8th Army Indian Infantry

A little more firepower and protection against vehicles is now added to my force with these two weapons teams – the ol’ trusty Boys AT-Rifle and the ubiquitous 2″ mortar without which no British platoon would leave the camp.

Note that I modelled the loader for the AT Rifle seperatly so I might use this mini as a spotter of any kind e.g. FAO / Sniper / Howitzer / 3″ Mortar.

The loader of the mortar team by the way is magnetised with ferro foil so he could be removed easily as a casualty.

So here’s my first try on caucasian skintone in this project. May I introduce 2nd Lt. Gareth Lombscomb, a bank accountant by trade who – in peace times – lives in a small town set in the soft rolling hills in the heart of Albion. Now he finds himself on duty under the burning sun of north africa – for king and country.

For his skintone I used Basic Flesh as a base, then mixed in Pink Flesh (to give a subtle red(ish) touch – the sun and northern europeans, you know) and finally mixed in Pale Flesh for the last step – all colors Scale75.

The BD trousers are painted with English Uniform by Vallejo and highlighted by mixing in some Iraqi Sand (also VMC). The mini is a mash up made out of a body from the regular late war plastic British infantry by Warlord Games (please WG give us a new and updated box of these!!) and a head and arms from the new 8th Army box. C&C very welcome.

Next step done. So the list I am building and the unit I want to represent commands that all infantry has to have enough transport capacity to be moved around in the vast desert of northern Africa. I plan on bringing two trucks (a Bedford OY 3ton lorry and a Bedford dropside truck), an Indian Pattern Carrier and two Bren Carrier on to the table top first of all….well maybe another Indian Pattern Carrier or an armoured car, we’ ll see.

Here you’ll see the first truck I just finished. I primed this model with Skeleton Bone (AP) like all the infantry. Then put on a first coat of Dark Sand (VMC) on the chassis and German Camo Beige (VMC) on the canopy. After that I washed everything heavily with Army Painter Soft Tone dulling it down to a very dirty brownish tone. For the chassis I then applied several thin coats of Dark Sand leaving out the creases for a rugged look. The several thin layers gave a nice matt finish, I think. Then, to put on the chipping effect I used a small sponge with which I tapped on Black Grey (VMC) very randomly and carefully. The lower part of the truck’s body the got drybrushed with German Camo Beige…and that’s just it.

The canope was drybrushed with German Camo Beige after the washing process and then drybrushed twice again with a mix of German Camo Beige ans Stone Golem (AP).

The tricolor rondel on top of the cabin may not be 100% historically correct..but I like the touch of color it ads and I think of it as some kind of “in the field” initiative by the crew in order not be taken out by friendly air strikes…now take a look yourself.

…oh almost forgot, I glued some see through plastic pieces from another cardboard factory kit for tabletop gaming into the drivers cabin, to give a feel of “real” window glass.

As a question arouse on how I did the washing of the models I will add a couple of shots of the truck before being washed (after basecoating), when being washed and afterwards, with a first coat of the initial base colors. This might give a better impression to you…

Got my second transport finished just tonight. Took me only about an afternoon to paint this up – including basecoating the model. I applied the same method as described in my former post and – again – I’m quite happy with the outcome.

The model is the Bedford dropside truck (civilian pattern) by Warlord Games. It may be referred to as the “little brother” of the Bedford OY 3ton lorry…as seen in the last picture, with the latter being the main transport for my ever mobile 8th Army Sikhs.  I will mainly use the dropside truck for rushing around my weapon teams over the battlfield…at least that’s the plan, but all you tabletop tacticans know – plans and reality, two very different pairs of shoes. Now have a glance yourself…

So I just finished my second squad of eight men for my force accordingly. As always with my armies I tend to do slight adjustments and experimenting with the set colors a little. This time I went to go a little lighter overall on the figures. Mainly with the webbing and backpacks mixing in more of AP Stone Golem into the basic Khaki. Also, I highlighted the uniform a tad bit more than I did on the prevoius models. That was mandatory, because I watered down my wash a bit too much and I feared I wouldn’t have enough contrast if I just let the VMC Iraqi Sand as it was (could have done another washing on the minis, but didn’t want to go through all the tidying up again). Anyhow, here you’ll see the full squad…

….oh yeah, and now a look ahead. Next up, I will build my Bren Carrier from the new top notch Carrier Patrol set that Warlord brought out. Other than my trucks (plain sand(ish) paintjob) I will try painting these up in the iconic Caunter camo scheme. This will be fun…and a little nerve wrecking maybe, we’ll see.

I don’t own an airbrush so will have to do this with some good ol’ brush work and we’ll see how it turns out. As I wasn’t sure about the “right” colors for this special scheme (1000 and more references on the interwebs) I ordered the AK Caunter Camo Paint set yesterday, which will hopefully do the trick….stay tuned more to come.

Hello again. At last I found time to get something finished and it was/is something that I’m a little excited about. First of all (even though I play British forces of other kind) I built my first universal carrier and secondly I painted it up in the iconic Caunter camo scheme of the early stages of the conflict in the Western Desert.

Beforehand I did some intense research on the interwebs figuring out which version to build for my 1941 Sikh Army (MkI or MkII?) how to do the camo scheme and most essentially answering the “one” question:…What are the “right” colors to use??? The latter I solved in a rather practical manner by ordering the Caunter camo paint set by AK (as I mentioned in an earlier post) and that…at least imho really did the job. As I do not own an airbrush I did all the painting in the ol’ fashioned way of brushing the paint on. The colors are a tad bit too thin for that technique, I would say so at least, but are very well pigmented and that – in the end – left me quite satisfied with the result. Now without further ado here is my MkI universal carrier with Sikh crew and two LMGs.

What’s best about this piece of my army being finished is, that I have the first 500 points of my list ready for action on the tabletop:-)…list will follow soon.

As I already announced in my last post – here is my 500 points of Western Desert 1941 Sikh force for Bolt Action. All troops are categorised as “regular”.

1st Lt. – 75 points

1st infantry squad
9 men -> 8 rifles and 1 LMG – 110 points

2nd infantry squad
9 men -> 8 rifles and 1 LMG – 110 points

2″ mortar team – 35 points

Boys AT-Rifle team – 30 points

Universal carrier
fwd facing  LMG + pintle mounted LMG – 70 points

Bedford 3ton lorry – 39 points

Bedford dropside truck – 31 points

Kind of a good start…at least I think so. Next up will be the rest of my infantry and the a Matilda II tank and a couple of more Bren Carriers and Indian pattern carriers…watch out.

So, the heatwave really slowed my painting efforts down, in fact stopped it completely for some time. The real life added to the full stop, too.

But here we go again. It is not really 8th Army nor Indian infantry but I couldn‘t pass by this lovely character model of Laird Stirling (by Stoessie‘s Heroes) to lead my forces into battle…no army without Scots. Now have a look yourself.