Bolt Action - Commandos!

One of the things that hooked me on Bolt Action was the opportunity to build up some British Commandos, a branch very close to my heart as my Grandfather was in No.3 Commando during WW2.

It not only afforded me to build and paint some models, but whilst researching the uniforms etc i was able to look a bit deeper into my family side of it too, which i really wish now that i had done sooner.

All that aside, i'm pretty happy with the way my small Commando force has turned out (usual caveats of 'i'll finish off the faces/details one day!)

I did a fair bit of kit bashing, using parts from the Paras and 8th Army sprues to beef up the rather horrible old Commando kit, which is essentially just the normal Brit infantry sprue with additional knives, bergens and berets, and is now very out of scale with the current plastics from Warlord.

Weirdly the older kits have skinny arms and big heads vs newer kits with big arms, smaller heads?!

and on the subject of heads - why do they all look in their mid 50s and stunt doubles for Micky Rourke?!

all the reference material i have is of 19 year old fresh faced youths?!

I also took the time to make some cap comforters using Green stuff, which is a really iconic piece of kit that is unfortunately not included, and the after market heads with them on are out of print it seems.

As usual, my painting of them is fairly basic, and probably not entirely accurate historically, but i'm happy that they represent what they do, and fit the aesthetic of the post war Commando adventure comics.

Gaming wise i've now got;

2 x 7 man squads - NCO and 4 men with SMGs and a Bren team

1 x Light Mortar Team

1 x Sniper Team

1 x PIAT Team

1 x Officer 

which is about 500 points?

I'm sure this isn't optimal gameplay wise, but i wanted them to have SMGs for the most part, and i'll likely expand on these guys at some point with some additional men for the teams and to take hits for the officer.

Dixon Minis seem to do a cool line with the cap comforter so i'll maybe go for some of those!

Anyhoo, Photos!

Bolt Action - Lazy Armour

I make some apologies here, but not too many hopefully!

These kits have been sitting on my table for what feels like an age, although it's probably only been a few weeks.

I had good intentions of breaking out the airbrush and doing all my armour that way, with some nice transitions, shading etc...

In reality i brushed on a couple of base coats with a big old hairy stick and then proceeded to lazily add more layers and details over the last few evenings (most of which involved a few beers and switching focus between the models and some video gaming).

The results speak for themselves, looking fine at a glance, but showing some really basic errors up close.

I'm definitely not proud of these, nor am i happy that i seems to be regressing slightly with either my painting skill, or my attitude towards painting, but i'm hoping i can get out of this lull shortly (even my photography of them and writing of this post is a bit slap-dash).

I'm still refusing to even open the DAK starter army until i'm in a better frame of mind and can really do them justice!