Bolt Action

Ebay Rescues: Warlord Games US Airborne!

/ Alex / Leave a comment

So as I mentioned in my last post, my US Airborne force only comes to 800pts, just shy of the 1K that I like to run in Bolt Action. So I decided to keep an eye out on eBay for a great deal on some second hand miniatures, just to boost the army up on a small budget. I soon found this listing with only a single bid, and decided to take a look. After studying the out of focus and upside down image, I eventually had to message the seller, since I couldn’t even tell if the miniatures were the metal models that I was looking for, or the newer plastic kit, which despite being great, depicts the US Airborne in late war gear, which doesn’t match my existing army. Luckily the models were metal, so I placed my bid Sunday evening, and yesterday I received the package…

Upon removing the outer tape and cardboard, I found a small tupperware, containing 10 models that could well have featured in this glorious video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3p_VuPIS2c

A wonderful selection of “pro painted” models… You can actually see in this picture that some of them are based on coins!

Once I’d got these models out of the box, I realised I hadn’t just got a selection of riflemen. The thick layers of paint were hiding 6 riflemen, a medic, a forward observer, and a bazooka team! A good result that makes this lot even better value, in terms of points per pound.

A closer picture of the models out of the tupperware. I’m somewhat thankful that the previous owner didn’t take this shot, it might have attracted more bidders to his auction!

Obviously these paint jobs had to go, and so did the mismatch of horribly clunky bases, with far too much sand and even some two pence pieces instead of plastic bases. I resorted to the classic method of stripping: methylated spirits. There’s plenty of tutorials on how to strip miniatures all over the internet, so I won’t go into full detail here, but I will share some of my photos from the process.

Bath Time!
Even after the first dip in the spirits, the models were still not fully clean, that dark primer you can see in the recesses just would not come off!

After the second bath in the spirits, I managed to get enough paint off of the models to be happy to paint over them. First however, I started by rebasing them, since the original bases were a complete write off, and didn’t match my already decided scheme for this army. On the models that I have already completed and shared a few days ago, I actually textured the bases prior to priming them, so I repeated that process on these guys for consistency.

Stripped, rebased, and blu-tacked to a biscuit tin ready for priming

After giving the models a coat of GW’s chaos black primer, this is what the results were. Despite the camera struggling to pick up the detail of the pure black models, I was overall very happy with the finished results. Obviously these boys are not yet combat ready, but once I’ve got them painted to match the already completed portions of the army, they will be fit to fight another day!

As mentioned in the last post, stay tuned for more updates on this army as I work on them over the coming weeks!
-Alex

Bolt Action: US Airborne Test Models

/ Alex / Leave a comment

I’ve been into Bolt Action for a good few years now after discovering it at an LGS in a town I was visiting. I’ve played on and off, and collected plenty of Warlord Games’ awesome minis, but as with many other games due to my lack of time these days, my interest has slipped a little. Recently however, a good friend of mine decided to get into the game, and being a wargamer already, he picked up the rules very quickly. Since he decided to play, and subsequently purchased a German force, I decided it was high time that I got around to fixing up my old US Airborne, and so I whipped up a few test models with a fresh paintjob.

These two minis will eventually be the officer and his assistant in the army, and overall, I am really quite happy with the finish. I managed to turn these guys around in an afternoon, which is fairly good going, especially considering that I shouldn’t have to finish too many models in a veteran based army such as the Airborne.

Speaking of the rest of the army, after a quick tot up with the US army book, it looks as though I have around 600pts worth of Airborne infantry models. This provides me with a pretty solid start for an army, especially when I can couple them with my M18 Hellcat to give them some fire support. That will however still leave me around 200pts short of 1k, so once I’ve finished up the models here, I’ll look into making an order from Warlord Games for another one of the infantry box sets!

On a side note, I’m still getting to grips with my new camera, and as such not all of my photos are coming out exactly as I would like them just yet. I tried shooting these minis with a warmer, more yellow light, and I’m still not sure if I like the results or not. For the colour scheme that I’ve chosen on the models though, it does look better than the very white flash of my camera. If anybody has any tips or experience they would be willing to share, then I would love to hear it!

Stay tuned to see the rest of the army as I work on it over the coming weeks…
-Alex