Heer, there and everywhere : Adventures in Bolt Action

A friend of mine had decided to get into Bolt Action, so I tracked down a few ebay bargains to get him going including a starter army. He assembled the figures and the Chi Ha tank, and then hit a hobby wall . I don’t normally do commission work but he was having a rough patch , so when he asked I said I would do it for cheaps (like if I was doing it for a stranger I would have been sticking a ‘1’ in front of what I charged him.

I decided to try out my plastic soldier company primers from Britcon and liked the finish a lot. I think these will be my go to primers from now on. That was enough for the first day.

I started with the uniforms next and decided to paint the puttees the same colour. vallejo green-yellow . I was loosely following the guide by ‘How I paint things’ from YouTube.

Next up was dry-brushing over the helmets and uniforms to pick out the webbing and highlights. I used buff rather than white mixed with the yellow green. I made a point of avoiding black and white paint at any point during painting these troops. I prefer the results as they’re less extreme.

I received a free sprue of Italians, decided to buy a couple more, then set about painting a couple of infantry sections with a view to selling them.

Update: miniatures sold, also got positive feedback from the buyer including a ‘well painted’ comment. This was a boost as a painter as I had turned down a couple of commissions in the past due to lack of confidence.

I decided to make my Soviet vehicles a little dirtier and most rusted than the other allied tanks. I used a slightly different ink wash , mixing agrax earthshade and Coelian green (?). Overall they turned out a shade darker than I was aiming for, but overall I am pretty happy with them

So what’s next, out of the built up models this is all I have left….

I had a good run at the allied forces over the weekend. I painted up everything US/commonwealth that was built.

That leaves me a Churchill, a Stuart M3 , four universal carriers and six jeeps to build and paint. I also have three jeeps for the British paras to finish off.

I plan to do the Soviets next. But taking a break to assemble and prime some more Finn’s, some Ghurkas and some Aussie commandos who look like total murder hobos.

Once the Soviets are done I will be starting my Carnevale project, minis only for now.

I decided to have a bit of a palate cleanser after a couple weekends of building vehicles. I had wanted to paint up a squad of US infantry, this would allow me to have more options for my 5 men from Kursk campaign,when I finally start it.

Things went mostly ok, of course when you spend hours looking for uniform colours and sifting some conflicting and confusing information, only to find a sweet spot; and then go and put the decals on upside down.

I decided to tackle my mountain of unbuilt and unpainted vehicles for Bolt Action. I find vehicles a bit daunting.Which is daft as all my completed ones look fine.

Also pictured are a couple of Finnish Pak 40’s and an SS howitzer which was a swine to assemble as there are no instructions anywhere!

Having primed the allies with Army Painter Army Green, I then went over the bodies with a base coat of Olive Drab from Vallejo. Next step was to add decals. I realised doing all the decals in one go would lead to me being sat in a corner rocking and making meeping sounds. So I elected to work on four models at a time. I went a bit rule of cool with a bit of research with the decals. Avert your eyes rivet counters.

The first four tanks are nearing completion.I just need to add rust , dust and a bit of mud. I won’t go mad on the allied stuff , but the Soviets will be a little worse for wear .

I use a range of products: Vallejo pigment powders, rust effects paint, AK and Citadel mud paint, dirty down rust, maybe some chipping medium. Not all on the same tank though . Might even stick some snow on the Finnish ones.

I like Nightwish and Hanoi Rocks, so I knew in my heart that a Finnish army was inevitable. This would be my first army where there wasn’t a box of plastics I could buy to form the core of the army of the peg, so to speak.

I shopped around and picked up support elements, some metal infantry from various sources (Warlord, MarDev, Parkfield). Did some homework one vehicles, found I had several sat in my model mountain. I also picked up some STL files of gear and a box of early war German plastics. I robbed some forager caps from my fallschirmjagers, found a couple of WW1 Wargames Atlantic helments, which fit the Finnish helmets. Swiped a couple of sprues from my unbuilt Russian horde for arms and weapons. And off I went.

My Finns are still waiting to get painted, working my way through the Aussies and Gurkhas currently. However I did make a start on their tanks.

I decide to go with the 1943 camo scheme, which was applied in the field, meaning I could get away with a bit of roughness

I used masking tape cut into jagged strips, then painted the brown colour on the exposed areas, having done that I added more masking tape then painted the green. I still haven’t got round to the weathering and decals, but that won’t take long. I’ll include a picture of the finished article when I start painting the whole army

I got together with my fellow Bolt Action enthusiast over the weekend. We played a 1500 point area control game. I felt like I had suffered for lack of infantry in the last game, so I made sure I had plenty of squads this time around

We pushed out of our starting sectors and the battle played out on two fronts, the fiercest fighting was in the south west where I tried to flank his artillery. My panzerschrek crew halted his m10s’ advance down the main street and though immobilised he was still able to attack my unit holed up at the crossroads along with his troops in the house diagonally opposite, the fighting was bloodiest here and both units were ultimately destroyed.