Allied Intervention in Russia 1918 - 1920 Project (with pictures!)

I got my package from Fernando Painting a few weeks back, but with everything going on with our dog I was spending more time with him instead of opening my package.  So, I am just now getting around to opening the box and posting pictures of the miniatures. 

I am pretty happy with Fernando's services.  As you will see in the pictures, I sent a variety of 28mm this time to be painted.  This was the first batch of 28mm's that I had sent.  The figures were all painted to the 'Collectors' quality, which is not their best level, but sort of their middle level.  They are a lot better than what I could have painted.  This was also the first time that I had them base and flock the figures. There was a mistake with the Red's machine guns, but I will explain what happen later with the picture.

This batch was 178 figures (including the machine guns), plus two artillery pieces.  The turn around time from when they received my package, until I got it back was four months.  With the 'Collectors' quality painting, basing/flocking, assembling the machine guns and artillery pieces, a 10% discount for over $300 painting services, and finally the shipping cost (I forgot to write down my shipping cost to them, but I am guessing no more than $0.50 per figure), the average price per figure is about $3.15 for the services.  Excellent deal in my own opinion. Only the shipping cost is the hardest to swallow as it is 1/3 of the overall cost, but if you figure it out as an average cost per figure, it is not bad at all.

This project is mostly done with this batch of painted figures.  There are still some more things I want to add to this project.  Mainly, I need to add the other half of the Siberian Rifles platoon, a Soviet armored car, and a second U.S. Army platoon.  Possible future expansion might include a White Russian platoon, plus a machine gun team; a platoon of Czech Legion (and MG team); a mounted Cossack half platoon, and possibly a British tank.  I really wish to add a Japanese infantry platoon with winter clothing for the Siberian Expedition, but there are no miniatures that will work for them.

Since the Soviets have the home field advantage, they will be the first group of pictures.  First is the Soviet Command Group with a mounted overall commander, a flag bearer, a commissar, and a heroine which could be a spy, nurse, or some brave girl, and finally two sentries.  The figures are Copplestone Castings, except the sentries which are Footsore Miniatures. (Remember to click on the pictures for a larger version!)

Next is the Soviet support of two machine gun teams.  These miniatures are from Old Glory.

OK, notice the wheels are not on MG carriage.  That was my fault for forgetting to be very specific, and use simple directions on my instructions when dealing with foreign language barriers.  They placed them exactly where I had them laying in my picture to them for the placement of the soldiers.  I will have to fix this later, but it is a lesson learn for clarification in my instructions to them.

Now is the first Soviet platoon of one officer and four squads of ten riflemen.  I wanted a non-uniformed look to them to represent the collection of non-military troops or poorly supplied peasants that made up the Soviets initially.  The bulk of the figures are Copplestone Castings, but eight of them are Footsore Miniatures.

Finally is the second Soviet platoon at half strength with one officer and two squads of Siberian Rifles.  They are to represent the veteran, ex-Tsarist army troops that served in the Soviet army.  I accidentally didn't order enough of these guys to have gone out with this batch to be painted, but the second half will be in the next batch.  All of this figures are Copplestone Castings.

The Canadians are the next group of pictures.  Only the Canadian artillery was in the North Russia Expedition and the Canadian infantry were part of the Siberian Expedition.  First picture is of the Canadian Command Group.  While I only really need one or two officers for the platoon, I went ahead and had all of the figures in the pack painted up.  All of the Canadian figures are from Tiger Miniatures.

Next is the Canadian Support Group with a machine gun and a 18 pdr gun.

Finally is a weak platoon of infantry of an officer, a platoon sergeant, and four squads of eight.

The final group of pictures are the U.S. Army forces.  The 339th Infantry Regiment 'Polar Bears' served in the North Russia Expedition and the 27th and the 31st Infantry Regiments served as part of the Siberian Expedition.  I am more familiar with the North Russia Expedition over the Siberian Expedition, but I plan to read up more on it soon. In both cases, there were no U.S. artillery with the expeditions, except were part of an infantry regiment at the time, but I went ahead and got one artillery piece for my War Plan Crimson project.  In the first picture is the American Command Group from Tiger Miniatures and sentries from Brigade Games.

Next is the American Support Group with a machine gun and 75mm gun.  These figures are from Tiger Miniatures.

