All the Way!

I haven’t been painting much the past couple of weeks, but I did manage to finish off my company of 82nd Airborne troops in the M1942 uniform (suitable for Normandy). These minis are 15mm Command Decision figures, as sold by Old Glory, and I’ll be using them with Crossfire and possibly Fireball Forward. 15mm US Airborne are SO much quicker to paint than the 15mm Confederates I’m used to-I can easily do 20-30 figures a week.

I have their Wehrmacht opponents based and ready for primer, but I expect the Germans will be a little slower to paint, what with water bottles, gas mask canisters, and the like.

Full Company

Company commander and forward observer team are in front. Three platoons are arrayed in a line (three stands of three figures, each), with platoon commanders behind. In the rear are 60mm mortars and some ‘heavy’ machine guns. It was pointed out to me that the water cooled 30 cals wouldn’t have been a part of any operation involving jumping out of airplanes, but I painted them, so they’re making an appearance here.

Right flank detail

Left flank detail

Center detail

Crossfire Videos

For those of you who, like me, are interested in Crossfire, there are a few excellent videos on the subject posted up to YouTube. Not being a WordPress Pro subscriber, I can’t embed video, and can only provide you with lowly links, but I assure you they’re well worth checking out!

 

The fellow from the Lloydian Aspects website has started a series of short videos on Crossfire. They’re each +/- three minutes long, and broken down by subject. He does a great job with the videos (including some really cool stop motion animations), and is an excellent presenter.

Here’s the first video in the series.

Then, the indomitable War Panda has created a couple of videos which go into greater detail (including the explanation of some interesting house rules) on Crossfire. If you’re familiar with WPs blog, you should be excited to get a good look at his gaming table and terrain.

 

Here’s War Panda’s first video.

Both of these videos are several steps above your average wargaming YouTube fair-I don’t think you’ll find yourself becoming bored. Check them out!

 

CrossFireball Stands

I made some basing decisions for my 15mm WWII figures, based on the highly scientific method of rummaging through one of the ever-growing collections of stuff in cardboard boxes squirreled away in my closet and seeing what steel stands I had on hand. So, squads are mounted on 1″x 1 1/2″ stands, and all others (outside of AT guns, and such) are mounted on 1″x1″ stands.

These should work equally well for Fireball Forward and Crossfire, which are both fairly basing-agnostic.

I like these Command Decision figures. They’re a little vague in the face, and the sergeant with the mohawk looks like he’s suffering from some rare bloating disease, but, in general, the sculpts are easy to clean up and paint, and the poses are fairly dynamic. The flag detail is molded into the figure, so you have to make at least some sort of attempt at painting it. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

Lessons learned from painting these figures? Thin your paint. Thin thin thin. Actually, the paint doesn’t look near this thick in real life, but the thickness sure bugs me in these photos.

Without further to-do, here are a few pictures (Really this is all about padding my post count to get to 100 posts. This is #99!):

Squad Stands

Squad stands in a line (duh)

Left to right: Forward observer (desperately in need of antenna and handset cable), HMG, Platoon Commander, LMG

Command and ‘special’ stands. I’ve been trying to think of some appropriate bric-a-brac for a platoon commander stand, but I’ve come up with zilch, so far. Maybe a map on a tree stump, or something like that?

Run, Rabbit, Run!

I suffer from a serious case of gamer ADD and have rabbited off after another project.

I spent the week piddling around with some test figures…15mm Command Decision sculpts by way of Old Glory miniatures. I have some vague intention of playing Crossfire or maybe Fireball forward with these guys.

Really, this new project is a part of my quest to sucker some of my board gaming friends over the line into playing miniatures. Or maybe I’ve just rationalized a way to get and paint some more miniatures. But hear me out, anyway!  So far, levels of interest in ACW have been very low, and while a buddy of mine played in a test game of Chain of Command with me, he constantly had this confused and/or overwhelmed expression on his face.  He said he’d play again, but I think he was just being nice.

So, I need a rules set less intimidating for newbies, and it needs to address a more popular historical subject. Everyone’s seen Saving Private Ryan, and probably had to watch The Longest Day on a Sunday afternoon when they were a kid, so I think WWII is the period to go for. Crossfire reads as if it would be easy to play (though I hear it’s difficult to master (which isn’t a bad thing)), and it has some nice mechanics that do away with some of the common complexities of wargames, but the armor rules are less than satisfying. I haven’t read Fireball Forward, yet, but I’ve read it has similar innovative mechanics to Crossfire, but addresses armor a bit more equally. I have a copy on the way to me, so I’ll soon find out the truth of the matter. Feel free to express an opinion below!

Here are some D-day/early post D-day paratroopers I’ve painted up. I intend for them to be 82nd airborne, though I haven’t committed to painting unit insignia, yet. They’ll remain unbased, until I’ve settled on a set of rules.

 

This means I’ll have to do 20′ of 15mm bocage! Maybe I should switch to the East Front.

I think the painting is ok, though the flags are a bit too high contrast, and the webbing is too low in contrast to the basic uniform. The sculpts are plenty good for the price, which is roughly $0.30 per figure.