By Kreighton Long
In my previous article, I described my first foray into mold making. In this article, I’ll share how I took the cured casts and painted them to look like generic cobblestone sidewalks. I spent some time looking at different cobblestone sidewalks on Google Images to try to find out how to paint mine. In the end, I decided to go with a basic grey color as a safe neutral to fit most settings.
By Kreighton Long
Over the years I’ve slowly been building up my collection of urban terrain and as my tables experience urbanization I’ve come to realize that the next step is to include sidewalks. Adding sidewalks to my terrain collection will help to fill in some void space in my town, and will help the town become a more aesthetically pleasing, lived-in, setting.
At first, I looked for simpler options such as printing cobblestones onto card stock or buying mousepad cobblestone rolls and cutting to size but none of those gave me the modeler look I desired. Eventually, I rolled up my sleeves and declared, “Fine. I’ll do it myself”, with my best Thanos impression.
By Kreighton Long
What is a Bolt Action army project without some big guns? Even partisans have access to lighter howitzers and anti-tank guns. There’s probably at least one army that can’t take artillery options but I can’t think of one on my own. As fun and good-looking as the big guns can be it can be challenging to paint and base the finicky things. Speaking for myself, I struggled for a while on how best to turn these pieces of pewter, plastic, and resin into gaming pieces that were as aesthetically pleasing on the table as they were influential on the outcome of the game.
By Kreighton Long
The Italian Army, or Regio Esercito, was the first military in the world to mass-produce camouflage equipment for their soldiers. The M1929 telo mimetico was utilized by Italian soldiers and paratroopers as well as by Italy’s German ally during the course of World War Two.
For my Italian paratrooper army project I knew I needed to commit hard to the camouflage pattern and after a few trial runs incorporating feedback I reached a scheme that was close to accurate while still being doable.
By Richard Steer
I’ve recently been thinking a lot about the impact of 3D printing on the historical wargaming hobby. My primary concern has been the threat that printing poses to the local shops and manufacturers who rely on selling products for their livelihoods, and what this means for the future of the hobby as we know it.
Into the middle of one of these periods of reflection, a new kickstarter landed that has reminded me of the huge potential that 3D printing has for growing the hobby: Potbelly Miniatures’ campaign launching a range of 28mm Hellenistic Judeans.
By Kreighton Long
When it came time to purchase my Italians I decided to go with Warlord Games. Their plastics have been excellent over the last several years and I figured why not give these a go. I can honestly say I wasn’t disappointed. The kits are easy to assemble with enough variety to have minimal duplications in your platoon. The sculpts are clean with good lines and deep contours that make highlighting that much easier when painting. I picked up one box of plastic infantry and the support teams box to get the meatball rolling. When I get to it I’ll add some vehicles and heavier support to really flush out my Italians into a force ready to take to the table. But first, we need to put paint to plastic.
By Kreighton Long
With my Bolt Action Romanian army built and bloodied on the table, it’s time, once again, to look forward to a new project. Scrolling through my mental list of armies I aspire to paint and field I felt temporarily at a loss. While discussing my dilemma with a friend over a mid-war game of Bolt Action, he suggested I try something in the early-war period, so as to pair against his own early-war armies.
The suggestion was well received and we spent a good portion of the remainder of the game discussing my options. A combination of desiring to get the most mileage out of my next project and to build a less common army brought me to the stoop of the Italian Army.
The recent releases of Warlord’s Bolt Action: Campaign Italy: Soft Underbelly and plastic Italian Army opened the door and ushered me inside. As all my terrain is themed around European battlefields I decided to focus my research on the Italian participation in European campaigns and battles. Some quick online research into the campaigns fought by the Italian Army in Europe gave me some quality gaming options to consider including campaigns in Southern France, Greece, and Russia.
By Tom Mullane
This winter, my sister got married in a small ceremony in NJ. I served as the minister, and it will have been the 8th wedding I have performed since being ordained in the Ministry of Life Church (certificates available online for 35$— includes parking pass) Every great wedding party needs a wedding cake, even small receptions for family and close friends like the one my sister and my new brother had planned. In an effort to make use of my wargaming skills in a non-wargaming capacity, I decided to make a winter-themed diorama for the cake and desserts my wife Angela was going to make.
By Howard West
My previous article Team Yankee COLD WAR Warrior Revisited the T-55 Tank focused on a Team Yankee player adding a 24-27 point 2nd or allied T-55 tank formation to an existing army list. With the “official” Team Yankee points reduced for this year’s US National events and with the changing META caused by the new NATO books as described in Tom Gall’s recent No Dice No Glory article on chasing the Team Yankee Meta.
Also, several of our upcoming local Team Yankee tournaments that I will be playing in have the following point levels: 110, 94, and 70. I thought this provided a good basis for a series of list-building discussions for Team Yankee on No Dice No Glory.
By Howard West
With the “official” Team Yankee points reduced for this year’s US National events and with the changing META caused by the new NATO books as described in Tom Gall’s recent No Dice No Glory article on chasing the And since several other upcoming local tournaments have reduced point levels, in the following order 110, 94, and 70.
I wanted to see what a 2nd Warsaw Pact formation might look like and I started playing around with different formations and kept coming back to an old reliable T55/T54 Tank family. Team Yankee represents the T55/54 Family in 20 different tank and motorized infantry formations in 5 different books from the Soviets, East Germans, Czechs, Poles, Oil Wars(Syrians and Iraqis).
