stopping the IEDs - airlifted assault mission. Not that it sounds great because it's a helicopter assault (curb your enthusiasm, no helicopters will be on the table), but it's a great chance to show of my new houses.

As this is my first game, I used points guidelines from Afghanistan missions sheet. I opted for:
Two "type 2" squads, and I added a squad leader.
No EOD support can be called in, because this is an airlifted assault.

Four "tier 3" insurgents groups. Rules say group is 6 fighters with AKs, that get a RPG on a roll of 4. I also gave them a RPK on a roll of 4, meaning best armed groups have 4 AKs, a RPK and a RPG. This is what they got:

Group 1 5x AK, RPG
Group 2 5x AK, RPK
Group 3 5x AK, RPG
Group 4 5x AK, RPK

It turned out them and another AK, RPK and RPG are all the insurgents I have, which made me realise the East Germans I've been painting will have to represent a higher tier bad guys in eventual campaign.

This was deployment. You can see two SAF teams on the left, Rebel team by the grey building and another one having a rest at the hay rack. The rest are out patrolling and should return soon, surely they heard the Cougars bringing in the troops? As they are just local villagers, defending the factory, their cohesion distance is "touching". There are also 7 civilians standing around randomly, being annoying. Washers represent IEDs and were put in what I consider "fair" positions, on the roads leading inside the village, regardless of SAF position.

The barn is a store, inconspicuous small yellow-ish house is the factory.

Turn 1

Storming the village, team Ankaran moved in to secure the barn right away. Lacking UAV support, they were unable to identify rebels for combatants, but the rebels opened up right away to try and keep the SAF from the bomb store. They fire resulted in two SAF soldiers suppressed. A return fire from an UGL, Minimi and squad leader's rifle resulted in a rebel suppressed and one casualty (a RPK gunner, even!)

Seeing the action, team Bled rushed forward and opened fire on the rebel team hiding behind the wall. This time, I did not forget to count in the civilian (shooting 5" around it might get him killed, I forgot about him first time round, so I decided to ignore him).  As any role of 1 around civilian gets him killed, he died.

Receiving all that fire, rebel team in the firefight failed to do much but react to the attackers! Sounds of casualties must have scared the  other rebel team as well, as they decided not to react just yet. (Both failed activation tests)

Turn 2

Hay rack group activates and opens up with all they had and succeeds in suppressing two more soldiers and killing 2 civilians.

The weight of fire stops SAF assault in their tracks (they don't activate).

Turn 3

Team Ankaran is still being held by the fire, but team Bled surges forward. This time I remembered to use cover modifiers against rebels (SAF don't get cover modifiers because rebels hit on 6 as it is, I think I will use Breaking News' idea here that downgrades the rate of fire in cases like this. Just because rebels are bad at firing, it doesn't mean cover is useless all of the sudden). They score 3 hits and mop up with the Taliban team.

*At this point I realised I played it all wrong. Rebels can have 1 man suppressed, the rest all die outright. So I removed 1 that shouldn't be suppressed, leaving 3 rebels that were removed as a result of Bled's fire.

The defeat of one rebel team left the one at the hay rack paralysed, unable to perform. The two groups that were out on patrol, however, now returned to the village.

Turn 4

Only one rebel group activates, that moved on to the grey building, trying to prevent SAF from entering the bomb store. They were spotted by team Ankaran, but because only a suppressed rifleman saw them, they took no action.

Team Ankaran finally  recovered and moved in the barn. Target was confirmed and explosives were set. Objective completed.

Team Bled moved forward through the building and engaged rebel group hiding behind the hay rack, who returned fire. Bled scored 5 hits, one becoming a suppression, 4 are kills. This is too easy, I must be doing something wrong!

Turn 5

Rebels won the initiative and one of the groups moved in through the grey building and its members took the best advantage of the single window and an outside space they could. They fired at the team Ankaran, but scored no success.

Seeing their friends at hay rack in despair,  second rebel group sprinted to the hay rack, to take on the team Bled once they get a chance.

Team Ankaran repositioned slightly to get another man to fire and scored two hits on the rebel group hiding in grey house, killing one.

Team Bled failed to activate.

Turn 6

Team Ankaran moved up to the Rebels and engaged with hand grenades, erasing the rebel group quite literally.
Team Bled failed to activate again, as did both rebel teams.

Turn 7
Team Ankaran pushed forward once again and was met up with a fire from both rebel groups. Firefight with a larger group didn't go well for Slovenes, they ended suppressing one of the rebels and had 3 guys suppressed and a minimi gunner lost themselves. Fire from a rebel in the second group had no effect.

