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Sean's Shturmovye Batalon
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Sean's Shturmovye Batalon from Stalin's Europe
On my first flick-through of Stalin’s Europe the Shturmovye
Batalon caught my attention. The force’s ability to swap Storm teams from its
Shturmovye Groups with machine guns, pioneers and anti-tank guns (among other
things) means that you can adapt your force to suit what your opponent has on
his side of the table. This flexibility is the Shturmovye Batalon’s main
strength, but it doesn’t hurt that they’re also Fearless Trained troops, a step
above the usual Soviet horde.
One weakness of the Shturmovye Group is its short range. The
basic teams are equipped with SMGs which means that they won’t be able to fire
on the enemy until they are within assault distance. This can be balanced by
adding a few Maksim HMGs and having them provide covering fire for your
advancing infantry.
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When swapping Storm teams there are plenty of Anti-tank
options to choose from as well. You can take Pioneer SMG teams, PTRD anti-tank
rifles or even the heavy ZIS-3 or 122mm assault howitzer, although those will
cost you more.
Right: A Soviet Anti-tank Rifle teams.
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I’ve rounded out my list with a two platoon Strelkovy
Company, three flame-thrower sections and a platoon of Shturmovye scouts for
that pre-game infiltration move. The only support choice I’ve taken is a full
strength Katyusha Battery.
As you can likely tell my force is all about getting up
close and hitting my enemies with a ton of SMG bullets and flame.
Left: A Soviet Flame-thrower teams.
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1250 points of Russian Infantry in Two Weeks
With the Late War GT looming I realised that I
had almost an entire army to paint in less than two weeks. This
presented an excellent opportunity to illustrate how to quickly and
easily paint up 1250 points of Russians. |
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Saturday/Sunday
12 days to go.
This weekend was spent on basing. My army has an urban theme
to it so I made up some bricks, broken beams, pipes and concrete slabs from a
combination of GF9 plasticard products. As I put the putty onto each base I
would sprinkle this urban debris over the top and push it gently into the
putty. Some lucky teams even got brick wall sections which are available
through the Flames of War Special Order Catalogue. Leftover pieces from other
projects work well for urban basing, such as this German motorcycle which I’ve
set up as cover for a sniper.
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I really enjoy setting up little scenes like this and there are a few other examples of this in my army.
Monday
11 days to go.
I spent about an hour and a half this afternoon, first
undercoating my entire force with the Grenaider Green (CWP211) (EML) spraypaint. This
dark gray makes a good base colour which I then dry-brushed quite heavily with Bunker Grey (FWP304).
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Tuesday
10 days to go.
For the wall sections I mixed up some Bunker Grey (FWP304) with Devil Red (FWP381) to make a dull brick colour and dry brushed it on. The dark grey
basecoat shows in the cracks and works fine as the mortar colour. After that I
picked out the individual fallen bricks with my dull red and the broken rods
and beams with either Rust Orange (FWP360) or Dark Gunmetal (FWP480).
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Wednesday
9 days to go.
And I’m procrastinating.
Thursday
8 days to go.
I used this day to finish off my bases as detailed above. |
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Friday/Saturday/Sunday
5 days to go.
In the weekend I started block painting the figures, starting with their
uniform colour of Khaki Grey. I’m not getting too precious at this
stage as any errant brush strokes can be cleaned up later. The scout
platoon however wears amoeba camouflage so I painted half the figures in the
Khaki Grey and half in Russian Uniform. These will be detailed with
irregular black splodges creating the look of amoeba camouflage. |
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Monday
4 days to go.
It’s getting close and I’m getting worried about whether I’ll
actually get the army finished on time. Boots (Black (FWP300)). I’ve tried to match the camouflage colours to the
base colours somewhat, using Tankovy Green (FWP341) over the Firefly Green (FWP348) and Black over the Comrade Khaki (FWP326). At this step I also cleaned up
the stray brush strokes on the bases by simply covering them with some
watered down black. On my urban bases these ended up looking like scorch
marks which blended in nicely. |
Tuesday
3 days to go.
This part was pretty easy. Helmets, equipment and big guns in Tankovy Green (FWP341). Painting the flame-throwers took the longest in this stage. |
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Wednesday
2 days to go.
Now for the rest of the equipment. Rifles and SMGs painted with flat earth and Dark Gunmetal.
Thursday
1 day to go.
On to the skin, using European Skin (FWP385). It’s a little bright at first but
once that was out of the way I slopped some brown magic wash over the
whole force.
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And there we have it; My Shturmovye Batalon might not be the best
painted thing in town but it’s at least worthy of some wargaming. Now
all I have to do is kick some butt in that tournament (I did not. Evidently my men aren’t so fearless when it comes to tanks).
~ Sean.
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