BoB: Bolshevik Artillery & Support

06/03/2015

Another week of seemingly meagre pickings, sorry ! Here’s the first of several updates that I have been working on in between community meetings, funerals and other stuff:

Copplestone Bolshevik field artillery. As per previous comments, I have replaced the commander figure with one from the Bolshevik Heroines pack to make it a bit different.

medic and Ammo carrier from Musketeer, now Footsore Miniatures WW1 Russians packs. Though slightly smaller and not as beefy as the Copplestone stuff these figures fit in nicely and help expand the range of poses on offer.

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BoB/AVBCW: LKII

24/07/2013 1 Comment

The Swedish LKII is finished. I tried to use a system similar to the ones painted on the museum pieces that was not the German WW1 Mustard/Red-Brown/Grey but something subtely different.

So I ended up with Foundry Slate Grey, my basing colour brown, and Foundry Moss. Given a brown wash, and then highlighted.

A picture showing the LK II (Copplestone Casstings) which is 1/55th next to Brigade Games Mark V (which is 1/56th), next to First Corps Erhart which is probably 1/48th (?).

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BoB/RCW: Conversions

08/06/2013

After the Spackle incident, a visit to Rich’s Pinning Service was more productive.

A simple head swap on a Copplestone White Russian HMG crew will help variation of these units – paint jobs only go so far !

This means I have:

  • straight up White crew with field caps
  • ditto, in colourful white regiment colours
  • ditto, with Plastoon Cossack breeches (blue)
  • crew with fur hats

Seeing as I am providing four armies later this month, that’s a unique HM crew for each. 🙂
Sad I know, and I’m also planning on mixing in Musketeer HMG crew with Copplestone and vice versa to make another three HMG stands all of which will be unique.

The second mortar crew – with fur hats to distinguish it from the first lot. As I also have the Musketeer HMG crew, they may well be swapped into this unit. as well.

These units are all well advanced on the paint table and should be pictured shortly.

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BoB: Encounter at Tryitoutskigrog

13/03/2013

Our second game of the day, Gav and I played using the test rules using some of my BoB troops.

I was worried I didn’t have enough Bolsheviks for him, but it turned out I have painted 40-50 of them years ago and forgotten all about them !

Again Gav set up in a straight at ’em linear fashion which, as it happens the scenery favoured. This is something that will be changed in futurer, and I am at work on some Renadra fencing to go around some of these cottages.

His forst shot onto my artillery resulted in a complete wipe out my artillery crew. A brutal, but effective set of rules there !

His troops took up positions in two burnt out cottages, and so I had to try and move ky troops round them.

In the meantime, his Bolsheviks, sacked the church,my Shock troopers hurled grenades to no eect, and I generally lost !

Still first test of the rules and they had some merit – long way to go.

The scenery is coming along. The game mat looks more brown/blecahed than it really is. I have another three to enable me to dress a table 16×8 (actually 16×6 on the boards) for the BoB game in late June.

Louis caught a few more pictures here.

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BoB/RCW: White Artillery and some scenery pieces

27/02/2013

Louis the camera, got an outing today to take some photos of newly finished scenery pieces, and the second White Russian artillery piece I’d painted:

I still need to get to grips with the technical aspects of the new camera (Louis), but the focus is much better. Lighting remains an issue.

As you can see I replaced the officer for this second artillery piece, with a different one from the Copplestone White Officers pack (BC25). I have a third artillery piece to build which will make a full battery, asnd which will probably be actually deployed only once or twice in my life !

In preparation for my planned Back of Beyond Big Game in June I ordered and started building some scenery pieces. Whilst the Ukriane and parts of the Don are part of ther “Black Earth belt”, other areas are very much more steppe and semi desert regions, and as my BoB figures must also do service in central Asia, Mongolia and Manchuria I use a lighter soil mix for the bases…so obviously as Scenery Boy I need a different set of Trees! for this game…

Again I went for Woodland Scenics trees from Antics, and the scale chart indicates they are 24-32′ high on an O/S scale which is roughly 28mm.

Which looks more realistic for the figures.

The trees will be situated around the buildings on the battlefield, as open steppe of the Don, Kuban and Kalmyk regions is obviously grassland and any trees would be planted around settlements.

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AVBCW: Big Game Hereford 2013 – 1

17/02/2013

After a last minute line up change we got to the game. On Table 1 – we had two tables…

The BUF (Richard) and Royalists (Roo & Tom) massed their cavalry, some 40+.
Now Cavalry did not have a good track record in AVBCW games (note past tense)…

But when augmented with Tanks, and a few good dice rolls they stormed across the table towards the Anglican and Socialists. Though the BUF tank did blow up a building on the way over…

Whilst the Socialists from B’ham after rather placing thier car in a rather rakish position on the bridge suffered from the effects of a chance card that meant it was out of petrol. This seemingly small event went on to make a major impact on the game, as the broken down car was then shelled by the BUF tank, blown up and left wrecked on the bridge blocking it. It provided cover for Anglican bomb squads who attempted to blow up the BUF super tank later as it crossed the stream.

Meanwhile the Socialist NCO checked out the wrecked car..and found that it had contained the Bishop of Hereford, who had now escaped and was somewhere on one of the two tables…capturing the Bishop would be a major issue for both sides.

Elsewhere, the Anglicans had sent forward a unit across the stream. Screams were heard across the fields, and the survivors later claimed that they had found an Abyssinian Lion in the bushes that attacked them. Both the Anglican troops who claimed to be attacked, and the Royalists moving towards them made these claims, but to date no reliable photographic evidence has been shown. It is suspected that a domestic house cat or two was responsible for clawing a few ankles.

