Finnish field kitchen for Winter War, 1939

Another one for the 80th anniversary of Winter War. These Baker Company figures are not very good sculpts, but when I looked at them, they did begin to tell a story. There was, for example, a figure who looked like just a boy, sitting on the ground with an expression of anguish. The youngest boys to lie about their age and get into the war are said to have been just 14 years old. I put him in the center, being consoled or maybe scolded by and older soldier. There's also some kind of argument going on in the line for pea soup. Maybe he's not getting that extra portion he was hoping for? I decided to complete them as a small diorama that can be used as an objective or just something to make the table more interesting.

Winter War stuff for the anniversary

80 years ago the Winter War was already in full swing, so I've activated my old project and I'm finally finishing the stuff I need to actually get it on the table, namely a winter table and some support options for Chain of Command.

Two Soviet T-26 tanks have left their infantry support behind and stray too close to the woods. (Tanks are from Warlord Games)

A Finnish Anti-Tank section. Apart from explosive charges, light tanks were immobilized using logs and then burnt by tossing molotov cocktails on top of their engine air intake grills. (Finns from the infamous Baker Company Kickstarter)

Any scenario set in Finland requires lots of woods. I "winterized" some of my fir trees, scratch built some pines and used plastic tree armatures to make the birches.

Alpha Legion test figures

I have a bunch of the new chaos marines and cultists and I'm thinking of doing a skirmish bunch similar to my Genestealer cult with them. I like the Alpha Legion colours so I tried those on these figures. Pretty nice effect with very little trouble. I'll figure out the basing to these later once I get around to painting some of those cultists, too.

Treebeard the Ent

This lovely figure has been in my pile for a while waiting for a good excuse for me to do. It came when a miniatures Facebook group I'm in had a painting challenge with a nature theme for the month.

I like what they did with Treebeard for the movie, but when I read the book I always imagined him having proper, leafy branches. So I converted the figure to have some. The branches I made by twisting together metal wire and by covering it with putty and the foliage is obviously clump foliage.

Fun little project and one I probably wouldn't have done without the challenge as I haven't done any LOTR figures before.

Lego kits from my childhood

When I was a kid I loved to play with those 80's Robin Hood Legos. Those things were a start of a lifelong appreciation of anything that has swords, shields, spears, bows and horses in it. I really liked the medieval themed Legos and never cared much for the cars and policemen and such. These guys along with He-Man set me on a path towards The Lord of the Rings, Conan the Barbarian and eventually Warhammer.

My children are now in a Lego playing age and I've managed to save some of the Lego bricks I used to have, so I decided to show them the kits daddy used to play with. Of course after an evening of sorting through the pile and bagging them, I realised there were A LOT of bricks missing. Fortunately there's a site called Bricklink which makes searching and buying of the bricks you need really easy. You just add the stuff you're missing to a shopping list and you can get an optimized shopping cart of the stuff you need from a large group of online sellers. You might be dealing with a dozen people selling used bricks online, but only swipe that credit card once!

The instuctions are also found online once you know which kits you are building. It took me a couple of hours to finally put these sets together and the kids loved to play with them. And that glow in the dark ghost is still the coolest thing ever!

6mm WW2 Soviet Infantry for Spearhead

I couldn't find my camera so I these were taken with my cell phone. Just some 6mm WW2 soviet infantry as a palate cleanser after all that 28mm I've been doing lately.

Here's everything I have for spearhead so far. I'm starting to have enough for a nice scenario but I still have quite a bit to finish before having proper Spearhead-sized OOB's

Savolax jäger regiment, 1808

"The Savonian sharpshooters who were the most dangerous of our enemies in this land were farmers. They lived in the wooded and swampy region called Savolax next to a vast lake called 'Kallavesi'. They wore grey trousers and a short jacket and had a round hat on their heads. Their equipment was of plain, black boot leather. In peacetime these riflemen lived in their homes, farming, fishing and hunting, and took part in military excercises for a few weeks once per year. They conserved their ammunition and rarely shot at random.. They all fought bravely and were sworn enemies of the Russians."
-Memoirs of Faddei Bulgarin, an uhlan who fought in the war.

