Thursday 24 November 2022

My last 15 figures for Black Ops games

Well, the last for the moment, who knows what the future holds? 

First, here are three somewhat ambiguous "good guys";

The two on the left and in the middle have a definite Royale With Cheese look about them, but I'm not sure who the guy on the right reminds me of at all. Still, they could quite easily be detectives with an unorthodox way of investigating things or maybe unscrupulous operatives of a secret government agency. They could fit in with these two I painted back in 2020.

Next, I have police officers from some kind of authoritarian one-party state who will make suitable opponents for Special Forces or clandestine intelligence operatives. There are five with pistols and batons and four with shotguns.



They could be border guards, security police or maybe just even your average jackbooted street cops.

Here are some leaders for these police. One uniformed officer and two plainclothes ones, who might equally work for the State Security Bureau. The guy in the middle is definitely the Big Cheese.



So, that it it for the Black Ops scene for now. It has been a lot of fun painting them.

I shall be looking again at the Copplestone range of figures to see what else might be useful in the new year.


Monday 21 November 2022

The Beast From The East (part 1) - 1813 Napoleonic Sharp Practice

Last weekend saw two days of excellent gaming at https://www.bristolindependentgaming.co.uk/ in Bristol. The theme was the 1813 Sixth Coalition conflict between Napoleon and his allies against the might of Austria, Prussia, Russia and various others. 

Here are some pictures of the Day 1 games;
























The premise of these games was a fictional campaign set towards the end of the year, with the French and their allies withdrawing in poor weather following the defeat at the Battle of Leipzig. There was snow, rain and reduced visibility and a wide variety of forces on parade.

I will post Day 2 tomorrow.

Thursday 17 November 2022

Even more Austrians; extra fusiliers and lots of Landwehr.

I've been working away on my Napoleonic Austrians over the last few weeks, and now, I have finished all the infantry.


The photo above is a final group of eight fusiliers from the 57th Regiment, this time wearing forage caps, with an NCO as part of the group, rather than a separate leader figure. I decided to make them look different in case I needed a group of sentries or a small garrison for a specific scenario.

The next three photos are all Landwehr;




The Landwehr were militia, raised by the various provinces of the Austrian empire (apart from in Hungary, where different rules applied). In Sharp Practice, militia are represented in groups of 10 figures and are generally not particularly good troops, which certainly sums up the Austrian Landwehr in the period after 1808 when they were first raised. They were poorly equipped, poorly trained and led mainly by retired officers called back to the colours. This is represented in SP by having them cheap and without any special qualities when it comes to shooting. They are also disadvantaged in fisticuffs.

However, the Landwehr was reconstituted in 1813 and made up the fourth battalion of regular infantry regiments. This meant, in theory at least, that they would get at least some military training.

You will note that the drummer and standard bearer in the first picture are on 2cm square bases. This is to allow me to field 32 Landwehr infantry in four groups of eight, representing the 1813 establishment or three groups of ten with a separate drummer and standard for the earlier period.

I pained these in a kind of generic Landwehr uniform with green facings. They don't represent any particular historical formation. I also decided that the NCOs would have white belts rather than black, to make them stand out more, and the senior NCO also has white breeches.

Once again, all these figures are Perry Plastics in 28mm.


Wednesday 9 November 2022

Reveille 2022

Lincombe Barn Wargames Society is pleased to invite everyone to the 2022 edition of our annual show, Reveille;



A few more Black Ops figures

These are, once again Copplestone Future Wars figures and are described as "Sewer Scavengers". The whole lot are all very post-apocalyptic and will work well as fanatics or similar.


This first set above have a definite leaders and characters vibe about them and the remaining ones below are more rank and file .


Some of them have a kind of Army Surplus look about them and others look more like down and outs. I used a nice mixture for their bases that I bought at Colours a while ago. It is called battlefield rubble, I think and looks very much like waste ground or urban ruins.

As with the whole range, these figures were a joy to paint. The detail is crisp and there are some nice little details.

Friday 4 November 2022

More Black Ops figures

I've already posted a couple of times about my Black Ops small project using Copplestone Future Wars 28mm figures, so here are my latest eleven figures;



These are described as "Partisans", so I think that these would work for various different kinds of irregular militia, armed insurgents or paramilitaries.

I could see these working well as the kind of far-Right Survivalist or White Supremacist nutters who want to overthrow democracy and are therefore a target for Special Forces anti-terrorist operations. They could also be the People's Militia in some kind of authoritarian state. There is a definite former-Soviet Union vibe about them. Their SMGs have a definite PPSh-41 look about them, but with a more enclosed barrel.