LVT Series

Some of my club mates are working up to doing a Tarawa display game of Bolt Action for Beachhead 2016 wargames show in Bournemouth later this year. They had most of the infantry sorted out, but were looking at the cost of Amphibs for the USMC force. If you've looked at the cost you'll have found it to be quite exorbitant, particularly if you want waterline versions as well as full hulls. Then I remembered a half finished project from April 2014. So I've been finishing up a series of LVTs with interchangable components and slot in superstructures which can now be found in the United States section of my web store, at rather resonable prices given the competition.

A couple of new items and a Release schedule

 I have been asked to give a full list of what I produce and a list of planned releases. There are a couple of items that have been released very recently and a couple of items due for release within the next two weeks. I shall start with images of items recently released.

Lorraine 37/38L (without trailer)

New Products

I have had the masters waiting to be moulded up for a while, but I have finally got on top of things. I shall start with the largest and coolest item.

The Big Update

Two months and quite a bit has been going on. I'll start by updating you with what is already done and available. All the items I have been casting that are already available to buy, I've sold quite a lot since the end of January so many out there will already be familiar with what I have produced so far. Let's start with the artillery:

Canon de 105 mle 1913 Schneider - French Medium Howitzer

 

Designed by the French Schneider arms manufacturer during the Great War, this gun was widely sold between the wars to many European Nations. After the fall of France the Germans used captured guns under the designation 10.5 cm K 331(f), with many being used to equip the Atlantic wall emplacements.

Perry Miniatures - Desert Rats or 14th army? (Part 3)

Full Platoon

I mentioned in the last post that I bought a few more things from the Perry Brothers, and when buying from it's difficult not to buy a whole platoon. Sadly the Afrika korps box set had not come out when I placed my order, instead I added to the Indians with some Gurkhas.

Command: Lieutenant and Observer each with assistant

The officers leading the Gurkhas are both British as is common in Gurkha units, the practice continues to this day although less than in the past. The lieutenant proved perplexing to build from a gaming vs history stance, in bolt action it would be best to give him his free SMG, but as my Para buddy argues; no officer in charge of a Gurkha unit would ever need to draw his side arm. In the end I opted for a pistol, which will never get fired, the additional attacks in close combat will count as his bodyguard doing a Nork Deddog impression (Ogryns ain't as tough as Gurkhas).

The platoon's Observer will either give me a ton of off table artillery in combination with his Indian colleague from the last post, or serve as an additional assistant for the officer.

Support teams: Boys ATR, 2" Mortar and Sniper team

 The Slouch hats are technically for turning the Desert Rats into Australians, but the Nepalese were among the first to adopt this headgear. The only difference being the skin tone, I used an old tutorial for Egytian skin from Jenova, who does excellent skin tones. Disappointingly GW has discontinued the Snakebite leather that worked so perfectly so I had to substitute their XV88, though I had to search long and hard to find a close enough colour.

I opted for the same organisation as the Indian platoon, a close variant of the historical platoon make up filtered through Bolt Action's points system, subsequently one of the ineffective LMGs has been replaced with a sniper team, but I doubt any of the LMG teams will see much action.

I also added a few additional SMGs to assist the Gurkhas close up fighting style, at least they are discounted to make up for the Gurkhas already having tough fighters.

Soon I will have to add some support, a 25pdr is already in progess, an excellent buy with it's dual anti-infantry and anti-tank abillity, next I have to think about vehicle. I have decided to limit my choices to models that fit into all three of the following Theatre Selectors; Burma, Lightfoot, and Tunisia. This will allow me to fight Germans, Italians or Japanese without the feeling of straying too far from history.

Currently the plan is to get a M3 Grant, a Humber Mk II, and a HMG Jeep, perhaps a truck as well. The Grant is different enough from the generic Sherman and boasts a good mix of anti-infantry and anti-tank firepower without being overpriced. The Humber is close-topped reece with a light autocannon, the rich man's HMG or the poor man's AT gun. The HMG jeep is mainly due to the annoying fact that LRDG/SAS vehicles are only in the 'Behind Enemy Lines' selector.

So far the army lacks anti-tank firepower, but I think that the planned purchases should let me pin armour out of the game. What do you think?

~ Bob

Perry Miniatures - Desert Rats or 14th army? (Part 2)

The full platoon

The Perry Brothers Desert Rats have been proving something of a nuisance. I got most of the way though painting the platoon when I became annoyed with the progress of painting, the skin never looked quite right. In the end I decided to strip and repaint the entire platoon, but the faces were never going to be properly stripped. With this realisation I when and bought a set of Sikh heads (and some other stuff that I will get to in the next post).