The staff of Emperor Hailie Sellasie have declined to comment on the whereabouts of his highness’ pet lions.

With the Royalists and BUF approaching the bridge, the Socialists called up their reserves !

With both their lead car and motorised tachanka out of action (kaput), the socialists retreated as per orders whilst the BUF and Royalists targeted them with mortars and tank guns. Luckily for the socialists the BUF super tank managed to get stuck trying to cross a hedge which bought them some time. However, spies in their midst, fog and other adverse chance cards really hindered them and they were not able to mount a decent defence.

Having loped off the head of the scarecrow that was taunting them (it was dressed up in BUF uniform), the BUF cavalry cantered on, leaving in their wake some very annoyed Twiggy Mommet protesters who turned their scythes, pitchforks and shotguns on the unfortunate BUF infantry.

Breakthrough !

The BUF supertank crosses not only the hedge, but the stream !
Thbis was the beginning of the end for the Anglicans and Socialists. With the tank across, and seemingly immune to the tank killers of the Anglicans who made a brave effort, the ATR squad mown down by BUF cavalry, the tide turned against them.

However, the Anglicans went down fighting, the Royalists assaulted the immobilised tanks (known as the Hot-Rod), but the Anglican commander raced to the rescue and valiantly fought off the Royalists.

And then a Chance card through everything up in to the air. It turned out the commanders were old enemies and basically everyone had a grudge against each other…CHARGE…

To be continued…

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BoB/RCW: White Command II

14/02/2013

Here are some figures for my White Command unit, to lead their ragged troops into battle:

One of the standards has slipped a little as you can see – somenthing you notice in a close up photo like this is totally unseen when deployed on the table. The second more animated standard is the St Andrew’s flag that was occasionally used and was also the standard of the Imperial Russian Navy.

A Brigade Games and an Artizan figure – a medic, and a mad officer wielding two mauser pistols (one with snail magazine). I painted the Officer’s ‘tache white, like the one in Dr Zhivago.

Get back in your ranks !!
Even more officers !

One’s from Brigade Games, the rest are Copplestone. As you should notice, the right hand one is the officer from the White Field Gun. I swapped him with another White Officer to make the command and artillery units more varied.

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BoB: Bolshevik Characters – Freedom from the White Oppression !

07/02/2013 2 Comments

Rummaging around in the Playrom and I found some more bolsheviks that in decided to finish painting

A Copplestone Bolshevik mounted standard bearer. the flag is acquired from the internet and translates as “Freedom form the White Oppression”. I have a few more flags with slogans to add to my Bolshevik standard bearers.

Next up is a bit stranger, an Artizan figure:

A Bolshevik dominatrix in red leather ? Yup entirely historical:

Nina Pavlovna Lebedeva-Kyashko, an officious 21 year-old Moscovite, paraded about shamelessly in furs, jewelry and clothing of burzhui victims, and ‘wives of the commisars’ and ’employees of the Requisition Commission’ followed suit. When not modelling the wardrobes of her victims, Kyashko reputedly strutted about ‘armed to the teeth’ and habitually clad in dark red leather.

(White Terror, Cossack Warlords of the Trans-Siberian, Bisher, 2005, p243)

Just some more Commissars. Time to start painting the rest of the army.

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BoB: Ragged White Russians

06/02/2013

As commented earlier the White Russians in the RCW had way to many officers and way too few ordinary infantry. they resorted to conscription, but all levels of their armies suffered from supply problems. I’ve just painted up 10 Ragged White Russians from Copplestone (BU23) and have another 30 on the painting table.

there are more than 10 variants of the model, but I won’t bore you with each and every one.

The models are based on a fairly well known photo:

The Whites were supplied lots of weapons and uniforms by the Allies. Not much got to the front due to corruption and inefficiency.

So much of these supplies reached the Bolsheviks, that Trotsky sent the British General Knox a letter: “thanking him for his help in equipping the Red troops” (Figes 1996).  Knox was dubbed the Quartermaster General of the Red Army.

Some of these models include Lee-Enfields, some are in British tunics, most are in ragged Russian uniform and most with Mosin-Nagants. These poor souls made up the majority of the White Russian armies on all fronts.

Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago: [narrating over a military parade in Moscow]The party looked to the peasant conscript soldiers – many of whom were wearing their first real pair of boots. When the boots had worn out, they’d be ready to listen. When the time came, I was able to take three whole battalions out of the front lines with me….By the second winter, the boots had worn out… but the line still held. Even Comrade Lenin underestimated both the anguish of that 900-mile long front… as well our own cursed capacity for suffering. Half the men went into action without any arms… irregular rations… led by officers they didn’t trust.

I’m designing a game system to generate BoB/RCW factions/armies, and the Whites (and the Reds) will be getting a lot of these demoralised poortly equipped troops.

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BoB/RCW White Russian Guard

02/02/2013

One of this week’s projects was to finish of the White Russian Guard unit. The White Russians were notorious for having more a disproportionate number of officers to men, so officers often had to be fielded as normal infantry.

With their smart uniforms, I have designated this as one of the White Guard units to separate them from the more ragged White Russian infantry which is also about ready.

Again these are basic Copplestone BU34.

Ironically, to make a change from Foundry Moss, I have used one of the Foundry WW2 paints – Soviet summer tan. Not sure if these are still available, but it does break up the endless montone khaki a bit, and again the Russian army in WW1 and then both Reds and Whites had enormous problems in getting consistant supplies of uniforms to their troops.

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