Hot on the heels of the Savolax infantry regiment I finished my Savolax Jägers. They were established in 1770 after the lessons of the seven years' war had start to sunk in and the usefulness of light, independent troops became apparent. The Savo region was also an especially suitable home for a large number of jägers as they could act as sentries in the wilderness bordering Russia and were well suited to fighting in broken terrain.

The Savolax jägers were not part of the allotment system but were rather an enlisted unit in the Swedish army. They did not however spend their time in garrison but were also farmers in their spare time, so their level of professionalism didn't probably differ much from your average Finnish allotment soldier. They had a good reputation however and were in the thick of fighting throughout the war.

They were not just skirmishers screening the infantry battalions either. They were frequently used in raiding operations behind enemy lines (I used to live a stones' throw away from a site where the Savolax jägers ambushed a Russian supply column) as well as supporting and training civilian militias that rose up against the Russians (Especially in Karelia).

The figures took only minor conversion to look appropriate and painted up nicely. The camera shows brutally where I got sloppy with my painting, especially the faces but they look fine IRL so I'm happy :)
 

Savolax light infantry regiment, 1808

I already have a 6mm russo-swedish war project with the Savolax Brigade already complete, but since Perry Miniatures decided to do them in 28mm, I simply couldn't resist! I'll probably use these in Sharp practice or something else where I don't need so many figures. Big Battle Napoleonics in 28mm is a level of madness I'd rather avoid.

The army of Finland during the 1808 Russian invasion was an allotment system where farms and villages were required to equip and maintain soldiers for the Swedish army. This meant that every few houses would pool their resources together to recruit a soldier, offer him a small house and a patch of land to farm, pay for his equipment and give him a modest pay. The soldiers of the allotment system were basically farmers who also took part in army excercises and the occasional war.  As you might guess, your mileage would vary on the quality of these soldiers as the intensity of their training and the quality of the recruits would vary a lot.

The Savolax light infantry regiment was different to your average infantry regiment in a couple of ways. First, it was divided into four demi-battalions instead of the usual two (I made two demi-battalions for this project which should be enough since the regiment was dispersed around Finland for most of the war). Secondly, a lot of attention was put into training them to operate in open order in the broken terrain of Savolax. Working together with Savolax Jägers they were well suited for the Finnish woodlands.

Painting these seemed to take forever for such, basically pretty simple figures. Don't know why I took so long, maybe I'm out of shape with 28mm historicals. The Perry models are otherwise great, but the uniform on the figures is actually of a later model than the one worn by Finnish regiments during the war. Luckily the differences between the uniforms are mostly obscured by other gear or too minute to be noticed by all but the most dedicated uniform fetishists, so it took only a bit of conversion work and creative painting.

There is an excellent article on the evolution of the uniform on the Northern Wargaming blog, go check it out if you're interested!

Orcs and Goblins for Heroquest

Here are the orcs and goblins for my Heroquest project. The earthy colour on the dungeon bases is to make them blend in with my brown-earth based Warhammer orcs and goblins when needed.

That pretty much wraps up the figures for the project. Now I just need to finish the furniture!

Genestealer Cult for Necromunda and Kill Team

I'm pretty sure these are the first GW models produced in the 2010's that I have painted. The previous "new" ones were for Space Hulk third edition. Back then, I left the Patriarch unpainted and used this opportunity to do him too. 

These should enable me to play all those new 40K skirmish games with modern figures. They painted up quite nice as a summer cabin project. 

As a whole, I think these models pay great homage to the old cultists. They're more a remake than a reimagining.

I like the rank and file neophytes. They really look like something that could pass as human.

My favourite mini of the group. A simple design that just looks good!

I tried out Vallejo chipping medium with this one. I like the chipping effect, but you really need the topcoat to be airbrushed on. When painting it on with a normal brush, the chipping medium activates and makes a mess of things. The figure is a necromunda Ambot with a cultist head converted in. The idea is that he's wearing a mining exoskeleton suit.

These were my least favourite of the bunch. Meshing the blue Genestealer carapace with rest of the model seemed hard.