Command: Lieutenant and Forward Observer with an assistant each

The Indian army during WWII came to my attention during my masters degree, the Sikhs and other Indian units served in nearly all theatres of the war, and on both sides. Indian units captured by the Japanese at Singapore formed the Indian National Army with the aim of invading and liberating their homeland from the clutch of British colonial power. Many believed in the cause but others joined to escape prisoner of war camps, and some even managed to defect back to Commonwealth forces. The same happened in North Africa forming the German Indische Legion some of these troops would later be among those defending the Atlantic Wall.

 Support teams: Boys ATR, 2" Mortar and Sniper team

 The Perry Brothers organisation chart shows three bren teams, but knowing the ineffectiveness of LMGs in Bolt Action I decided to take the additional models and build a sniper team instead using a scope from one of the Warlord rifles.

Fittingly I have two 10 man squads with a Bren team each, and a third 8 man squad with 2 SMGs to serve as an assault element.
 

My team weapons are all on 40mm bases with a removable loader.

More soon

~Bob

Late War British

Not much spiel, many pictures

My main opponent gave up waiting for the Perry Brothers Africa Korps (now confirmed for October, excellent timing, go figure). So we switched to late war Normandy, specifically the Battle for Caen so he could feed his Wittmann and 'Panzer'Meyer fixations.

So my Desert Rats have gone into hiding till I can find a good use for them.

Warlord Late War British infantry. Supposedly 25 in a box, I got 30 plus an apology from Warlord because of the absence of water-slide transfers.

The Desert Rats are about the same height as the Warlord models, but far skinnier

 

First Platoon

 

Veteran: 1st Lieutenant, Additional man: 103

Veteran: 5 Infantry, NCO and one other soldier with SMG: 71
Veteran: 5 Infantry, with LMG: 85
Regular: PIAT: 40
Regular: M4 Sherman: 195

 

Second Platoon 

Veteran: 1st Lieutenant: 90
Regular: Artillery observer: Free
Veteran: 5 Infantry, NCO and one other soldier with SMG: 71
Veteran: 5 Infantry, with LMG: 85
Regular: Light Mortar Team: 35
Regular: M4 Sherman, HMG: 220

The Shermans are both plastic Hobby Boss 1/48, nice and cheap at £10 each. Some bits will change now I have the 'Armies of' book. The whole army took 3 days to paint, I'm a lazy painter.


~Bob

Perry Miniatures - Desert Rats (Part 1)

The Perry Brothers first foray into WWII plastics, it has been a long time since the metal WWII models they sculpted for Wargames Foundry, and several years since their first plastic kits.

This set provides a "Platoon in a box", the instruction leaflet even shows the platoon organisation of the period that this box can achieve:

Three 10 man sections with one Bren gun and one Thompson SMG each,
One 2" light mortar team
One Boys anti-tank rifle team
And a command section with lieutenant, radio operator and platoon sergeant

 There is even one spare man to add where you like.

Infantry sprue (Front) 

 

There are three identical infantry sprues each with 12 men; 7 standing, 3 kneeling, and 2 prone as a weapons team. Helmets are seperate from the heads to reduce undercuts, but there are no alternative hats accept the LRDG/SAS heads which require you to remove the head  from the body.

The Afrika Korps box (hopefully out later this year) will have a variety of hats, but in the British case the separate heads mainly allow better moulding techniques.

Infantry sprue (Back) 

 

 

Each of the three infantry sprues come with a 2" mortar, a boys anti tank rifle and 2 bren guns with the minor issue that nearly all are designed to fit on one of the prone bodies with the other prone man serving as loader.

There are also 2 SMGs and lots of rifles on each sprue, plus a bucket load of picks, shovels and bayonets to add to the models.

Command Sprue

 

The command sprue has the radio operator and officer, with an option of SMG, pistol or rifle. The officer has a choice of helmet or cap, finally making use of the separate head system.

Bases

 

The bases were a bit of an odd choice for the Perry brothers.

20mm round bases for the infantry (left), which are rather small compared with the bolt action standard 25mm (right). Being thinner than warlord's semi heroic faire the Perry models look better on the small bases, but the difference still niggles me.   

 The weapon team bases annoy me even more.

40mm square bases!?! I hate mixing square and round bases in a game, it feels wrong. So I made my own 50mm round bases with a 20mm cut out so the loader can come off for casualty purposes.

Armour Support

 

I even Picked up a Tamiya Matilda to go with the army, though looking at warlords rules for it I'm rather sceptical as to it's utility.

But at least the scale doesn't seem too far off.

I will do a proper review with scale comparisons once I have finished painting them.

~Bob