WWII Bolt Action Japanese - a few reinforcements: Nick

So still no painting from me I'm afraid!  All is not lost however, the SAGA tournament at the Stoke Challenge led to the purchase of these pack mules from Tiger Miniatures - a new company to me, but one with lots of tempting goodies:

Although not part of the army as such, I will find a use for them as a mood/terrain piece or objective markers and wish I'd got a few more.




Also one of my many visits to Warlord Games has procured me a few reinforcements in the way of these Snipers and Spotter from their excellent range of WWII Japanese miniatures:

...as well as some alternative head sprues for a bit of variety or conversions:

So not the update I was hoping to write after so long, but more to come soon and hopefully some actual progress before Xmas!

Bolt Action ...and so it begins: Nick

Those of you that know me, will not be surprised that I still have no painted miniatures to show!

However I have managed to stick together this guy, the first of my Imperial Japanese Army - a Suicide Anti-tank squad, armed with a Lunge Mine.

As he forms a one-man squad, he will be ideal as a test piece and won't look out of place if he ends up painted slightly differently to the rest... it is also one of my favourite miniature options in the box.

I've chosen not to use the plastic Renedra bases included in the box, so that I get consistency with the other mdf bases I will be using for prone figures and support weapons in the future - I did consider using 2p coins as I often do for plastic miniatures (and I believe Carl has used on his US Army), but with such a small contact area between the figure and base I wasn't confident of a secure bond.

Hopefully I will be able to throw some paint at him this week, I'm planning on using the infamous Army Painter 'dip' with extra highlights after the 'anti-shine' stage... I will see how that works out before tackling the rest of the box.

I will also try to post the army list I'm working towards, as I've said before the plastic box set on its own is 500pts and I will show how easily this can be achieved for anyone else that might be interested?

Bolt Action - A New Army: Nick

Bolt Action was never really on the cards as a game I was likely to play with Carl, let alone a project like this... however some recent playtesting of 'Beyond the Gates of Antares' (Rick Priestley's latest Sci-fi game based on Bolt Action mechanics), led to some discussion and Carl starting to paint his US infantry.

I'm not an avid WWII gamer, but on the occasions when I do I always side with Mother Russia.  I already have more than enough Soviets that have needed painting for years, so I really didn't need anything new for the lead mountain!
Not a fan of blue on blue action though, something had to be done.  Then I remembered my soft spot for the Japanese army (probably the fault of some Airfix kits in my youth), and the excellent Japanese Infantry plastic box set by Warlord Games which I had already managed to resist buying when it was released last year!

A quick play with Army Builder revealed I could easily construct a full 500pts army from the contents of a single box of 30 miniatures, what's not to like about that?

Next thing was to order the 'Armies of Imperial Japan' supplement from Amazon (to go with the main rulebook that I've had for nearly a year now), and while I was there I picked up the United States one as well for completeness:-

Then a quick order from the friendly guys at Caliver Books and this is my starter army for our 'Pacific Theatre' Bolt Action project/challenge:-

I already have plans to expand this lot into a full 1000pts in the future, but we both have plenty to get on with before that and I won't need to buy anymore for a while.