The camo pattern for the 75mm is an actual pattern for the US Army in the winter at this time.

This picture is of a weak U.S. infantry platoon of four squads of eight.  The specific platoon has a BAR squad which would have part of the Siberian Expedition.  All figures are from Tiger Miniatures.

Finally, this Lewis gun squad is to replace the BAR squad from the infantry platoon for the North Russia Expedition as the 339th Infantry were issued with Lewis guns and not BARs.  The figures are from Brigade Games.

So there you go.  Unfortunately, April is totally busy for me to game and I will be traveling for vacation for about half of May.  So, I am hoping do a game of of this project in July.  I am getting my next order to Fernando ready to go and hope to have it sent off by the end of April.  This will have the second half of the Siberian Rifles platoon for this project.  The rest will be more Arctic winter theme figures for War Plan Crimson with a second U.S. infantry platoon plus more BAR gunners for the TO/E change to have one in every squad, some more Canadian Lewis Gunners for the same reason, RCMP, trappers, Inuits, dogs, and explorers.

Grab some pemmican, a Mosin-Nagant rifle and setting in for a cold, freezing night,

Sapper

A little something of eye candy (picture heavy)

Before the eye candy, a brief discussion: 

Today I got my batch of miniatures that I sent to be painted by Fernando Enterprises Miniature Painting Services (link) in Sri Lanka.  I am quite happy with their services and plan to use them again...matter of fact, I am sending out another batch probably at the end of this week!

This is actually the second batch of miniatures that I sent.  The first batch was a small sampling of 15mm figures for post-WW2 African conflicts as I have a lot of those figures from Peter Pig's AK-47 Republic line.  They were quite nice and the price difference between 15mm Collector and Showcase quality is not that great of difference in my mind.  So this batch was all 15mm figures for a sorted variety of small skirmish games that I like to do.  Unfortunately, I didn't have all of the figures to do any one project complete, so I will eventually have to send more figures later to finish them.

The turn around time was very good in my mind.  I mailed off the figures from the Mid-West USA about the end of July and they should had received it in the first part of August.  It just almost the end of October and I got them back for less than a three month turn around time for about 150 15mm.  That is better than what I could even image doing back when I did paint, plus I think that overall they are better than what I was ever able to do in 15mm.  Now, I will admit that I did not get them based or flocked by them.  I really was thinking of mounting the figures on clear round discs, but since then, I decided that I will base them on penny and flock them so that I can add a flexible steel sheet on the coin and mount them in a box with magnetic sheet to help prevent them from accidentally being bumped and bouncing all around in a storage box. 

My next batch is an example of how I am planning to do future business with them.  I plan to send enough figures for both side of a specific project so that when it comes back I should be able to jump into gaming that project (borrowing the terrain!)  Some of my projects might actually need two batches, but since I am looking at getting away from "big" battles down to platoon size or small skirmishes, this should not be too often.  Even with the "big" battles, I am don't plan to get much over 100 figures per side.  So just a quick note on what my next batch is, will be just about everything for gaming the Allied Intervention into Northern Russian, 1918-1919 at a skirmish level.  Basically, I will have a US infantry platoon plus a MG team and a 75mm gun, a Canadian infantry platoon plus a MG team and a 18 pdr gun, two Red infantry platoons plus two MG teams and some company level command.  The only thing that I will probably add on to this (and will have to be a future batch to be painted) will be a Mark IV Male tank for the Allies, an armored car for the Reds, and a platoon of White Russians with a MG team in support.  I plan to use TooFatLardies Chain of Command for the rules and the winter terrain that I had been slowly picking up.  A bonus addition to this is that I can use the US infantry platoon to fight the Canadian infantry platoon in a fictional War Plan Red scenario if I want to.

Be seeing you

Sapper

Now the eye candy:

All that is missing is the rope for these hitmen while climbing through the air ducts

The boys in blue

Leonard and Bubba, plus some kin looking for sum-tin good eatin'

I heard of the right to bear arms, but two armed deers?

 

 

Daisy May finds that flies are attracted to sweet things! (the two dead flies are actually supposed to be mounted on flying stands)

You are what they eat, Daisy May!

