Katyusha...on rails?

Using some leftover T-70 kits...and some spare Katyusha vehicles, I decided to assemble a poor facsimile of the BM-8-24 and similar rocket launching tanks.

Essentially when the T-60 was obsolete, some Katyusha style 132mm rocket launchers were installed on the chassis.

While my launcher is incorrect and the vehicle base is a T-70...not a T-60, this should be close enough for Battlegroup in 15mm.

Two "BM-8-24" rocket vehicles along with the basic T-70s.

What is this, I don't...even...?

Exactly.

I've been doing a bunch of random hobbying lately, but haven't put it together into a coherent blog post...and this isn't going to be coherent either.

Been working on CCC quite a bit lately, behind the scenes stuff (revisiting cards, game mechanics, etc.).  Have played a half dozen games lately.

 Our adventuring party interrupts a romantic relationship between a Minotaur and a pile of rocks...

The Halfling (new class) thinks he's fast enough to outwit the Stone Golem.  He is incorrect.  The Minotaur almost kills the rest of the party - but...is weirdly killed by the Halfling right before he dies.

 The first six of at least a dozen Cultists which are being added to the dungeon crawl.

The other new class is the Monk...shown above.

 Two cute little BA-64 armored scout cars repainted.

 A re-paint of an IL-2 Sturmovik in 15mm.

 A repaint of a P-39 Airacobra in 15mm scale.

 A unit of T-70 tanks for Battlegroup (Battlefront miniatures)

 A repainted Yak-1 fighter for air support.

Forgot I painted up a bunch of support teams!

Aaand forgot I painted up another platoon of infantry (PSC this time).

The Soviet Horde as of now...

Some more units added to the ever increasing Soviet army.  Currently a mix of FoW/Battlefront infantry models, PSC guns and artillery, and Zvezda vehicles.

Soviet guns a rollin'.

Finishing some extra armour and fire support for the Soviet army.

1x Su-152 from Zvezda
1x KV-2 from Zvezda
2x T-34/43 from Zvezda
2x 120mm Mortar teams from Battlefront/Flames of War
2x Su-76M from Zvezda
1x KV-1 from Zvezda

Battlegroup Tokens (WW2 gaming aids!)

Adopting a new wargame...I ended up of, as always, designing up some game aids.  I've assembled some cheat sheets and I designed some tokens which will come in handy.

Battlegroup requires a bag of 104 "Battle Counter" tokens, and I added in 30 small status tokens for the most common uses in the game.

I decided to put some together for the most popular factions, namely those that my buddies and I would be playing!

WW2 Tokens: Germany

WW2 Tokens: Soviet Union

WW2 Tokens: United States

I will be doing some more in the future, namely British, and some specialized token sets for friends.  I have already done one; the 4th ID for my buddy who served with them. 

Potato phone pictures of the Russian horde!

While moving stuff around on a shelf, I took these minis out and snapped a few poor photos.  I finished another rifle platoon today and an additional sapper squad and a second 50mm mortar.  I also snapped a pic of my completed infantry, and then my whole current force sitting in its "waiting" tray!

 New recruits arrive from the train depot...

 The assembled collection thus far...

All of my current infantry.

Overall, pretty happy with the results, and happy that I'm at the stage as a wargamer/hobbyist that I can envision something and make it happen with decent results, in a planned and methodical method.  I was able to find a solution to numerous problems and I'm right where I'd like to be with regard to being able to play Battlegroup (minus needing some proper terrain!).

As with all of my projects I always try to do the most boring stuff first.  In this instance...a company of Russian infantry and some assembled officers and support teams.  While I have a bunch of additional infantry left to do at some point (various communications teams, etc.), my bulk infantry are done.  Everything else will now seem like a joy to paint by comparison!

15mm Entrenchments from Flames of War

Starting to assemble/build terrain elements for 15mm, I picked up a box of Entrenchments from Flames of War.

Product as advertised - box of eight pieces, six large and two small - made to fit FoW bases.

 

These were nice, and while I forgot to take pictures, the colours were a bit off - even from the actual cover of that box.  The barrels were a light blue/grey, the wood was all painted dark brown with a minor drybrush and some of the crates were a weird bright orange/red.

 

Regardless, the casts are nice, the details are plenty good for 15mm, and I wasn't hating the price (around $18).  An hour spent re-painting the wood and rocks and barrels...and crates...basically the whole thing and I'm happy.

 

One minor gripe - they're almost laser-perfect fit for FoW bases, meaning you may scrape the paint off the edge of your bases.  A spare 1mm would have been nice (the smaller two have some gaps/room and don't suffer from this).  Overall, and easy 4/5 product!

 

 

The Soviet Storm arises...

Some more progress on my Soviet force for Battlegroup (starting with Kursk).

Where did he go? He went to Moscow.

I know the blog has been borderline nonexistent this past month or two.  I'm just doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes which doesn't translate into actual hobby stuff.

Still working on the latest revision of the dungeon crawl decks, and been designing tokens for WW2 Battlegroup.

To that effect I've actually been working on something new; a 15mm Soviet army for Battlegroup.

I rarely show off stuff in progress, but this has been my last couple of weeks slowly accruing the materials to do 15mm.

 First stands of FoW "Storm Group" Soviet miniatures - painting 16 at a time on a couple of sticks of sintra.

 The FoW "Storm Group" box has some little 50mm mortars, some AT rifles, etc.

Overall I am finding painting 15mm to a "reasonable" standard quite fun and relaxing compared to 28mm stuff.

The Plastic Soldier Company crew for their 45mm guns are pretty boring/flat/poor by comparison, but at this scale they work fine.

While I'm not running hordes of vehicles yet, I opted for the occasionally simple Zvezda kits for my initial vehicles.

Before priming my bases, I used a drop of wood glue inside each place, allowing for easy removal afterward - saves time over carefully scraping off paint to allow miniatures to glue nicely to the base.

After priming, the tabs of wood glue pop out quite easily.

Tada!  Bases with clean plastic for gluing.

Using Vallejo "Dark Earth" gel paste for the basing material, quite handy, quick, and thus far looks good.

The vehicles painted up nicely and easily...if not beautiful, at least functional at the tabletop level.

The Zvezda kits were great...with the exception of the BA-10, which was a fucking nightmare and I cannot recommend it.  Whoever thought 25 pieces was appropriate for an inch-long tiny armored car...should be shot.  In addition to being fiddly and easily broken, they show large gaps I wasn't able to fix.

The infantry were dispatched quite easily and quite quickly.  Playing Soviets I know I have...a lot more of these in my future, but it's not awful painting them, so I'm confident it'll be doable.

A mix of support units from the "Storm Group", and the PSC "45mm" gun pack.  I've got a 50mm mortar, two AT rifles, two Maxim machine gun teams, two 45mm "long" AT guns, and two 76.2mm infantry guns.  I have more crew/AT rifles/mortars ...but don't need them just yet and I have no spare bases to mount them on.

Using spare crew I made up two "loader teams" for optional use in Battlegroup.

My initial batch of Soviet models - waiting on static grass and some tufts to "finish" the basing on the infantry and support weapons.  Very happy so far with the results - now to order/buy/build some actual terrain to fight over!