Bulge, Budapest and other stuff updates

     So yet another fairly productive few weeks has passed in the McCubbyhole and there's a smorgasbord of stuff to blog about.

 Fortress Budapest Soviet Force    

     I'll start with my Soviets. I procrastinated with building and painting these fellows as I needed  a direction or short term goal to work towards; a carrot dangling juicily from the end of a short stick, if you like, and after playing the part of the Germans in the Street Fighting In Pest scenario twice now I decided that I would build a Soviet force based on the Soviet Army Urban Assault Group the core of which is;

a platoon commander and

two 12 man SMG Squads, 

To them can be added; 

a captain or major, 

a medic,

0-4 infantry squads from SMG squads, 

0-1 pioneer squad (no body armour upgrade for these chaps)  and/

0-1 Guards squad. 

0-3 Direct fire support units; medium machine gun and/or light howitzer. 

0-2 flamethrowers, 

0-1 light or medium mortars, 

0-1 sniper team and 

0-3 anti tank team 

Heavy support can be added from 

0-1 ZIS-3 Divisional gun, 122mm howitzer or a 

medium howitzer 

and lastly, 0-1 armoured support from either an SU-76, T-34, T34/85, OT-34 (flamethrower version) or Lend-Lease M4 76mm Sherman.

     So using the Warlord Games Soviet Starter Army set (I have also added a few support units from Artizan Designs; MMG and ZIS-3) I bashed on with it and by last week I had this lot done, painted, based and ready to do battle for Mother Russia!!

Soviet Urban Assault Group. From left to right, front to back Front
row; Senior Lt Ivan Chestikoff plus runner, Forward Artillery Observer,
sniper team,. Second row. SMG squads, Guards infantry squad, Senior
Officer (I'll need to repaint him as he looks like a commissar at the moment)
MMG. Third row; SU-76, anti tank rifle, two tank hunter teams (can be
combined to make an assault pioneer team) ZIS-3 Divisional Gun, Medium
mortar.

I'm slowly getting these T34/85s done; just  some weathering and 
they're good to go. I have a third T35/85 to add to these two to 
create a tank platoon

     I have actually played my first game with my Soviets though, of course, it wasn't in their guise of the Urban Assault Group but rather a force based on the Operation Bagration theatre selector.. I have a batrep to write up about that but in the meantime I'm really chuffed to have these fellows done and I'm itching to try them out in the Street Fighting In Pest scenario as well as other ones from the Fortress Budapest campaign book..

Battle Of The Bulge US Cavalry Group

     My other project (I call it a project to make it sound like there is some semblance of a plan to what I am doing though I don't think I am fooling anyone) that I am working on at the moment, my late war US Cavalry Group, is also starting to come on. Below is a photo reminder of what I started with, a Cavalry themed force cobbled together from what I had at the time.

     When I started this force I was working from what I could glean from the internet but since then I have bought a copy of Osprey Publishing's World War II US Cavalry Groups; European Theater. A gem of a book that has proved both invaluable and insightful. It has given me a clearer idea of how I can create a historical themed force for Bolt Action.

         To the above I have added yet another M5 Stuart tank and another M8 Armoured Car. I have also repainted one of the jeeps crew as US troops which was basically a head swap and a repaint of 

the uniforms.

Pristine and new M5 Stuart and M8 Greyhound with added
crew figures and lots of stowage

     After building them I was posing them side by side with the other M5 and M8 like you do when I realised that the Italeri/Warlord Games 37mm barrel was significantly smaller than that of the Rubicon kit!!. Not only that but the turret appeared slightly smaller too (though the breeches of both guns were the opposite; Italeri's large and Rubicons small!!) Bugger!!

     Now I know it's a small matter, if you'll excuse the pun, as they would probably not appear next to one another in a game so a visual comparison might never be made but the very thought that they were so different rankled. To such an extent that the new M8 nearly became an M20 Utility Vehicle, the turret less version with the HMG mounted on it.

     But then a flash of inspiration came my way; I still had the spare parts for the Rubicon M8 Scott GMC which is based on the kit of the M5 Stuart. I dug them out and sure enough the 37mm gun barrel on the sprue was, like the Baby Bear's porridge, just right so some snipping, sanding, pinning and gluing later the most noticeable part of the Italeri M8 had been rectified to my satisfaction.

Nooooo! Rubicon M8 turret left; Warlord/Italeri to the right

Sorted!! Spare Rubiucon 37mm to the rescue

      Besides building the Stuart and the Greyhound I have also bedecked all of the vehicles with extra stowage, mostly made from Miliput. There's a few small things to do; decals, weathering and some more crew figures for the Jeep and Beep then it'll just be case of preparing a campaign built around the Ardennes and off we go. 

The US Cavalry mounts of WW2. I could feasibly fit in an M5
half track too to mount up some of those dismounted troops in
the previous photo

    

Sharp Practice; The Temptation of Fra Angelico

     After such a spiffing game a couple of weeks ago, as previously posted, the following games are taking two distinct threads; one based on the escorting of Fra Angelico back to the French HQ and the other the attempted rescue of Lt Dumas-De Winter.

     The escort mission will be based on the scenario of the same name in the Sharp Practice rule book and as I pondered on it I thought it would be nice to have completely different scenery from the first game; perhaps an inn of sorts along the road which the French column and their "guest"would travel. I already own the Charlie Foxtrot's pantile stable and cart house so what I needed was a house that could pass muster as an inn. So I popped onto Charlie Foxtrot's website and bought the imaginatively named Pantile House 4. Starting on it the day it arrived I had it built in about an hour following Lardy Nick's idea of using superglue to put together MDF buildings which was a bit of a revelation, let me tell you. 

     It meant I could add the texture to the walls almost immediately. After two evenings worth of  effort I had this result. That should do nicely as an inn when coupled with the stable and cart house.

     The small bits of terrain I also painted whilst working on the house/inn. They are from Hovels Ltd's Spanish terrain set. They are very inexpensive and very nice. 

A very nice kit, Pantile House 4

Fountain, roadside cross and water trough by Hovels

     With a view to getting the most out of our play time (there'll be four players and an umpire) I decided to try a couple of layouts for the game so that I knew where everything was going when it came to setting up.

Set up 1; Okay but the buildings straddling the road
make for a bottle neck that might restrict players
options

Set up 2 seems a better option and, since I didn't want
to spend the night moving things here and there with a
hope to make it perfect, we settled on this set up

     Originally I had planned to use this building as the Spanish Inn. It is the bakery from the Gangs Of Rome Bread And Circuses set made by Sarissa Precision. Again, using super glue this was an evenings worth of project and I stucco-ed it in the same manner I did the Pantile House (and indeed all my Mediterranean themed buildings)

     It's still a work in progress and it's a jolly nicely detailed kit but not Spanish enough looking to my mind...though I'll be happy to be proved wrong...more than happy in fact..

     And whilst we or rather I am on a Peninsular War theme I took a trip to the lead mountain and dug these chaps out. They are Foundry Miniatures Napoleonic War Early British infantry and riflemen that I purchased second hand from Colonel Bills. I really need a fourth Napoleonic force and the British will be it. I am now toying with the idea of using contrast paints on them as I am hearing good things about them. 

British Sharp Practice force. Two groups of line, two of
riflemen and a smattering of leaders and a support options
(drummer and flag bearer) all I need now is time

And that's me for this round up/update thing. We fight the second mission of the Temptations of Fra Angelico tomorrow so look forward to a batrep from that soon. 

pip pip,

Jimbob