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Since I have virtually nothing else to paint (for certain definitions of virtually and nothing, with rounding and margin of error.....). The FLGS recently (like Wednesday) got in their first order of Bolt Action. There hasn't been anything historic being played in the area that I'm aware of (at least none of the local stores carried anything) so hopefully this is an untapped market. Early interest seems pretty high at least. I've been interested in playing something like this for, oh, a while, but there has never been anyone playing it where I was. So I was quick to jump right int. Picked up some Germans (someone has to play the bad guys, plus I have a number of German tanks and things from West Wind in this scale....) and today started on some Grenadiers. Well then, this isn't going to be as straightforward as Legion figs..... There are 6 bodies, 11 heads, a number of different weapons, some with arms, so with arms you attach, and a whole bunch of kit. I'm building 10, since that is the maximum build out for a squad, and following a video I watched for the weapons load out (3 assault rifles, 6 rifles (including the loader) and a light machine gun). Bases and bodies, and I decided I'd use the LMG over the shoulder arm. And where I ended up after about 3 hours. All the arms and heads are on, but only the NCO is fully kitted. So just because the gun looked cool, The first German finished is using an "acquired" Russian PPSh sub-machine gun (it counts as an assault rifle for the Grenadiers).

I know there are a few of us here who have been poking around in this line, so I thought a general thread might help us find each other. I know @lowlylowlycook and @SisterMaryNapalm have done some Bolt Action wips and show-offs, but given the volume of the board these posts may sometimes be easily lost. Here you might provide some links to them so they at least catch interested eyes. As most of you know, I'm a Reaper guy. I love Reaper, I've bought (and buy) lots of Reaper, I'm a lifer and I've been here practically forever. I sort of fell into Warlord by accident after my house fire. I'd been poking around the interwebs looking at assorted minis, and when I went to ReaperCon, Frontline Games and a Bolt Action demo team were good enough to hook me up with some stuff. Initially this was mostly so I'd have something to do when I got back, since whatever I didn't lose in the fire was going to be in storage for a bit. That's why there's so many US Infantry sets above, I was mostly picking based on what looked fun. Gradually I started to get more interested, and I realized that this might be a good way for me to build a collection of historicals. I've long ogled ancients and napoleonics in assorted figure catalogs, but my primary focus was fantasy - and while a regiment of redcoats might look classy and cool, they were expensive and difficult to get into. At the same time I was mulling this, the house got finished and my stuff came back from storage. The results were... rather grisly. My ~300 painted figures suffered quite badly, and would need to be redone. I was starting over from scratch. This is something I intend to do, but if I'm honest I don't have the heart for it right away. So to tide me over and keep me working, I bought the Hail Caeser and Black Powder starters. This is a good fit for right now, because there's a lot less pressure to paint more than tabletop - given that there's a bazillion figures in that picture. I can relax, paint some army men, and work up the will to do the dreadful sorting and culling of what remains of my fantasy collection (presently I've hidden them away in boxes). At some point, I might even play one of these games! I don't have Pike & Shotte... yet... I figure I should finish some of what's already here before going deeper down the rabbit hole. So if you've been poking around with this stuff, too, please join in!

Finally finished some support units for my Bolt Action winter Soviets. Observer, medium machine gun, and medium mortar, all 28mm. Should've done some more paint work on the bases before I applied the snow. Oops. They'll look good on the table.

@SisterMaryNapalm and I both have some German Grenadiers (and I think he was some Fallschirmjager as well) that we are working on, and since that's a fine coincidence I thought it would be fun to share a thread with our work on them. I know we're at least using somewhat different paints, and possibly also different methods, so it might be interesting to see how they turn out. These are mine from the Bolt Action Band of Brothers starter set. I have another squad, but all of those are wearing standard Feldgrau uniforms so they're represented here by the Leutnant with binoculars and map, and the NCO with field cap and submachinegun. Most of the others are wearing camouflaged tent quarters, so that should prove... challenging. At this stage, I've assembled them, primed them with stynylrez, and they've got a coat of VMC Feldgrau that I darkened 50/50 with Reaper Brown Liner. They're more assembled than I'd probably prefer, but I'm used to figures with fewer pieces so I haven't quite got a working method worked out for multipart multioption plastic figures yet. I don't expect it will be too much trouble. I hope not, anyway. Apologies for any craptacular photos, I'm compelled to use my ancient Galaxy S3 and haven't yet replaced my camera. Frankenphone sometimes works, and sometimes it calls in sick.