Team Bravo failed to activate.

Now one-man rebel group that started this fight at the hay rack fired at team Ankaran, scoring a hit, that was saved by a body armour. Whew!

Larger group didn't activate.

Turn 8

Small rebel group didn't activate.
Team Ankaran didn't activate.
Large rebel group activated and fired at helpless soldiers of team Ankaran (I was maximising the casualties here, because Ankaran was an easy pray, while Bled had all its members up and was on overwatch). The only hit they did put the Squad leader out of action, making him seriously injured (needs to be taken to off the table to the medevac).
My only hopes to ending this battle quickly,  activating team Bled, failed.

Turn 9

Large group activated again and unleashed another volley at team Ankaran, trying to destroy it before its members can return to fight. They scored one hit. The save failed, which means one of the suppressed members is now a casualty. Random roll decided it was Grenadier who is now badly injured and in the need of medevac.

Small group failed to activate again.

Against all odds, team Ankaran returned to fight and opened fire, scoring a hit and suppressing one of the rebels.

Team Bled still didn't activate.

Turn 10

Team Ankaran activates (I realised their roll is 3+, not 4+, so that's another mistake), fires and kills a rebel.

Team Bled finally activates and moves out in the open to end this dispute. They spotted an IED marker, which turned out to be false. Their grenades scored 7 hits, which means they were now the only survivors.

According to the victory points, assuming SAF blew up the second building after the battle, as there was no opposition, it came down to:

SAF
10 obj + 48 rebels - whatever a civilian would be worth, so we'll ignore those = 58

Rebels
18 for 3 SAF members killed/badly injured

That's quite a victory for SAF and it does seem in line with what I've read about these engagements, so far, but I have done some mistakes. The system probably isn't bad, but I think I prefer some of the ideas in Breaking News (especially low ammo rules). I also think I would like to add something like an off table sniper support and bombardments, but as we were fighting on such short distances, the latter would not be used too often. What bothers me is that UGL, minimi and RPG all get +3 FP, compared to rifle's 2, but then again, that is 50% higher fire power. There is absolutely no difference between a RPK and a RPG, so perhaps I'd make RPGs ignore cover.

House roles ideas that I had during the game/deployment:

1. In AFG Supplement, there is a bonus for SUSAT optics (4x sight that Brits use). I only made one guy per squad (1/2 per team if you prefer) using it in a role of a designated marksman, so I opted to only give him the bonus.
Should you be interested, as everyone else, SAF figured marksman needs something heavier than a 5.56 rifle with a scope, so some of our units are now equipping their marksmen (that is not a sniper, we got those, too) with spare M76 sniper rifles (ie. Dragunov).

2. IEDs - For 3 teams that Taliban (so rebels in my games) have, they get an IED. Each has 3 markers (2 blanks, 1 real). If a marker is real, it will be decided by rolling 1-2 on a D6 (instead of picking one and not telling myself).

3. On guard/overwatch enables inactive teams to react to enemy fire and movement. I decided troops start on guard, as this would kind of make sense, the distances are short enough to imagine rebels expected the assault on the village.

4. I think advance casualties should work for both sides, as there is 1/3 chance of a light wound, which would give rebels some kind of a "save", they get none other way and are pretty much obliterated by the veteran infantry.

5. Talking about veteran infantry, SAF will be downgraded to "Seasoned" as we're assuming Evergreen campaign is their first  real FUBAR since 1991.



Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Building the Evergreen Fields

Hi guys,

I have a very clear idea of what I want to do with my moderns campaign in my head:

For reasons that don't matter, lets say a coup was made, a certain group started rebelling against the government forces and gained control of a large part of the island. I am not quite sure if I'd make a campaign map or something, not in the least because I couldn't do it, but the games I'd play would all be really small.

The idea is to play series of scenarios, that all look great in my head, but when I am about to play (or when I play) I keep finding my games lacking *something*. Apart from an opponent, I blame it on the terrain. So what I did in the past weeks was I've cut up my urban boards I never used (which also reminded me that it's my 3rd+ year in blogging and I still haven't gotten anywhere far!) and recycled them.

I decided to build more of the small houses as I built last time, again leaving the roofs to save my limited mojo, but still get a playable city. I cut up all the roads and got more stripes than I'd ever need.

After 3 and a half years, I also finally built a fence on top of my apartments block. In the upper right corner, you can see some stripes that are supposed to be terrain irregularities and/or ditches and a burnt car I wanted to build for years.

 As mentioned, houses follow the same pattern. I will add windows to them and probably plank them with coffee stirers from the inside. I could do this much!

