The New(ish) Model Army

The great drawback of WW2 collections has got to be the repetitiveness of the colour schemes.  Happily the addition of irregular force elements is a welcome break and a chance to paint something with a wider selection of colours. I’ve been looking for a partisan set for a while but hadn’t come across one that I like until recently. I’m not a big fan of metal as I prefer working with plastics - ease of glue and cutting etc. So it was good news when Wargames Atlantic announced they were releasing their new French partisan set. I’m now four dudes in to this set and am pretty pleased with it. The set has 32 figures offering pretty good value for money. The figures are nice - reasonable poses although only having four different bodies in the set there’s a danger of them being repetitive. The spruce has a good selection of weapons although I would have liked another rifle on there - at present each spruce only has two rifles on them which means the squads are going to be bit too heavy on...

The joy of the internet and in particular this site:   http://wio.ru/tank/oz/oz-en.htm . 15th Guards Mechanised Brigade, part of 4th Guards Mechanised Corps.  Fought on the Budapest Campaign and so appropriate to play through Warlord’s Fortress Budapest Campaign.  Guards honorific therefore reasonable to include some veterans in the mix as well as greener replacements.  Mechanised Brigade therefore lend lease light armour such as White Scout cars and Universal Carriers are in as well as truck borne infantry plus the freedom to bring a T-34 or two when required.  Brigade includes an independent recce company therefore scout squads are not implausible (I think).  Most of the required support options available - mortars, Zis-3 medium howitzers, Bde engineer company for assault Engrs (not that I’ve ever intended to field then) and AA MG Coy (quad maxim - why not?). The only thing in mind that I’d like to include at some point but might not be appropriate is a l...

 After a long and tedious stretch of lockdown (hope you’re all hanging on in there - won’t last forever) the Soviet side of the collection is at a fairly strong platoon scale. A slack handful of rifle and SMG squads with appropriate mortar, MMG and anti-tank rifle support. Wouldn’t be complete without a lunatic in blue trousers and a T-34 too. Now it’s time to find a unit for these cats to be part of and get formation badges painted on. That will also be a good handrail to choose some more support and transport choices.  For the Soviets I want to be late war with scope for veterans (I tabled a Russian conscript horde at a tournament and it didn’t look a fun way to lose). I like being able to deploy forward so scouts need to be part of the options in the selector. I’m not keen on flamethrower spam but assaults and rapid movement are part of my preferred playbook so transports and SMG based squads are pretty key - although the ability of Soviet vets to take Tough Fighter does g...

I came to Bolt Action in 2016. Since then in the edges around full time work and two small children I’ve done little. None of that is likely to change; however, for what little value they’re worth I thought I’d stick some thoughts on here and look to hoover up good ideas from the community. The new project is Soviets. I have about two platoons of late war German Panzer Grenadiers, very loosely based on elements of the Panzer Lehr Division. These have had a few run outs again a buddy and also had a spin at a tournament - more on that another time perhaps. What follows will be some posts on getting a similar sized force of Soviets into a table ready state and then, once COVID allows I intend to get some after action reviews up on here.