Rides for my Old Imperial Guard Figs (WIPs of a 28mm Sci-fi APC)

Been working a bunch again, but squeezing in a little hobby time, whenever I can.  High on the to-do list are rides for old Imperial Guard figs. 

In order to be mobile, my Guard company need a bunch of vehicles, including APCs, a command vehicle, and scout cars.  I've had a number of designs setting about for a long time, so in recent days have reworked a couple of the old ideas a little.

The regular squads will get a six wheeled APC/MICV with a light auto-cannon in a low profile turret.  The platoon HQs will get a version of the same vehicle with a larger turret with a heavier gun.  The command vehicle will be a boxier version of the APC with raised superstructure and no turret, and the scouts will get two copies of a completely different four wheeled recce car with turret and light cannon, and will also carry a drone.

Here are a few WIPs of the APC and the two turrets, the first two photos show the PHQ turret as it was being shaped:
 

The PAC with the roughed out PHQ variant turret.

 

With PHQ turret close to final shape.

 

With low profile turret for regular APC

 

And better view of the hull.

 

I need 13-14 of these things, so am going to make a master and cast it in resin.  Tires, gun barrels, and hatches will be separate pieces.  There may be other separate detail parts as well.

The weapon mount on the small turret will be behind and to the left of the hatch opening.  The larger turret has a big weapons pod on the left side, with the entire pod moving to elevate or depress the gun. 

The big turret still needs some shaping to soften the lines, but I'm not sure that I'm going to go with it.  The rounded cast shape sort of clashes with the angular shape of the hull and small turret and I'm not altogether sold on the split turret idea either.  After I get more done, I'll see how the hull and turret look together and decide then.

Dawgies's Men - Part 2

Eighteen days into 2015, and I have equaled my total painting output for 2014.  "Dawgie's Men", my 28mm old GW Imperial Guard (mostly) army (not for 40K) is painted.  Well, the troops are painted.  They still need rides, but that will come later.  Right now they are table top ready, though I have one step before they are truly finished. 

In addition to the troops shown in my last blog entry, I added the company headquarters (six more figs that I had left off of my painting tray originally), and a recce section (another six figs), which are also painted.  The complete company now numbers 120 figs, though I am missing two figs from one platoon HQ, which I will have to find and add later in the year.

Anyway, here are Dawgie's men:

The entire company; CHQ in front, recce on the extreme left,

1st, 2nd, and 3rd platoon left to right with PHQs in front of

 the respective platoons.

 

Close up of the CHQ

 

2nd Platoon HQ

 

Troops from 1st Platoon

The majority are old GW Imperial Guard figures, with about half having some sort of conversion work done on them.  There are also a few newer GW guard figs, and an assortment of non-GW figs sprinkled throughout.

One thing I still need to do, is to add their names back onto the bases.  I've experimented with painting them on, but my brush "writing" is inconsistent, so now I'm considering doing it with a paint pen.  Hopefully, I'll have that done in the next week.  Then they can join battle in the wastes of the post apocalypse or defending colonies on new worlds.

Dawgie's Men: Preparing Old Imperial Guard Figs for a Return to Action

My Imperial Guard first saw action in the late 1980s, just one game before a long stasis in a box on the shelf.  Every few years, they were to be reborn for a game, usually picking up a few new new troopers, only to return  to stasis. Most recently, they saw action against my daughter's orks during her "Space Ork" phase.  Now, the space orks are collecting dust, as she is in her "I like working on '60s and '70s muscle cars" phase.

Anyway, several years ago I bought a large number of old IG from an internet acquaintance who some of you probably knew as Baddawg6, Baddawg, or just plain Dawgie.   Got about a hundred of Dawgie's old figs, mostly GW old IG with a few others worked in as well.

I bought them at a great price, without seeing them, figuring that as long as they weren't painted in winter or chocolaty brown camo, I could work them in.  And worst case, I could always repaint them.  I received the figs, decently painted, with lots of minor conversion that added nicely to the figs.  Too bad that they were in a slightly reddish chocolate brown camo pattern. It just didn't work with my old figs, nor my terrain.  I was in no rush, so repainting wasn't a big issue.