 What couldn't be used elsewhere was torn apart and used for rubble bases. I'm not too happy with the pile two because they are too low in height, but once put together, they should add some value to the terrain as a whole. You can see a squad of Slovenes working their way through them.

Next step is adding the windows, doors and other details to the houses. After that, I need to wait for the weather to get better (it has been raining for most of the week now) to go out and put sand on them. Then it's all about painting them and I am all ready to go.

Just to keep a list of other ideas I had, I also need to work on:
- a check point
- IGLA anti-air rocket launchers to represent an AA strongpoint that would have to be neutralised to bring the air support in.
- technicals. I made no progress, but I'd really need some battle taxies for the rebels!
- Vegetation, my bane enemy. I have a lot of aquarium plants laying around and I just need to get on with it and use them.
- Find a way to make more trees, possibly with some leaves on them!

If you have any ideas, feel free to share them in the comments!

As usual, thanks for reading!

Mathyoo

Underfire Miniatures: 28mm East Germans team 2

Hello guys,

I am quite pleased that I have finally finished another team of East Germans from Underfire miniatures.
The photo is bad as usual, so some of them seem larger than the others, but they are actually pretty much of the same size.

From left to right there is a NCO (as you could guess!), a gung ho PK gunner (my favorite!), and two riflemen, one armed with a LAW.

 There is not much to add, apart from the pain that painting the camo gives me, they are quite pleasant, I really like the poses on those. There are 3 different helmet covers variations between the 8 figures, which is very welcoming.

In other news, my "work placement" ends by the end of the month and I will have more time to devote to hobby again - hopefully I will do so as well.

I have a long list of things I want to do, from playing a game (!); making more terrain which is why I have trouble starting to play; sculpting as I haven't held a putty in my hands for 4 months or so - which is when I bought a new stripe of GS that I haven't yet used!

I am still gathering courage to work on my technicals some more, which would also be welcome.

Well, this is it for now, I hope I'll post again soon enough!

Thanks for reading,
Mathyoo

Underfire miniatures: 28mm East Germans

Hello guys,

I have finally finished painting a pack of Under Fire Miniatures 28mm East Germans. These are one of the two packs that company does in 28mm, but they have a huge range of 20mm miniatures. They were sculpted by the same guy that sculpts Moderns for Empress, and quality hasn't suffered - they are absolutely fantastic.

Cold war is not something I was planning to dab into (as I opted for moderns instead), alas they were a gift so I was more than happy to paint them.  They will not be put away, however, as they will take the role of the Evergreen army in my moderns that was so far filled by my WWII US Marines conversions.

Being ignorant of Cold War Germans of either description, I had to do some research figuring out the equipment and camouflage. I am not too confident about my paint choices, but I think it should do well enough.

If I am not mistaken, they would fit in the late eighties, should anyone be interested.

 This pack gives you three guys armed with AKs and a guy armed with a RPK for a support. The barrel of the later actually broke in transit, but by simply sanding it a bit and gluing it back, the damange is not noticable at all. Other than that, they pretty much all sport same equipment, with ammo pouches of the RPK guy being a tad larger, which I think was a nice attention to detail.

As I mentioned they were sculpted by the same sculptor that made the US Infantry I am using for Slovenes, but as you can see below the Germans are just a tad bulkier:

Unrelated, below are some notes on the paints used, mainly for myself as a future reference:

I had trouble picking up paints (not to mention painting the pattern). The pattern is horrible, it really is. It is brown stripes on brownish-greenish-greyish-beige background. The pattern gets lost from 5 meters away, so the easiest way would be to just paint the uniforms in one solid colour...but where is the fun in that?

I decided to make the pattern obvious, as these are miniatures after all and for that, I went with lighter brown background, so that brown stripes can be made out.

I painted the uniform this way (because of what I had available):

German Beige Camo base
Green Brown wash, some black wash
Brown stripes

Brown violet for helmet netting and helmet straps.

Helmet  - German grey, highlited with German Grey +  Green Grey to lighten it up

Straps, gas mask bag, bedroll all in Green grey with some black

I finished it all of with a light drybrush of German Beige Camo mixed with some white.


I have to admit I miss the RPG in this pack, but it will be provided in one of the next packs  that are due to be released, so I can always put them in. With my Evergreen army now matching my Slovenes, I am running out of reasons not to play a game soon. I am setting up an idea for a scenario already, but I always find myself missing some more terrain, so hopefully this can be a project for this week - perhaps some waist high banks that could represent various ditches and act like a cover in the large open areas?

As usual, thanks for looking!

Mathyoo