New miniatures painted by Fernando

As I mention in my previous entry, I was not able to photograph them outside with natural sunlight, so they appear darker then they are in person.  So let start our journey on what I got painted by Fernando on this last batch.  Also a reminder that by clicking on the picture, there should be a bigger version of it.
  
First up is some more figures for the Russian Civil War

Above is the second half of the Siberian Rifles formation.  This will now give me four units of ten for them.

These two are more for a Pulpy RCW scenario or other games needing Soviet spies, but they are my two Cheka agents, Natasha & Boris...and yes, I have a moose and squirrel that will be in my next batch of miniatures to be painted.

These next two units are for both the Interventionist Allies in the RCW and also for War Plan Crimson

First is some more Canadians.  I needed them to increase the units to be ten man units and some extra Lewis guns teams.

Now is another force of US infantry.  This will give me eight 10-figure units for War Plan Crimson since they will be the attackers.  There is a lot of BARs in this group, but they will replace some of the rifles in the RCW intervention force so in the Crimson games each 10 figure unit will have a BAR.

Next up is a figures for War Plan Crimson and an interwar Cold War skirmish with the Soviets called Ice Station Lima, which is Tiger Miniatures tip of their hat to the novel and movie, "Ice Station Zebra".

First is are heroes of Archaeologists & Scientists.  I actually like the figure on the far right as he is holding a Spanish Conquistador's helmet!  What is that doing all the way up in the Arctic, is a mystery!

Now is a unit of troopers to protect our heroes.  Half are wearing fur coats and the others are wearing skin coats.  

Next is a machine gun team to help protect the heroes' discovery site. 

Well, we have to get the mysterious dingus back to civilization!  What better means for transportation than a reindeer (or caribou if you insist) drawn sled? 

Of course, we have to have the bad guys to try to stop the heroes from just sledding off into the sunset with the dingus!

Next up is more Tiger Miniatures goodness that can be used for War Plan Crimson, Ice Station Lima, or for its only mini-project, Death Hunt.  This is another Tiger Miniatures wink to another movie, "Death Hunt", which is a highly fictional account of the famous pursuit of a mad trapper in the Yukon in 1931-32 by the name of Albert Johnson.  It really is an amazing criminal and survival adventure which you should read up on, even if just the Wiki article.

The three guys in white are the three heroes from the movie, Death Hunt.  Unfortunately, the one on the right should actually be a black American instead of white.  I am going to fix that later.  To the right of them are four Canadian Mounties in winter gear and finally, the mad trapper himself, Albert Johnson.

In the movie, Albert Johnson, played by Charles Bronson, was actually not a bad guy.  Not only was he being pursued by the Mounties, lead by the actor Lee Marvin, but also being pursued by the other trappers that he had a run in with at the beginning of the movie.  Well, these guys are them!  This could make for an interest three game of survival with one player being Albert Johnson, another being the Mounties, the third being the trappers.

This now leads into more figures that are tied into War Plan Crimson, Ice Station Lima, Death Hunt, and now, the Yukon Perils!  Actually the two sets of figures above will also work for the Yukon Perils games too.

Of course we should start off with the good guys of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police lead by SGT Preston and his loyal dog, Yukon King.
 

Next are the trouble makers for SGT Preston's toopers in the line of mad trappers!
 

Now are some treeline toughs that might be trouble or just some rugged individuals. 
 

Some more rugged individuals for the Mounties to deal with or protect. 
 

Yeah, these are Polar Explorers, but could easily be in the Yukon.  Why would explorers be so heavily armed is a good question for the the Mounties to ask! 
 

Being really the only representation of the Canadian government in the Yukon, the Mounties must also deal with checking up on the Inuits and make sure they are not making any trouble. 
 

If they are not diligent in their duties, the Mounties may have to deal with an Inuit rebellion! 
 

Finally, someone that is non-threatening and will probably be needed to be saved by the Mounties at some time during their time in the Yukon.  But what will they need to be saved from?

Why from a polar bear, of course!  But could there be something more dangerous in the Yukon?

Hmm, well a couple of angry Sasquatches would be worst than a polar bear...but could there be something else?