As always, too many projects, not enough time.  Years passed.  One day, Dawgie posted on the Post Apoc Wargames forum that he was going in for some medical stuff, and we might not hear from him for a little while.  Dawgie was special, and I miss him greatly. 

When I finally sat down to repaint them, I found myself in a bit of a conundrum.  Dawgie had named his troops, I mean like named the individual troopers. I already felt bad about repainting the figs, but the idea of erasing the names of his troops really bothered me even more.  Silly, I know.  So, his troops sat on the shelf a bit longer.

Recently, I finally decided to repaint them, and organized the figs, mixing my old figs with Dawgie's to building a company of 114 figures.  The figs were sorted on a painting tray. I filled out a chart, noting names and details of the figs, so that their identities won't be lost while receiving their new uniforms.  

As it turns out, 74 of Dawgies old figs are in my new unit, which really sort of makes it his unit.  As such, the "Old Dawg" will be the First Sergeant of this company, thus they will always be Dawgie's men".

Over the span of several weeks, I managed to strip the figs of paint, using a combination of Easy Off oven cleaner and Simple Green.  Free time has been scarce in recent months, so I found myself getting up at 5:00am, excited to be working on my hobby, scraping paint off of little men before going to work. Sad really.

The Easy Off works pretty quickly, loosening a lot of the paint, but not getting into deeper crevices very well.  It is also really unpleasant to work with.  I only used it, when I first got started, to allow me to work on a small number of figs during the first couple of days.  After the topical cleaning, the dozen of so "Easy Off figs" went into the vat of Simple Green with the others. 

Figs were soaked for anything from about six hours to six days, requiring varying degrees of attention with paper towels, a couple different dental picks, and/or a toothbrush.  Some required two or three rounds in the Simple Green. By the way, Simple Green breaks down the super glue joints and softens the green stuff putty.

While preparing to paint, I discovered that I was long out of the original Polly S green that I used for the uniforms. So, the basic paint scheme will involve cloth portions of the uniforms getting a coat of Vallejo Russian Uniform (very close to the original) with armor and gear generally being Model Master Dark Green.  Some will get a yellow/tan irregular "ring" (almost leopard spots) camouflage on the green cloth.  My old figs will get some additional gear and updated uniforms with more shading to better match the "new" figs.  Below is a photo showing a couple of my old figs in the original uniform (circa 1987), pretty basic.

I'm guessing that it will take until some time in January to complete the painting and will post a follow up then.  

In time I plan to add a recon section and a support section from battalion, maybe another 15-20 figs total.  They will all need rides as well, but those will come later, a good 2015 project.

Finally Painted Something

Since my last post, I've been squeezing in a few minutes here and there, when I can, for either cleaning old miniatures or painting new ones.  It is my painting after all, so understandably, nothing special.  But, I have finally painted something this year, and am celebrating with a blog post.

First up is a batch of nine Bradleys.

 

Still need to do one more to complete my company.  As it turned out, I didn't have a set of usable tracks for the last one.

Next is a batch of Soviet vehicles which will see double duty in Mugabia (one of my African Imagi-nations).

 
The BTR152s and T34/85 are my own castings, while the BTR60s, GAZ 66, and GAZ 69 are from QRF (all very nice castings by the way).

And lastly, some M60A2s, VBLs, and ERC90s.

 

 

Many of my resin castings were rejects with some sort of casting defect.  Most were easy to fix, though a few, I just let go. Despite either getting up at 5:30 am, or on a couple of occasions, pushing myself to paint after 12+ hour days at work, it felt good to finally get something done.

Resurrection of My Painting Table

Didn't do much gaming related this weekend, but did have a bit of a resurrection of my painting table.  It has been lying dormant since my Christmas debacle ten months ago, and today I plugged it in, and, it still runs.  Didn't really paint anything yet, but took a little time to assemble and prime 13 or 14 vehicles today.  Now I have just enough space to start painting in the next few days.

