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!

Bolt Action - Progress update

Nose dived into this one a bit, but I've neglected to keep the blog up to date!

I've 90% completed my original plan of having a bunch of British Paras, facing off against a mix of Germans in late 1944 France/Holland

So aside from some tidying up and detailing, highlighting, eyes, etc, I've got this done, the models and the terrain that is.

in addition, I've been kit bashing a bunch of British commandos to support the paras in bigger games, and to be used in smaller skirmishes across all theatres.

And of course to go with that... i couldn't resist a bargain and picked up an early/mid war DAK starter kit, which intend on cracking open once the table is cleared of Commandos and late war German armour!

i'll dump the photos below without much commentary.

they should be of my progress with Paras, Commando kit bashing/making green stuff comforters and some painted Germans!

Hopefully I'll get back in to the rhythm of documenting as i go, but my hobby time has be very sporadic recently.

Oops I did it again! - Bolt Action

Off the back of my recent 'success' of aquiring, painting and storing an Army for NetEpic with relative ease, i was feeling gallus...

I had also managed to clear out a load more stuff via eBay with the help of £1 listings and same price courier collections.

I was in a good place. with a small 'to-do' pile, and a manageable collection of minis and terrain for the various games i play (or at least tell myself i play).

Then my human weakness was exposed.
In a casual conversation with a friend, he mentioned that he was getting into Bolt Action (28mm World War 2 platoon level game from Warlord).

We talked a bit about the armies we'd like to paint, and the possibility of maybe getting a couple of the small blisters that contain enough troops for a skirmish game...

24hrs later, i had around 90 infantry and a tank en-route to my house, and i was once again chopping up coir door mats for wheat fields and hedge rows!

I'm fairly sure i vowed not to do 'this' again, but here we are!

I'll say it now for the record, for what it is worth;

I'm buying/painting 2 small armies (1000 points in game terms)

British Paras/Commandos with a Churchill for late war europe, and some kind of Germans for an opposing force in the same theatre.

I'll have enough terrain for a 6x4 table, using what i have in the house already.


Lets see if i can stick to this.

I'm still testing out colour schemes, but I've ordered some specific paints from Vallejo as although i'm not too fussed about 100% accuracy, but not having to mix my own would be nice for such a large group.

The test model below isn't likely to look like the final product now.

Once more into the breach!

I've also included some final pics of my AT 2018 collection, as it has now been moved on, so keeping them here for any future nostalgia i may have.

Epic - Tau : Reinforcements

A few more additions to my rapidly growing Tau army.

The missing Tetra recon bikes arrived, i picked up a couple of Riptide battle suits from eBay, and kitbashed a Supermacy Titan Battlesuit from a 28mm Crisis suit.

I also picked up a full Forge World Aeronautica Imperialis Tau force, to use as my Air Caste.
I got them for what i think is a decent price given what the Manta alone can go for!

That said, they are a little bit bashed up, but i'll maybe make this a feature with some battle damage.
They also look to have once had a pretty awesome blue/black camo scheme with brown/tan camo accents, but at some point someone has roughly painted white, blue and black over the top of this for some reason!

As the nicely painted scheme seemed to have had a varnish top coat, i thought i'd have a go at rescuing them, using 99% Isopropyl Alcohol and cotton buds.

For the most part this worked really well, although i did lift some of the good paint, and dulled them slightly, but i'm going to keep the Manta and Barracuda fighters in this scheme, with the Tiger Sharks getting my grey/teal scheme.

I've included some work in progress photos too to help me reference the process as much as anything and on that note, the paints used are;

GW Mornfang Brown (primer)
GW Celestra Grey (base coat)
Vallejo Blue Green (Accent)
GW Drackenhof Nightshade (Shade)
GW Ulthuan Grey (Highlight)
Vallejo Black + Vallejo Silver (Metallics)
GW Evil Sunz Red + GW Wild Rider Red (lenses, Missiles)


I'm now sitting at around 7-8k points in netepic for this force.
One more small order to vanguard once they restock will allow me to field a load more units that are currently under strength (due to the pack sizes and my bad maths).

Then i'm done! the Joy of the Tau in Epic is that there simply aren't the hundreds of different units, so i'll be naturally reigned in soon enough.