144 Pairs of Boots by Bruce Oberst Back on 11 March I decided to finally try my hand at playing some Soviets. Having been on the receiving end of these lists often enough, I wanted to see what it was like to be able to blissfully trade teams for terrain and still have plenty left over.  I was starting a small friendly league in Pottsville Pennsylvania, USA, beginning 21 March. The PBI (Poor Bloody Infantry) League, as it is called, only allows players to use basic Rifle, Grenadier or Strelkovy companies out of Fortress Europe (with restrictions of support options as well) so this seemed the ideal time. The only problem I pondered as I finished my 600-point initial company list was the fact that the games were only 10 days away, and I didn’t even own a single blister pack of the forces I would need.

The Army List Battalion HQ Headquarters Battalion HQ 30 points with Anti-tank Platoon 45 points Strelkovy Company 2 Rifle Platoons 215 points with 1 platoon replaced with SMG teams   with Maksim HMG team 25 points Strelkovy Company 1 Rifle Platoon 110 points with Maksim HMG team 25 points with Komissar team* 15 points Heavy Mortar Company 2 Heavy Mortar Platoons 130 points with Observer Rifle Team 15 points Total: 610 points*

Collecting the Miniatures With Cold Wars that Saturday, and a trip to my LGS (Local Game Store) Friday, I felt confident that all the troops would be mustered by my return from Lancaster.  That would still give me only one week to complete 144 figures and 6 guns.  Anybody who knows my painting style also knows how much time I spend achieving it.  One week for me is maybe half a platoon under normal standards, so the task was daunting.  Still it was a challenge I looked forward to Friday as I left work and headed to my LGS to start buying. * = I didn’t realize till rechecking my list on the 20 March that it was 10 points over so I dropped this Komissar but it was still painted.

I assumed that I could get at least half, if not more of what I needed, at the store and would just need to pick up a few stragglers at Cold Wars.  I got a cold feeling as I discovered that they had only one blister pack of Anti-tank guns and nothing else I could use.  This is why you don’t come up with grand plans on such short notice.  No problem,  Cold Wars would have all I needed and more, I hoped.

At Cold Wars apparently somebody had heard of my project and had purchased anything and everything resembling a Strelkovy platoon the day before.  In the dealers room I found the Heavy Mortars, Battalion HQ and SMG platoon but nothing more.  Eventually on my third or fourth frantic search I stumbled across a pack, hidden deep from sight, of great-coated Strelkovy and snapped them up along with a re-closed blister of Komissar BI Vasilevsky which would give me some more command figures and the HMGs I needed.  The last Strelkovy blister came from the Flea Market, but finally I had assembled the force and needed only to paint them.

The Plan Saturday night I formulated my plan of attack for the next seven days.  It did not survive the first contact with the enemy, but never the less here it is:       D-7 Open, sort, clean, mount for painting, prime and base color all figures and guns (Don’t laugh this is the only day that went as planned!). D-6 and D-5 Apply shadow colors to all figures, finish all painting on guns.

D-4 and D-3 Highlights all colors; score and paint bases. D-2 Glue figures on bases and start basing process. D-1 Finish basing (Flock, stones etc), touch ups and Dull Coat. D-Day Crush the enemy under foot. Check out the Afternoon Painting Challenge using the War Paint range here...

Time For Action My preferred method of painting figures is to mount each figure on the head of a nail using hot-glue.  This gives me unrestricted access to all areas and angles of a figure during painting.  However, this method would add time that I did not have, so I decided to try gluing the figures to painting strips or tongue depressors.  Neither was to be had in the house or local store (being Sunday) but they did have a box of plastic flatware for picnics so I went with that.

In order to maintain the efforts in organisation I had done earlier I glued each squad to its own knife.  Command groups also got their own plastic utensil.  I ran out of knives so Platoon leaders (Yes, I know they have no game effect, but they do exist) got forks.  Soviet high command was not pleased that some of the figures were getting preferred treatment! Here is my secret weapon, one that gave me hope that this whole idea was possible.  Recently while helping a friend sell his soul to Flames Of War and create a British company, I remembered that for British armor you use Firefly Green.

With the new War Paint spray paint Firefly Green it is possible to prime and base color my Strelkovy in one quick action. I have discovered only one problem with the War Paint sprays.  The finish they leave is very smooth, which encourages washes, liners, and watered down paints to bead when applied.   A quick covering of Dull Coat corrects that problem with ease. Sunday came to a close right on schedule and I over-optimistically believed it was going to be smooth sailing ahead.

