Sean's Shturmovye Batalon

Stalin's Europe

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.

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.
Anti-tank Rifle team
Flames-thrower teams 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.
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.
The Soviet horde
The Sniper taking cover behind the German motorcycle

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.

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).

The army under coated

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).

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.
Painting the wall sections
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.
Painting the uniforms 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.
High five!
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.

The Shturmovye Batalon in action at the tournament
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.