 A family of displaced Yetis!


Now for a moment of Zen...
Be seeing you,
Sapper 

Closer to getting my last batch of figures being painted back

So, I think I mentioned that I had a problem with Fernando Painting Services in regarding my RCW US infantry in this current batch of figures to be painted, so I sent one of my previous figures back to be used as a sample.  Well, due to customs, etc. they finally got it after five weeks since I mailed it.  Everything is done, except my US infantry and they are now working on them.  I should be see my figures early next month, I suspect.  So, I will hopefully have a game in October with the figures.  

The next batch of figures will be more RCW figures, the Czech Legion, mounted Cossacks, and some White Russian shock troops for the Kornilov Shock Division (I know that they served in the Southern Front and not Siberia or North Russia, but they have pretty uniforms).  I still have to count everything up, but I think I still have some more more that I can put in this batch but I still have to figure out what.

Finally, I am almost 70% the way through "Asian Odyssey" by Alioshin (see to the left or in the tab for 2016's books).  It is a very enjoyable read, not only about his military career, but most of the book so far is more about survival in the wilderness and interactions with Mongolians nomads and how they lived.  There are several humorous incidents that shows how screwed up things where in Russia during the Civil War, which are very similar to other accounts that I have read in other books.  My favorite is once he disguised as an Austro-Hungrian ex-POW traveling east towards China to help spread the word of the Revolution and help free the peasants from the yoke of wealthy, so he might sneak through the Reds until he could get to the White Russian settlements in north China.  One day he got work in a town by unknowingly knocking on the door of the head of the local district's commissar's house.  As he could not escape right away, he settled into his new job as the clerk for records of marriages and death as he could read and write.  Later on, he was asked if he knew anything of the legal system by the head commissar.  When he answered that he did not, he was immediately made into the district's civil judge since he was not already corrupted by doing it the old Tsarist way!

Cheers,

Sapper

Russian Civil War & the Allied Intervention in Russia 1918-1922 Project

So as you may have noticed in one of my previous entries, I am doing the Allied Intervention of Russian during the Russian Civil War (RCW).  For a while I have been looking what I planning to have as part of this project and where I plan to expand it.  I figure I will layout my plans here.

Concept of the project:

Small unit combat (about ten figures per unit) during the Russian Civil War in North Russia (Archangel & Murmansk region) and Siberia.  Opposing forces will be forty to hundred figures with one or two vehicles max, per side.  Keep games between one to three hours of actual game time, preferably closer to two hours, and no more than one hours total in set up and take down time as well. 

Rules:  

Right now, I am pretty well set on “The Sword and the Flame” 20th Anniversary Edition (TS&TF) modified with the "Sword of Adventure", Jackson Gamers' Close Combat rules, and some of my own rules.  “TS&TF” has the advantage that it is very well known and as it very simplistic.  But I am modify it to be less deadly (black cards for hits causes morale checks on individual figures instead of wounds), plus some other changes like on the card, the unit can do an action (move or shoot), instead of all move, then shoot.

Forces:

Below are my projected forces for the project.  I might not complete this list, but I will probably get close to it.  Items in brackets are figures I had not got painted yet and might not have bought yet.  I also excluded the items that are only for the War Plan Crimson project.

Bolsheviks

Command: 1x mounted overall commander, 2x foot commanders, 1x Commissar, 1x Flagman, 1x Heroine

Foot Units: 4x 10 Red Guardsmen [2x 10 Partisans, and 1x 10 Cheka riflemen]

Mounted Units: [1x 10 Cossacks]

Support Units: 1x MG teams, [1x Artillery piece, 1x Tachanka, and 1x Garford-Putilov armored truck]

White Russians (I am conceding that some of these troops will not be in winter gear)

Command: [1x mounted overall commander, 3x foot officers, 1x Flagman]

Foot Units: 4x 10 Siberian Rifles (yeah, these guys switched sides since my last entry on this project, but they can also be used for Bolsheviks too) [1x10 Officer Shock troops]

Mounted Units: [3x10 Cossacks]

Support Units: 1x MG team, [1x Artillery piece, 1x Tachanka, and 1x Austin-Putilov armored car]

Czech Legion

Command: [1x foot overall commander, 1x foot officer, 2x NCOs, 1x Flagman]

Foot Units: [4x 10 riflemen]

Support Units: [1x MG team, and 1x Artillery piece]

US Army

Command: 1x foot overall commander, 2x foot officers, 2x NCOs, 4x Sentries

Foot Units: 8x 10 infantrymen (the strong size is for a what-if they were given the go ahead for the more aggressive operations against the Bolsheviks that the British and French wanted them to do.)