D-6 to D-4 The first complication hit.   I had been forced to use a blister of great-coated Strelkovy.  The greatcoats are not Russian Uniform, and weren’t a colour I had.  So a good hour or more was lost right off the bat repainting the greatcoats before I even started doing shadow colours and base colours beyond the uniform.  My biggest miscalculation at this point had been based upon my misunderstanding of the Soviet uniforms.

I had assumed that all the webbing, ammo pouches, belts and the like were the same colour (as with the US troops). Further research among the photos in several Battlefront books (and later the internet) showed me my error. Instead of one colour for kit, one each for boots, flesh, gunmetal and wood, a whole list of different colours cropped up and demanded to be used.

Bruce's Colour Chart Location FWP Number Colour Name Helmets, HMGs and Ammo cans FWP341 Tankovy Green Belts and Officer shoulder straps, pistol holsters FWP382 Oxide Red Shoulder bags and ammo pouches, weapon straps FWP326 Comrade Khaki Greatcoats FWP324 Battlefield Brown Wood FWP324 Battlefield brown Weapon metal and bayonets FWP480 Dark Gunmetal HMG ammo belts FWP482 Shell Brass 144 pairs of boots FWP300 Black Extra Colours for Officers and Komissars Fur Trim on hats and coats FWP400 Infantry Blue Komissar pants and hats FWP400 Infantry Blue Peaked hats FWP380 Artillery Red

Another issue I came up against was the Komissar and officer hats.  The pictures hinted at the diversity of colour on each, but I had to finally go to the Internet to get good pictures to work from.    By the end of Wednesday D-4 I was still unfinished with the shadow colours and the chance of success was growing dim. But that is defeatist talk, and comrade Komissar is looking closely in this direction!  Forward for the Rodina! D-3    Now, 2 full days behind schedule, it was push time.  If the shadow colours were not finished today all was lost and the Germans would be in Moscow!  The last few colours plus some touchups went surprisingly fast and I was finally finished with several hours yet to use in the day. I took a break to score and paint the bases.  It was remarkably therapeutic after all that small work.   As I scored my way through bases, 37 to be exact, the up and coming basing issues came to mind.  I used the Russian Armor War Paint spray as the colour. Still with time left I finished my D-5 workload and did a liner wash on all figures. I used dark wash on the guns and mortars.

I used a mix of 1/3 water, 1/3 Brown Shade and 1/3 Sepia game ink. I also added 1 drop of black game ink to darken the mixture down. I added more water at need and proceeded to shade the figures. Usually I like to control this wash so it only is used in the deepest recesses and around the figures equipment, but this is mass production so the whole figure got its yearly bath. D-2 Friday had arrived and I had to get back on schedule. If I did not have the figures glued to their bases by the time my eyes could no longer function, the Battalion Komissar would be displeased with my lack of proper patriotism.

Bruce's Highlighting Colour Chart Location FWPNumber Colour Name Helmets, HMGs and Ammo cans FWP341 + FWP365 Tankovy Green + Sicily Yellow (70/30) Anti-tank Gun wheels FWP302 Panzer Grey Highlight for wheels FWP304 Bunker Grey Shoulder bags and ammo pouches, weapon straps FWP384 Tan Leather Greatcoats FWP324 + FWP400 Battlefield Brown + Infantry Blue (80/20) Uniforms FWP348 + FWP307  Firefly Green + Whitewash (80/20) Bayonets FWP481 Cold Steel Figure Bases (Ground Colour) FWP320 Grease Brown Extra Colours for Officers and Komissars Fur Trim on hats and coats FWP307  Whitewash Komissar pants and hats FWP401 + FWP307 Luftwaffe Blue + Whitewash (80/20) then (50/50) Battalion Komissar’s Coat FWP327 + FWP307 Military Khaki then Military Khaki + Whitewash second highlight

The highlight stage went fast. The smaller areas to paint and the fact that highlights do not often touch other colors so they are easier to control, this accounted for most of the speed. I finished up and applied the first layer of fixative. I like Floquil Flat Finish for my first fix. It is somewhat glossy but that makes for easy decal applications.  It is also very strong and actually slightly melts the paint so that colors blend slightly at the edges.  Do not apply this in too heavy of a coat or it will actually make the paint run, even dry paint, if you do so. See more of Bruce's painting from the Iron Cross painting competition here...

