Bolt Action Japanese 1000pts army

I don’t like having prone models in squads of men with lots of standing men without explanation or reason.

I turned to the Bolt Action Facebook page for their advice on how they use their prone models.

They agreed that there is an aesthetics issue with mixed squads and some solutions were offered.

Use them just for set tasks. Sniper. Forward Observers. Spotters. LMG teams.

Or just use them for set tasks followed by any remainder in the box used in just one infantry squad. If it only comprises of crouched guys and prone guy it gives a pleasing aesthetic in play, because you have one unit of almost all standing minis charging the enemy as the other unit is crouched and prone set to give covering fire.

Another alternative was to use the prone men as pin markers instead of the first pin marker? Less tokens is important to the emersion sometimes, but this option does deplete my box of 30 minis to 25 quite quickly.

I have made a sniper and spotter already and know that i have 3 light mortars to make so this should give me full use of the prone models from the initial box. I tried to use the mortar arm with a prone model and the arm was too straight to pose him lying down. I fashioned a defensive area of some kind and a crater to get the arm to make sense with the prone body… It was then that i realised how blind i had been. I removed the mortar round hand from a sprue and selected a right arm to sever the hand from to glue it to and realised… Why didn’t i find an alternative left arm to improve the way the mortar was being held in relation to the prone body? Not my smartest moment after several minutes of messing with Greenstuff and awkward assembly. ?

Poised ready to set his knee mortar against the tree trunk.

The tree trunk is two pieces of resin. I tried to cut off a piece of resin sprue to bulk out the basing and lay Greenstuff over it. Then realised that a sandy or grassy dune would not look as good as a tree trunk and the resin had contorted in a bark like texture.

Calling him Max Chono because that’s as many Light Mortars as the book allows for this type of squad. ?

Japan realised that their anti-tank equipment was too light to knock out the Shermans, Lees and even Stuart tanks being put in front of them, they had no time or resources to up-gun their defenses. It was only the fact that Japan had such a devoted and indoctrinated infantry that allowed them to use Suicide attacks, lunging anti-tank mines on wooden shafts directly against the sides of tanks, as a last ditch defensive field tactic for taking out enemy armor.

I had some spare points so wanted to spend them on something only the Japanese can take and they give me a Dice in the bag quite cheaply even if there are no tanks for them to attack for some reason.

Started out by washing the metal to remove mold release agents. These can spoil the quality of the primer adhesion and gluing the minis together. These were mostly only two part minis. Being able to choose the heads is always nice with Warlord Games blisters like this.

As with an experiment on the MMG team’s base, I chose to use metal sprue shards, blue tac and superglue to make plants.

I think the metal shard plants have worked out OK.

Will be able judge easier once the whole squad is finished.

Took advantage of the Greenstuff World hobby sale on OnTableTop webstore.

Had my eye on this punch for a while. Will see if i can at least get some of this on all the bases as a theme for the whole force.

Also got some pigment powders to try for the first time.

NCO and Grenade chucking guy.