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

WWII Bolt Action US Army Lieutenant Kelly plus BAR and SMG troops painted

Following on from my last WWII post I've finished my 'Kelly' model for my US army Kelly's Heroes themed Bolt Action (and Chain of Command) force.

I have to say that I really like the Artizan Designs miniature lines, they're lovely to paint. The sculpting is very straight forward and 'clean' with enough detail to give the models individual character. Many modern miniature lines, particularly in the fantasy and science fiction genres (which I also collect and play) have an excess of decoration which I sometimes find quite intimidating to paint. The models I've worked with over the years from Artizan have always been fun to paint.

Artizan models are metal with the usual flash and mould lines you would expect to have to deal with, they are bulky sculpts when compared to the plastics from Warlord Games but once painted and viewed from 2-3 feet away on the tabletop don't let that stop you mix and matching.

I'll be building a German force once I've completed my US army and I'll be buying Warlord Games' plastics for that army.

Here's the painted Kelly and two of his soldiers:

Click to enlarge

Next up for my US army painting are another sergeant, Big Joe, along with another SMG and BAR dude. Then I'll need to do some more cleaning and priming to get my sniper, spotter and Observation team ready for painting. Once I have all the infantry painted I'll do a group photo and write down an army list.

WWII US Army Painting Progress and Reinforcements

It's been what feels like an age since I last posted. Family birthdays, parties, kids breaking up for summer holidays, kids at home during summer holidays when working from home. It all amounts to a lot of 'stuff' happening and doesn't leave much room for hobby time.

Coupled with all of the above I've been working on my own skirmish ruleset which is getting very close to completion. It needs quite a lot of painting and photography sorting before it's finished so that's been taking up 'hobby' time (I'll post about that some other time).

But, in amongst all of that chaos, I have managed to make some progress on my Bolt Action US Army, here's Sergeant Oddball from a couple of angles:

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

As I mentioned, we've had quite a few birthdays in our family recently including me! I've received quite a few reinforcements for my project:

Click to enlarge

There's US sniper team plus a couple of observation dudes that will make a Forward Observer 2-man team. There's a MMG Jeep and plus two Shermans! (One with wooden armour - very appropriate for any of those japanese spear mine wotsits Nick is modeling).

I also got Kelly, 2 x SMGs, 2 x BARs and Big Joe from Artizan Designs range to fill out my existing infantry, the WiP of these is below (there's been more progress since this pic was taken).

Click to enlarge

I was also lucky enough to receive some money so I actually bought the Bolt Action rulebook - read half of it so far. Looks a lot of fun. Incidentally I also have the Two Fat Lardies Chain of Command in digital format so I'm looking forward to playing both and comparing the play experience of them. On the surface of it they look as though they provide very different opportunities and tactical choices.

Taking all things into consideration my US force is coming along nicely. I'm going to have to have a bit of a think about how I'm going to squeeze multiple Shermans into the army in regular games due to construction restrictions. I'm pretty sure I'll be making up my own 'Kelly's Heroes' inspired scenarios to incorporate Oddball's tank squadron though so they'll definitely all get on the table at some point. Plus I'm aware that Warlord Games are publishing a Tank Battles books in the near future so that could open up some interesting opportunities too.

Bolt Action US Army - My Starting Point

I'd bought nine US infantry models from ebay several years ago purely to experiment with painting WWII uniforms and then, as is often the way, promptly lost interest and moved onto something else.

The models languished in my collection until a discussion with Nick about Bolt Action by Warlord led me to dig them out again. I also had one of Artizan's Thrilling Tales WWII models, the 'Oddball'  model, based on the hippy (yes, really) tank commander in the movie Kelly's Heroes.

It was during this discussion that we started to consider doing some kind of 'Tale of 2 Gamers' thing to help motivate us both to get a painted force completed for the period.

Kelly's Heroes is possibly by favourite WWII movie (I'm not overly concerned about historical accuracy - but love a good bit of entertainment). With this in mind I decided to build my tiny collection of US miniatures up into a fighting force based on the characters from the movie.

It'll probably be completely rubbish as far as an optimum build for a Bolt Action force but I'll enjoy using it so it doesn't really matter to me how they get on.

Here's my current situation, the US riflemen are painted!

And here's Oddball awaiting a paint job.

I'm only going to buy new models when all the existing stuff is painted so until Oddball is finished I'm not buying anything else.

I'll go into what I'm going to include in my list another time, I don't even own any books yet. Just building a force that seems 'cool' and 'feels' like Kelly's Heroes to me. :)