 

Quite a menagerie; 15mm Bradleys, M60A2s, various Panhard armored cars and APCs, a few BTR152s, some QRF BTR60s, Eureka modern Russians, a 28mm ranch style house, a 1/72 OV-10 that needs decals, two 1/100 OH58s waiting to be built under the OV-10, a couple masters for casting in the middle (M-ATV and Gaz TIGR), a few SFB (Kzinti, Lyran, and Klingon) ships in that pile in the center along with some 15mm civilian cars, a 28mm sci-fi police hover car waiting for "Police" decals, old Imperial Guard waiting to be stripped and repainted on the tray to the right, some space maroons needing some work just beyond the IG, and quite a number of other things covered with so much dust that I don't recognize them yet. 

Lets see if I can finish one of them this year.

AAR14: Convoy Duty (A Battle in the Fictional Nations of Uwanda)

This battle, another convoy ambush,  is a follow-on to the last battle.  It incorporated lessons learned by both sides, and yielded an even more lopsided result.  This was due to dozens (literally) of missed sighting rolls, and then an amazing string of rolls, mostly under 10% on D100, in the first turn of fire.
_____

This battle took place on the road approaching Objective A58 from the west (near the center of the map).  It involved an Uwanda infantry platoon in Saracens, a few trucks, a couple of jeeps with machineguns, a single Saladin, and a M42 Duster for fire support, should anything go wrong.

The ULF ambush included only 16 fighters, but with every RPG that the local group could muster, eight in all.

An easterly view of the table.  Uwandan vehicles have

entered on the road at the far end of the table

The convoy was traveling through a small forested section of road, blind as can be, when half of the convoy  blew up due to the multitude of RPGs flying across the road (the lead jeep had actually exited my table, before sighting occurred).

Enemy sighted, M42 turret swinging in the direction

of the enemy, a man in a red shirt fires his RPG.

Tendaji, a ULF fighter, thought, "My body shakes as much from the rumble of enemy trucks and armored cars, as it does from fear.  It is hard to be patient with so many of the enemy, so close.  What, what are they doing...."

The M42 can be seen peeking through the trees,

just behind the Saracen APC.

The commander of the M42 was the first to see the men in the bushes, radioing the info and slewing the turret around immediately.  But, he would never get to fire, as a startled ULF fighter let loose his RPG for a hit on the M42.  In a second, seven more RPGs flew, and amazingly, all would find their targets.

The convoy simply blew up. All four Saracens, the M42 and a couple of trucks. Gone.  Immediately the ambushers began to withdraw.  Uwandan troops abandoning their bullet collectors, fired wildly into the underbrush.

Damage done, the ULF already retreating into the forest.

The Saladin at the front and the trail jeep both saw a few men running in the forest and engaged, killing three.  The battle was over.  The Southern ULF commander's hit and run tactic working better than anyone (especially me) had imagined.


Losses for Uwanda were terrible, while the ULF lost little:

Uwanda:
4x Saracen
1x M2
2x Trucks
27 men (including 23 of 36 infantry dead or wounded)

ULF:
3x fighters


The implications of this lop-sided fight are significant.  The ULF will be able to cripple Uwanda in a matter of weeks at this rate.  Convoy tactics will change, as will the effort to find ULF basecamps.  Up to now, the ULF had been an annoyance, now they were a greater threat than Mugabia.

In Uwanda, the chief of staff reviewed the recommendations for dealing with the ULF.  It would be expensive and brutal.  He entered the President's office with a sense of fatigue and a large frown...

AAR13: The ULF Stabs the Beast ( A 15mm Battle in an African Imagi-nation)

Though ULF activity had increased in recent weeks, the Mugabian military had been silent, as had its leadership.  Uwanda took this opportunity to strengthen its forces along the border, and to prepare to re-take lost territory.

