Painting

By Kreighton Long

At this past April’s Operation Roundup Tournament I eagerly competed in the Best Painted Force finishing towards the top but not high enough to place.  The category that hurt my score the most was my lack of a display board.  Historically, I’ve avoided building a display board as I would rather invest the time, energy, and resources into painting miniatures and terrain.

Humbled, I decided that I can’t win unless I play the game and this game requires a display board.  Driven by spite I committed myself to investing some of my summer break into building my first display board. As this is my first attempt at a display board the unofficial motto from the start was “good enough”.

By Kreighton Long

Feeling adventurous, I set out to build a pigsty for my rural Bolt Action terrain.  Most of the materials were easy enough to order online.  The wattle fences came from Renedra Ltd; the mother pig from Warlord Games; and the balsa wood, match sticks, coffee stirrers, and green stuff from my hobby cache.

By Kreighton Long

Slowly but surely I’ve been working on improving my terrain options with the focus on Bolt Action.  My primary army project for this year is overhauling my Soviet forces.  Accordingly, my terrain optics have been focused on the terrain pieces that will best fit the Eastern Front.

By Kreighton Long

I recently stumbled across Father and Son Gaming’s Organic Shapes MDF Terrain Base Set and thought about the improvement they could offer my current terrain set-ups.  For years I’ve collected trees, a couple at a time, from various conventions.

I’ve used those same trees on nearly every table I’ve thrown together.  From time to time I’ve had a minor hiccup where my opponent or I would need to reposition a tree or two to accommodate units moving through  the clusters of trees and in doing so would lose track of the intended outline of the trees.  For the most part these are friendly club games and we’ve been able to work through it for the spirit of the game.

By Kreighton Long

Thanks to Great Escape Games I finally worked up the courage to take a crack at painting horses with their Romanian cavalry.  Fortunately for me, I have a former equestrian a shout away to lend her expertise.  A goal I had for my mounted Romanians was to have an eye-catching amount of variety with the different mounts.

Of course with my partner passing my painting desk every so often to quality control my progress I was able to work with her to incorporate some authentic colorings.  Below are some of the different colorings I ended up with and the corresponding colors. All paints used below are from Vallejo.

By Morten

The Danish army got a new camo pattern for their uniforms, designated M/84 in 1984, to replace the older M/58 uniform. Although it was implemented into the Army in 84’ it didn’t reach the troops until years later. Even in the 90’s some troops had still not received the new uniform and especially reservists would still be issued the older M/58 uniform. 

The webbing used was of British making and had been donated to Denmark by the UK, after the Second World War. Denmark did not replace this webbing, until start to mid 90’s, although some bags and pouches on the webbing would be replaced with newer versions along the way (like new ammo pouches for the M/75(G3) rifle). Most of the webbing would be a tan/khaki color, although color variations did occur, and could range from a light green to dark khaki. 

Here is my take on how to paint a Danish Panserinfantri Deling (PNINF DEL), or Armored Infantry Platoon, for Team Yankee, in the M/84 uniform. 

By Mitch Reed

I wish that my love of history was more well-rounded.

Blood & Crowns is a new skirmish game that covered the Hundred Years War. The kickstarter campaign is still waiting on production of the initial project, and should ship this spring (northern hemisphere).

My journey from never having an interest in this period to becoming excited about it is a wild story.

When it comes to certain periods of history I have little more than a rudimentary knowledge of what occurred and may be able to recognize a few battles, dates, and historical figures. When it comes to the history of the Hundred Years War, I know it lasted more than a century, and other than reading Shakespeare’s Henry V and John Keegan’s Illustrated Face of Battle, both of which I read back in High School, I know little about the conflict.

When I heard that Firelock Games was working on a new game called Blood & Crowns that covered this period, I did not list it as a “must buy”, however after seeing a draft of the rules and especially after my NoDiceNoGlory.com interview with Eric Hansen, the designer, I was hooked and now I have painted over 100 models to play this great game.

By Kreighton Long

The German Eichenlaubmuster, also known as Oak Leaf, camouflage pattern began being issued in 1941 and was used by the Waffen SS until the end of the war.  Below are the steps I take when I paint Oak Leaf camouflage.  The paints I used are Vallejo’s German Cam. Pale Brown (825), German Cam. Black Brown (822), German Cam. Dark Green (979), and German Cam. Bright Green (833).

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

Many wargamers that I know keep a recipe book, a notebook that is used to record which paints have been used for a particular project. This record is invaluable should the project be put on hold for a time, or ends up being extended at a later date due to new releases, as it avoids the question of “what on earth did I paint those with?”

Model Colors is a free iOS application that I have started using in place of my own recipe book. At its core is a paint library holding over 24,000 products from a wide range of manufacturers, which includes other types of products such as inks, pigments, and thinners. It also has a number of features that mean it can serve as more than just a catalog of the paints that you own.