Close kin to Leonard and Bubba

"Stay on the road. Keep clear of the moors."

"Where is Annette Funicello?  This party beach is lame!"

 

 

US astronauts' exploration team (the guys laying down are suppose to be mounted on flying bases)

Soviet Cosmonauts

...and more US astronauts!

"Back off, Khrushchev!  This moon is ours."

Yeah, armed astronauts and cosmonauts together...this is going to get ugly soon

"Is Alice going on a date with Ro-Man?"

"Thank goodness that they are not purple with a horn in their heads!"

Huey, Dewey, and...Wall-E?

"This is a laser rifle.  Why do you ask, Dewey?"

“What can it be; what’s the reason?
Is this the end to all the seasons?
Is this something in your head?
Would you believe it when you’re dead?
You’ll believe it when you find
something screaming across your mind ...green slime!"

Some armed scientists in Antarctica

"Crap!, I don't think I have fuel in the flamethower."

"Something went wrong at Outpost 31.  The last transmission was something about an alien life form found in the ice."

The Thing watched on as Childs and MacReady tried to persuaded the Navy SEALS to conduct the countermeasures for the Hoof and Mouth Disease.

Across the plains, another mysterious armed team watches the Navy SEALS interact with the survivors of Outpost 31

AAR: A Falklands’ Patrol, or Cold-CoC-ing a penguin

Well, it has been a bit since my last blog entry that had any real substance, but I got two more notches on my New Year’s resolutions; I finished another book and got my first game in for the year! 

So first up, I just finished War of the White Death and have now started up The Soviet Invasion of Finland, 1939-40 (Soviet (Russian) Military Experience) by Carl Van Dyke.  If you want to know about the Winter War of 1939-40, I will highly recommend this book, War of the White Death, and the previous book that I was reading, A Frozen Hell.  You really need to read both and read A Frozen Hell first, then War of the White Death.  A  Frozen Hell gives an excellent political overview of the events leading to the Winter War, background of Mannerheim, and the Finnish view of the war.  War of the White Death was written using former Soviet documents and gives an excellent and detailed account of the war from the Russian side of the war.  Matter of fact the author deliberately avoids covering the same material in A Frozen Hell and states that one should read that book for the political & Finnish accounts.

On to the ARR of the game!

This was the first time that any of us played TooFatLardies’ Chain of Command (CoC), so it was a learning experience with a lot time of me sticking my nose in the book looking up things.  I limited who I invited because this was the first time with this system and I wanted Curtis T. & Steve H. as they have played a lot of TFL games before, and Glenn W. as one who has not played a lot of TFL, but has been reading up on various CoC reviews and AARs on other blogs so that he was rather familiar with the system.  We ran the game at the Wargamers’ Cave in IL (Thanks, guys!).   All in all, it is a good system and everyone was catching on how the dice worked and how to do things in the game.  Everyone commented at the end of the game that this was a better system than Bolt Action, which I am taking their word for it as all of them had played Bolt Action and I have not yet.  Unfortunately, as I was spending too much time checking rules as this was the first game and I am not confident with my memory to not look things up (but with repetitiveness, comes confidence and I plan to be repeating this system), I did not make notes of what happen in the game to give a detailed AAR.

While CoC is designed to be for WW2, it is open enough that it can be used for pre & post WW2 games up to a point and some people are already trying to adapt it for post-Colonialism Africa and Cold War era games.  So this first CoC game was using my Falklands conflict figures.  If you go back to some of my previous posts, you will find my stats for the Falklands weapons.  The scenario involved a platoon of British Paras probing an Argentine defensive position.  I used the British Paras rules right out of CoC as their tactics at the platoon level had not changed since WW2.  For the Argentine conscripts, I used the Soviet infantry rules, except I did not give them those national characteristics.  Instead I made one section “Die Hards” as in most of my readings, there was almost always one group of Argentine soldiers that would fight it out and only killing them would stop them from holding on their little bit of the islands.  I also made them Regulars to reflect one of the better infantry regiments, the RI 25.  I also ran the scenario in daylight hours to keep the game simple for spotting for now.