The ULF had been monitoring this activity, particularly the number of convoys moving troops and supplies toward the border.  ULF leadership decided that disrupting the convoys would be the best way to interfere with the Uwandan build-up.

The first of these attacks was located just west of Objective A55 (toward the bottom center of the map), where a Uwandan infantry platoon was ambushed by a large ULF force, while moving toward the border town.

Wakili had run a couple of small operations since taking control of the local ULF, but they had been harassment against local, unsympathetic civilians, loyal to the Uwanda central government.  Today would be different. Today he would attack enemy soldiers.  Today he would make the oppressors pay!

ULF forces deployed along side the road with carefully defined fields of fire.  The plan was simple; force the convoy to stop, kill the soldiers, destroy everything that couldn't be carried away.

An easterly view of the convoy heading toward Objective A55.

The Uwanda convoy consisted mainly of an infantry unit, heading to Objective A55 to relieve infantry that had been stationed there since the fighting had begun. It was escorted by a few armored cars, and also included some cargo trucks.

The head of the column with two Ferrets,

followed by Lt. Zuberi's Saracen APC.

Lt. Zuberi was riding in the turret of his Saracen, behind two armored cars leading the convoy.  It wasn't very comfortable, but at least he wasn't stuck in the oven that was the interior of the APC.  His eyes were closed, but he wasn't asleep when the explosions startled him...

The ULF deployed primarily on the south side of the road to Objective A55, hitting the convoy with four RPGs in the opening seconds of the ambush.  Those first seconds were absolute chaos, as the Uwandan troops tried to figure out what was happening and what to do.

Actually, a photo on the second turn of fighting, showing a 5th

plume of smoke from yet another RPG victim.

 

The lead and trailing Ferret armored cars were destroyed immediately, as were two Saracens, a large number of infantry were also injured or killed.  The second Ferret in the convoy immediately attacked the point to the north from which an RPG had been launched at the lead Ferret, the gunners in the Saracens searched for targets, firing into the bush.

Survivors bailed out of the burning Saracens, getting cut down quickly, while trying to get into cover and return fire.  More RPGs flew, blowing up the fuel tanker in the middle of the convoy.  AK and machinegun fire raked the cabs of the other trucks, bringing them to an abrupt halt. 

A large plume of smoke rising from the destroyed

fuel truck as fighting continues.

 
Infantry from the remaining Saracens began to return fire, and quickly cut down many of the ULF fighters near the front of the convoy.  They tried to provide covering fire for the men from the stricken Saracens, but without much success, given the chaos and congestion of the situation.

Troops at the head of the column trying to help those toward the rear.

As the ULF took casualties, their morale quickly crumbled, and fighters began to run back into the forest, rather than push the attack on the convoy.  The Uwandan LT did well, manning a machinegun, and regrouping his men to successfully fight off the attack.

ULF fighters beginning to waver,

as the Uwandans stand their ground.

As abruptly as it began, the fight was over.  Wounded were tended to, but not quickly enough for some.  Half of the vehicles burned, two thirds of the men were wounded or dead.  A few wounded ULF were captured.

Damage done, the ULF simply melt away into the forest.

A young Lieutenant was commended for exhibiting great leadership during a hopeless situation.  He would never rest his eyes while on duty again, and would spend many nights off duty, wishing he that could close them.


Losses were heavy on both sides with the Uwandans receiving the worst of it, lost were:

2x Saracens
2x Ferrets
2x trucks (supplies and fuel)
23x men KIA (10 were vehicle and truck crew, the remainder infantry)
12x men WIA

ULF losses were:
16x KIA
5x POW

Back at the base camp, Wakili was unmoved by the death and suffering that he saw on this day.  Instead, he pondered the lessons of his first real fight.   Casualties inflicted on the enemy suggested a great victory, but losses were unacceptably high.  A smaller force, using faster, and more simple hit and run tactics could have caused nearly as much damage with no more than a handful of casualties, if any.  The mistakes would not be repeated!