SPECTRE Operations: Painting the DEVGRU half of the starter set in Multi-Cam
by Dennis “Matt Varnish” Campbell
Why finish off projects, when you can start completely new ones you never knew you needed? Today I’ll be going through how I painted the DEVGRU team in Multi-cam from the starter set.
My good friend Drew Willis, of fame, asked me if I could paint his 28mm DEVGRU in Multicam… I’m a civilian so I understood the portion of that request, but what is DEVGRU?
Turns out DEVGRU is the ‘other’ name for SEAL Team 6, and he wanted these painted for a game he had ordered, SPECTRE Operations. The starter set comes with rules, a DEVGRU 5-man section with attack dog, and six bearded dudes with AK’s (Chechens or whomever really) Locally, most of the folks I play wargames with are either current or ex CAF (Canadian Armed Forces) so naturally, a game like SPECTRE Operations would pique everyone’s interest.
He sent me two photos, one of the actual camo fabric, and one of some guys doing a demo somewhere, so I could get them as close as possible. What I didn’t know was anything about the game or that I was going to be painting these as Canadian SOF guys… here is a picture of the ‘studio’ miniatures of the DEVGRU from the SPECTRE rulebook:
Except Drew wanted his to look more like this:
There is more green here than in the studio pics and way less NVG’s, in fact, here is the colour layout of the fabric, there are 2 shades of green:
Step One was actually to clean off the horrendous amounts of flash on the models. Also, all the guns were bent. I mean ALL the guns, every single one, including magazines, and the metal used is super brittle, where if you try and bend them back, you hear the metal cracking right away. I had to resort to hot water and more patience than I thought I possessed. There are a few other casting problems (like one ‘skinny’ arm where I think the mold didn’t fill properly) but otherwise, the detail is pretty crisp.
Took me a while to realize this pose is either up against a wall or is on Point and is signalling the rest to halt
Once primed in grey, I laid down the initial colour, VJ Green Grey
Followed up with large splotches of VJ Yellow Green
Finish off the green tones by laying down thin horizontal strips of VJ Russian Camo Green
Blobs of VJ Brown Sand followed up with small strips of VJ Chocolate Brown
Tiny dots of VJ Pale Sand round out the multi-cam.
Keep in mind we are going to use Army Painter Soft Tone then weather up using a dusting of VJ USA Tan Earth
Here is each pose, with Soft Tone, then webbing and gear finished, and lightly drybrushed with VJ USA Tan Earth. When I was painting this guy and his dog, I kept thinking about this
Boots and gun add-ons are also in USA Tan Earth
Knifehands
This guy with the pistol, the gun was so damaged I had to recreate it with wire.. I put on a red-dot attachment
I’ve never seen a mag look like that on an MG. I didn’t go too crazy on the faces without since Drew would likely be putting on the NVG’s once they came in (sold seperately for some unknown reason)
Canadian shoulder patches to mark these guys out as having the Queen on their money, not Presidents!
Naturally, as I was posting pics of these via email and Facebook thread, a bunch of the other usual suspects started ordering. SAS, German GSG9, one guy went with Aussies, 3 guesses who that was.. so of course, I caved and ordered some bad guys… a lot of RPGs and AK’s in my future it would seem!
Maybe I should crack open the rulebook and get a game in when my models show up… (but that’s for another article…..)
Matt Varnish, AKA Dennis Campbell, plays Team Yankee, Flames of War, and Black Powder and now Ancients, in the frozen wastes of Canadia. Check out my youtube channel for hundreds of :