As mention before, a platoon of British Paras were to probe up an Argentine defensive position.  The Paras went light and were not carrying their Carl G or LAWs.  I have not figured the stats for the Carl G or the LAWs was the main reason for not including them in the scenario, but the Carl G was reportedly bad for malfunctions in the very cold climate in the Falklands with only the Royal Marines that had been in the Arctic Warfare training having minimum problems as they had been trained on the proper care methods.  I decided to treat the M79 grenade launcher the same as the rifle grenade.  The extra men of the Para’s platoon headquarters was not available as I assumed that they would be on other duties, wounded, or etc.  This was also the case with the support section for the Argentine platoon.

The Para platoon was being pushed by Steve H. (running the platoon leader and two sections) and Curtis T. (running the platoon sergeant and one section).  The Argentine platoon was being pushed by Glenn W.  It was easy for Glenn to run the whole platoon since there was enough support points that all three sections started entrenched and really didn’t need to move for the game.

The game started with the Argentine conscripts having a Force Morale of 8 and the Para’s with 9.  Unfortunately, Steve did not roll very well for the number of turns to move his Patrol Markers before the game began, (I guess the Argentine troops were using their night vision effectively that night).  So the Paras had to start farther back and had to cross big gap to try to push the Argentine conscripts on a hill.  Steve made good with one section right away for setting up a base of fire on one hill top.  Shortly later, he was able to get a second section on smaller hill in the middle of the board to also provide a fire base.  Curtis moved his section up the one flank of the main hill held by the Argentine conscripts.  For most of the game the Argentine conscripts stayed in their trenches and traded shots with the Para.  The Argentine sniper was especially a troublesome follow for the Para until the Paras finally spotted him and eliminated him in a rather overkill sort of way!

The game ended with the Paras not being in a position to push at least one Argentine section out of their trenches and hurting.  The Argentine conscripts were in better shape, but their Force Morale was in dire straits.  I did not keep any notes during the game, but I believe that the Paras had lost 5 or 6 men out of the 27 and the Argentine conscripts lost about the same number of men, with one being a section NCO, out of 34 men.  The Force Morales were at 8 for the Para’s and the Argentine conscripts had a 4.  The main reason for the major drop in the Force Morale for the Argentine conscripts was the one section NCO was first wounded and later killed.  It appears that he was the most beloved NCO in the platoon because both times that Glenn rolled for the effects of him being wounded, then killed, it was the worst result that could be rolled for the effects on their morale.

I really like what I saw with this gaming system and plan to revisit it again later this year.

Below are some of the pictures from the game with captions below them.

Be seeing you

Sapper

The British Commander signalling his troops forward

Brits on the move

Argentine conscripts are dug in to defend what is theirs

The Para section that was laying down supporting fire for the advance

The effect rolls for the hits against the Argentine sniper!

An Argentine section abandoned their trenches to move into a position to counter assault

Game end - the Paras elected to abandon the attack as the Argentine conscripts in front of them were "Die Hards"

Anarchy in the UK / Cold War scenario idea: Nuclear Convoy Ambush

Well, I have been spending too much time in front of my computer and not doing more productive things.  But, I started looking back at BW Models for a possible order after Xmas.  BW Models is a very specialized company for 1/76th (20mm or OO scale) vehicles for the the British military or civil sector for WWII or post-WWII (mainly post-WWII) with over 400 vehicles or trailers kits, plus a bunch more accessories and decals.  If you are looking for any kind of support vehicle for your 20mm BAOR Cold War forces, this is the place to look (Link). 

Mainly, I was looking for some more Northern Ireland kits that will show up as part of my Anarchy project.  But looking through their catalog, I came across two kits that got me thinking of a future scenario:  BW312 AEC Mammoth Major, Nuclear Weapons Transporter & BW313 Volvo FL6, Nuclear Convoy Escort Vehicle.

BW312

BW313

Sudden I had an image of a piece of art work I remember from a young teen of Spetsnaz commandoes in civilian clothing attacking a British nuclear weapons convoy on the road as WWIII was starting.  So, hmmm....

Well, I am sure that I have now been tagged by several intelligence agencies for my Google searching, but I finally found what a typical British nuclear weapons convoy is supposed to look like from NukeWatch UK (Link).  Needless to say, the number of vehicles is way too much for a game, so I am going to down size it for playability.  Now, I need to order the vehicles and figure out a balance for the game.  

Save the nukes!


Sapper