Hello everyone, Some of you already know my Roza Shanina build (Check here ->Let's present ... Roza Shanina<-) and my Russian tank commander and tank rider build (Check here ->Painting female Soviet tank commanders and tank riders<-) and some might have noticed the little glimpse of what I was working on at the headswap topic (check ->here<-). But now it is time to present the project as a whole. Whoever is interested in the background of the project might find an answer in this post ->here<- So, let's get started. As at the the time I started the project my sculpting skills were far inferior to what I am able to do today, I needed some plain surface for sculpting female attributes onto the body. Luckily Warlord Games had just released a number of Soviet Russians in winter clothing, so I took the opportunity to get me a box of them and started working. Unfortunately the heads I wanted to use were unavailable so I began working on the bodies alone. Not a problem for me. I am running around headless most of my time, so I know what I am doing. After having cut out and cleaned the bases, it was time to go onto the bodies. Using some greenstuff it was rather easy to make males into females. And luckily there are a lot of reference pictures of real female soldiers in WWII. Yeah - well. Those who know me know that I normally reject reality and substitute my own. Therefore - mixed real and anime approaches to make the girls visually appealing on a greater distance. Time to dry!

Warlord has released a Korean War supplement for Bolt Action as well as some miniatures. Since I already had some minis for the Ethiopian Kagnew Battalion that Haile Selasse sent to fight in Korea, I decided that I needed someone for them to fight and have thus started a Chinese PVA force. Also I'd like to get them done quick like so after some experiments I decided to do the uniforms with a combination of Army Painter and GW Contrast paint. Since that isn't quite a horde, I have a couple of extra squads on order. A closeup. Their skin has just a base coat and the fur hats haven't been started. If you want to compare, the ones on yellow bases were done with AP primer and soft tone while the ones on pale bases were done with Contrast.

The Show-Off thread for my Soviet Russian female Batallion project. You can find the WIP-thread here: ->Let's make ... Soviet Russian Female Battalion for Bolt Action<- So ... without further Ado, let's get into the presentation ... The first three figures are done. C&C are welcome. Next group is already on its way.

After I started working on my Soviet Russian girls, I soon noticed that I missed some usable terrain. So it was time for me to start making some. I checked my stuff and ... unfortunately I didn't have got any usable terrain. But I had some 28mm Warhammer 40k barrels and boxes. So ... what to do with those? ... Luckily I am a person full of ideas and dreams and melancholy. So I remembered back in the days when I was young, I played a game called "Blitzkrieg". "Blitzkrieg" was a lovely game using a lovely graphic engine for displaying things. And they had this wonderful supply depot, which I think would be perfect First off I have have to prepare some boxes to later have a good foundation for the blanket. ... which ended in in looking like this: Time to paint!

So the guy who runs a local gaming convention called DieCon occasionally plays in out little Bolt Action group and was asking for someone to run a tournament this weekend. No one else was going to be in town so I got volunteered in army sense of the word. This led to a frenzy of terrain making in the last couple of weeks, However, not much of what I made was actually needed (in these pics only the Ethiopian table and a couple huts are mine) but it should come in handy now that I have it. In addition there was a frenzy of actually trying to read the rulebook. Shocking... In any case Friday evening was a learn to play event. We started with 4 people who split up my Italian and Ethiopian forces. Later on a couple other guys came and watched us go through the game. An Ethiopian officer leads an outflanking maneuver. The Bersaglieri take what ends up being an over exposed position on top of a hill. In the foreground the askaris move through a false banana plantation. In the background the Italian armored car is having a tough time after being hit by Ethiopian artillery. In the end the Ethiopians won in a landslide, which I found to be gratifying. While we were playing a young kid stopped for a minute to look on. I asked if he wanted to stop by later and he gave us what sounded like a sarcastic "yeah, I will". However he did drop by! It was his first miniatures game so we just threw a few units onto the table and had at it. Since he had eaten spaghetti but never any injera, he took on the Italians. This time there was no artillery.... He had a good time and dropped by to have a look at our tourney battles a few times on Saturday. Speaking of the tourney. We had 5 players so I brought out my Italians so no one had to sit out games. Armies that people brought were French, Australians, US Marines and two German forces. Just a side note: Some tourneys have a Hanomag Award for the player that brings stuff that fits the historical theme of their army even if it isn't very good in Bolt Action. I have no idea how we would have decided who to give that to. I think the Germans brought 6 Hanomags 251s between them. Some Askari move forward while the arty observers try to get into a decent position. The main group of players only have one friend that brings an observer and apparently he never rolls well enough to bring the hurt in when and where he needs it. In a couple turns, my opponent was quite surprised when his forces were decimated for being too tightly grouped around the white building close to the center of the pic. After trudging through a board filled with jungle. Bersaglieri and Askari look on at the results of another arty strike. My armored car was hit but not destroyed by the artillery and heroically run up and onto the bridge to try and stop the Germans from stealing the cattle. It was promptly destroyed by the captured armored car next to hut. Some marines moving across Ethiopia and getting ready to win the tournament. They also got the best painted army award. I did not win the best able to focus his phone camera award. Overall, it was a great experience. Everyone brought cool, well painted armies and I don't think there was any rules arguments and certainly no one asked for me make any rulings. Even when I showed off the true power of rolling 6's while bringing in off board artillery, everyone was having a good time.