I kept the figures in their team-by-team groupings as I started basing, only removing one platoon at a time from the plastic knives and forks so they would not get mixed up. With all the bases I tried to keep in mind any terrain basing I wanted to do as I placed the figures.

In the case of the Strelkovy teams I took great pains to mix up the formations and spacing on each base so that they would not look like a parade as opposed to a determined attack formation.  I used an asymmetric spacing of the figures often grouping several at one side of the base with 1 or 2 at the other. In many cases I cropped figure bases in order to get the figures closer together.

Here you can clearly see the different variations used to make the infantry seem more natural instead of posed.  In the background you can see the Mortar bases grouped tightly together as I intended to place log lined gun pits on the finished bases.  I used Elmer’s white glue for placing the figures on the bases.  Setting the company aside to dry overnight I finally called it a day, having finally caught up to my schedule even if I wasn’t going to get much sleep that night.

D-1 Saturday, up early, and jumped in with both feet to get this done.  First was ground basing.  I used Vallejo Grey Pumice.  It is great because you can mix your ground color straight into the pumice, saving yourself the step of painting the ground afterwards.  This also helps in the fact that pumice is a lot easier to push between closely spaced figures than a paintbrush.  Also the pumice is easy to wipe off while still wet with a moistened paintbrush in case you touch one of the finished figures.  I like to use a small sculpting tool to push the pumice around.  Keep the tool wet by dipping in water often to keep the pumice from sticking to it.

As I applied the pumice I have several small containers handy of various sized railroad rocks and ballast.  As I finished each base I would apply either small areas of ballast and or a few rocks to the base as well.  Make sure to press these additional features into the pumice slightly or they will look like they are floating and lack believable weight.  In many cases I let the position of the figures dictate where large rocks would be placed to make it seem as though the soldiers were detouring around these obstacles.

After applying the pumice I usually like to allow it to dry overnight or longer, but I had today left and only today.  I allowed the bases to dry for a few hours under hot lights until the surface was firm before moving forward once more.

I had not done the 4 mortar teams at this point, as I had to make the log retaining walls.  The fastest way to do this was to use dead twigs cut from some trees that border a field near my house.  I found the straightest I could locate and then cut them into 1½“ lengths.

I used Blue Painters tape held sticky side up on a wooden block to hold the sticks in place while I glued them together.  The upright logs were applied over the glue to hide it and get attached as well.  Then this too needed time to dry.

The log walls were dry enough to work with before the pumice so I went back to them first.  I marked out the size of the gun pit on each base with magic marker. Then I applied the paint colored pumice around the figures out to slightly beyond the gun pit lines.  I used the three retaining walls for each mortar to push inward slightly on the still wet pumice so that it rose up slightly against the wall and left no gaps.

Using Stick-tight the walls were held in place while they dried.  I also used some small pieces of Foam Core board painted black, cut to size to fill up some of the space that would have to otherwise be filled in with pumice.  This would speed drying and save pumice. Once the pumice on the rest of the bases was dry enough to work with, I put the pumice around the outside of the mortar pits and went back to the rest of the battalion.

First I painted the large rocks.  I used Panzer Grey as the base color then dry brushed a mixture of Panzer Grey and Sicily Yellow over top.   Next I dry brushed Wool Brown irregularly around the bases to give highlights and color variations.  Feel free to let the dry brushing get on the boots of your soldiers and the large rocks and ballast, as this will look like mud and tie all the elements together.

Then I glued the AT guns on the bases with their crews.  I had found a left over fence gate I had made last year so I put that in front of the Observer team to give them some cover.  They were starting to look like finished models. Having some time to let things dry a bit more I turned my attention to the HMG teams.  Wanting them to stand out as well, I decided to make some sandbag emplacements out of green-stuff.  This was a fairly simplistic and straightforward addition, but really adds to the base and helps you pick them out when it comes time to fire at the Fascists.

Later that evening it was time to apply some grass to the bases.  I had planned (boy I say that a lot in this article) on using Silfor Fall Buffalo Grass, but after doing just two bases I realized that was going to take too long.  Looking around quite frantically at this point I found a GF9 tundra basing kit I had won as part of my prize support from the Iron Cross painting contest.  One of the containers had a wonderful mix of yellow brown static grass mixed with similar colored flock.