Support Units: 1x MG team, [1x M1916 37mm Infantry Cannon, and 1x armored railroad car, sans the wheels, for one of the sleeping quarters/machine gun bunkers they used in Siberia.]

Canadians

Command: 1x foot overall commander, 1x foot officer, 1x NCO

Foot Units: 4x 10 infantrymen

Support Units: 1x MG team, 1x Artillery piece

Others/Neutrals

Individuals: [1x Femme Fatale, + other civilian like spies I can find, plus civilians]

Foot Units: [1x 10 armed railroad workers (from the AVBCW line), 2x 10 Chinese infantry (saw action in Siberia), 1x 10 British infantrymen]

Support Units: [1x armored train, plus cars

My Wish List

Winter coated Japanese, barring that, I might concede and use 1904 Japanese in summer clothing.  If I go that route, I plan to create a force of 2x 10 infantrymen & 1x 10 cavalrymen, plus 1x MG team and 1x artillery piece.  The reason for them to be smaller force is that they would also be beefed up by the White Russians infantry and Cossacks to fight the Bolsheviks…or possibly the Americans!?!?

Yep, this is a big project and will be my main focus for the year.  Almost all of the US Army and Canadians for this project will double for my War Plan Crimson project, except the US M1916 37mm cannon and the Lewis gun squad.  Since I am discussing this now I will list out the additional units for War Plan Crimson here now.

US Army (War Plan Crimson)

Support Units: 1x artillery piece [+1 more MG team, 5x M1917 light tanks, 5x Mack Bulldog trucks, 1x Mark VIII ‘Liberty’ heavy tank]

Canadians (War Plan Crimson)

Foot Units: [1x10 RCMP constables, 2x 10 trappers, 1x 10 Inuit warriors]

Support Unit: [1x Trappers MG team, 1x Carden Loyd tankette, and possibly 1x RCMP sidecar motorcycle with a MG, if I can scratch-build it.]

As you can see, this is a big project!

Be seeing you

Sapper

Short Update

In the comments in my last entry, I was asked about my 15mm Congo Crisis project and I will do a future entry hopefully next week about what figures I am going to use and etc. after I see if the paint is going to stick to my m/42 APC from Shapeways.  I did the chemical baths and let them dry off and spray painted them today.  I am waiting for that to dry and am going to try to see if the paint is adhering to the FUD material.  If so, I am going to try to paint up one and include it with the post on the 15mm Congo project.

Besides that, I had votes to continue reading about the Russian Civil War, which was what I was leaning to anyways, but there are some many "Oh, shiny!" topics that I want to read.  Actually, I could have read about Roy Chapman Andrews as part of the RCW as he worked to support the US Military Intelligence Division of gathering information on Mongolia & China during the last years of the RCW, and also visited Siberia around 1919 as an officer of the US Navy Intelligence....hmmm, US Navy dinosaur hunter in Siberia with frozen woolly mammoths...just thinking out loud here.

Anyways, so I am continue my reading on the Russian Civil War about the 'Mad' Baron von Ungern-Sternberg.  Extremely interesting character to say the least.  I plan to read two period biographies about him and the author who served with him after my current book.  One by his Chief of Intelligence, Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski (an extremely interesting character in his own right too!), called Men, Beasts, and Gods.  The second one will be by a Major that served in one of his units, Dmitri Alioshin, called Asian Odyssey.

I got to go, but I will end on a quote by Baron von Ungern-Sternberg about how interesting this subject is going to be to read.

Cheers,

Sapper

"My name is surrounded with such hate and fear that no one can judge what is true and what is false, what is history, and what is myth."