Welcome to the Jungle... (Nick)

Finally an update from me for our Bolt Action 'Pacific Theatre' project.  Unfortunately not hordes of painted Japanese infantry, but nevertheless a very important part of the overall theme.

These are the first few pieces of jungle terrain to populate the gaming table and create a suitable environment - only a few to start with, just to test the techniques and materials I wanted to use:

...and a few close ups:

       

The palm trees and dissected plastic aquarium plants are courtesy of eBay, and both types of long grasses (more aquarium plants) are from Products for Wargamers which I bought at one of the many UK shows they attend.

The bases are randomly cut from hardboard, sanded smooth and given a quick blast of anti-shine to seal the surface and stop them warping when the basing material dries.
The plants are hot-glued into place, rocks are just pebbles from the garden glued into place and painted, then the whole base is covered in Basetex from Colour Party with some chinchilla sand sprinkled in patches and painted once dry.

There will be a LOT more of these to follow, with more variety and more overgrown 'jungly' pieces.  After these generic and hopefully 'realistic' sections which could be used in any jungle or Arab desert setting, I want to add some really funky, wildly coloured stuff to go more sci-fi/fantasy for use in my games of Beyond the Gates of Antares and Fanticide.

28mm US Army 500pts Bolt Action force

It's been a very long time since my last post but things have been moving along with my US Army force.

I managed to complete all the infantry I have before December but alas, Nick hadn't got his force ready so there was no end of year Bolt Action game.

Below you'll see my initial collection of US infantry...

500 pt Veteran US Army Bolt Action - Click for bigger pic

This amounts to 500 points of Bolt Action US Infantry (based on the army list in the core rulebook). I'm not sure what it'll amount to in Chain of Command as I've not looked at the army lists and compared the models to it yet.

My 500 point Bolt Action US Army list is as follows:

Officer 
First Lieutenant Kelly + Rifleman (Vet 90 + 13) = 103
Forward Observer
Artillery Observer + spotter (Vet 115 + 13) = 128
Sniper Team
(Vet) = 65
Veteran Infantry Squad
Sergeant Big Joe + 6 men, SMG x 2, BAR (Vet 65 + 26 + 6 + 5) = 102
Veteran Infantry Squad
Sergeant Oddball + 6 men, SMG x2, BAR (Vet 65 + 26 + 6 + 5) = 102
Total Points =  500

I realise that this list looks a bit fragile but it's the best I can muster with the models I have at the moment. I plan on expanding the infantry once I have 1000pts painted. I have a jeep and a Sherman to complete next which should get me to 750 points. After that I want to add a mortar and field artillery piece which should add another 100-150 points. I've not thought much more beyond that so the final models to get me to my initial 1000 points could be anything at present. Potentially more infantry but transport vehicles might also be on the table - finances permitting.

I plan on getting to 1000 points before the end of June 2015 which 'should' be doable, depending on how distracted I get along the way.

One such distraction is these guys:

German Sniper team and initial riflemen - click for bigger pic

I got these for Christmas and in the absence of Nick's Japanese I plan on getting this box painted by the end of February so that I can play a few 500 point vs 500 point games both at home with my kids or against Nick if he fancies running one of the armies.

I was planning on doing the Germans after I'd finished the 1000 points of US Army (to be Kelly's adversaries) but I've brought starting the Germans forward so that I can get a few games in along the way to 1000 points.

Oh and in case you missed Nick's posts in December the reason my progress on the project slowed down last year was I was getting my own pre-gunpowder historical/Fantasy skirmish game published. It's called Open Combat and you can find out more here: http://www.secondthunder.com