Saved by chance and a cluttered workshop, I set out to apply this to the bases.  I prefer to apply static grass and flock using slightly watered down white glue applied with an old paintbrush.  By old I mean one with bristles that are splayed so you don’t have to worry about ruining it when you mash the glue into crevices and around figure boots.  I try and keep the coverage to about 50% or a little more, and irregular in appearance.  After the glue is on, I place the base in an opened blister pack and just dump the static grass all over it.  Then gently shake the blister back and forth on the table (don’t actually pick it up) until the static grass settles into all the areas you have supplied with glue.  Next pick up the base and turning it upside down knock off the excess static grass, with gentle taps on the bottom of the base, into whatever container you are using to collect the extra.  I like another blister, as I can just go back and forth using each one in turn as the base holder and grass dumper.   Once the excess is knocked off, and while keeping the base upside down, gently blow across the base strong enough to remove any last clinging bits of grass.  This will also cause the static grass to stand up.

Once the rest of the battalion was done I felt the mortars were dry enough to go back to and rock paint, dry brush and static grass.  As the mortar base pumice was still very soft I placed them on the blue painters tape cover block while I did this so that I could hold the block and not touch the pumice which would distort under any but the lightest touch.  I still had to hold the base gingerly for the static grass application however.  After this I had to give them some drying time once more. Saturday evening and the end was in sight!  I just had some details to work through.  Most notably were the flags and the sandbags in the HMG teams.  Only the greatcoat Strelkovy had come with a pre-formed flag; two of them needed to be made from scratch.  The two flags I made out of the foil tops from dessert buckets from Kentucky Fried Chicken.  It is a heavy foil and holds its shape fairly well.  Any type of heavy foil would work just make sure it does not bent too easily otherwise it will deform the first time you accidentally touch it.  To glue them onto the poles I used GF9 super glue and their accelerant.  When a fairly large amount of glue is applied to an object and the accelerant applied right afterwards, the glue will dry in a solid mass.  By applying a bead of glue along both edges where the flag meets the staff and using accelerant a heavy duty weld is produced.  This weld isn’t exactly pretty but it does keep the flag from working around at the join thus keeping the chance it breaks off to a minimum.

To paint the flags I first applied Grease Brown.  Then using a very watered down Artillery Red I went over the flag’s raised areas again and again, each time covering a slightly smaller area than before.  This gives the flag both vivid color and gradual deep shadows.  The Hammer and Sickle were hand painted using Cavalry Yellow (FWP361). The sand bags I first painted Comrade Khaki and then washed them once with Devlan Mud from Citadel.  After drying I did two highlights, first with Comrade Khaki then Tan Leather.

The last thing I did Saturday night was paint team ID color tags on the back bevel of all the bases.  These IDs tell me Company, Platoon and even Squad organization for each team.  These are visible in some of the photos later on from the games on D-Day. The pumice and glue were still only half dry on most of the bases so I decided to let them dry over night before applying a final coat of Dull Coat.  But the company was done and ready to give their patriotic all for the Mother Land and Comrade Stalin!

D-Day We had 6 players at the opening day of the PBI League.  At this starting stage the battles are 600 points so we used 4’ x 4’ table areas and a mission I designed just for the first two levels of the league.  If anybody wants copies of the PBI League format or the ‘Go for Broke’ mission please PM me.  We met at Donald’s house and divided the table into two boards denoted by some tape.  Most of the players are new to the hobby so this is mostly a learning league for right now.

First battle pitted my Strelkovy against a Normandy British Rifle company.   My 2nd company in the great coats got hit by British mortars and pinned for most of the game on the right flank.  The observer however nestled safely within the disposable ranks of his fellows made bloody work for the 120mm mortars.

The 1st company on the left flank had a very cozy wood to march through toward the objective.  The three burning pillars mark the resting places of a Carrier Patrol that lost a duel with a gun from the battalion AT company.  Here you can clearly see the different team markings on the back of the bases.  Blue is Battalion, red is 1st Company one mark first platoon and position on the base denotes squad.  Really not necessary but I’m like that.

British platoon moves in to contest the objective.  They tried to assault, but the SMGs, now to the front threw, them back with ease.   After the counter assault on my next turn the battle was all but over.  The next British platoon made a brave and unavoidable go at assaulting the Soviets from their woody home (couldn’t quite get within 4” with the move), but once again the SMG’s raw firepower was too much for Tommy.

The second battle went similar to the first.  I was up against Americans, no Axis players as I was not being German as is my norm, and the battle was once more decided by blunt force trauma.  This is my deployment after the first move of the second game.  Same board as the last battle, it is just going a different direction. ~ Bruce.