Bolt Action US Airborne infantry drops by

Today was a rather auspicious day to put the finishing touches on this unit. I only realized it was the 6th of June when I took a quick painting break and decided 'the hell with it, let's throw out a quick blog just because of that. In short here's a small bunch of Bolt Action US Airborne troops by Warlord Games.

One of the interesting features of Bolt Action armies is that you can make most models out of the standard sprue.

I wavered a long time before getting into Bolt Action. Although I really enjoyed the rules during a few test games, I always thought it a bit too close to actual human grief to be a game. Then I realized this would finally let me fight the famed battle of the Desert Fox versus the US Airborne in the ruins of Stalingrad and I lightened up. 

I decided against painting eyes. The 28mm scale of Warlord Games is a lot smaller than GW 28mm and I don't quite trust my steady hands with that much detail.

It was a lot of fun assembling these models. With GW moving back to monopose models these 'do whatever you want' types are a breath of fresh air. On the downside there are hardly any guidelines when it comes to assembling your units. This slowed my original plan: I actually bought a British starter army (I've always been rather fond of the helmets). When it came to building my 'Tommies' the guidance I got from the internet was 'let history be your guide'. Well I'm not really going for that much level of detail. As I had to few games behind me to build something practical I decided to splurge and get the Band of Brothers starter set too. This has a very helpful 'are you clueless, build this' guide for the models in the box. I followed it. The box also contains ten nazi troops. This has given me a perfect excuse for having these in my house. I didn't want them, they came uninvited, it's what they do :) 

I still need to gloss and then matt coat these troops, but I haven't gotten my hands on appropriate transfers yet. To my dismay these weren't included in the starter box.

Anyways back to the US Airborne troops. I like the poses Warlord Games came up with. It reminded me a lot of the old Airfix 1:72 toy soldiers I had as a kid. Following the starter guide I made an officer with two minders, two units of nine troopers and a machine gun with a spotter. After a bit of internal debating I glued the spotter on the base with the gun, that makes it much easier to recognize what unit he's a part of. 

I started out basing these guys with static grass. Unfortunately the green of their uniform faded together with the grass. Damn this functional camouflage! I added green tea leaves and clumps of orange vegetation to make the troopers stand out again. I briefly considered Martian red soil basing, but decided that might be to historically inaccurate; even for my taste ;)

To my surprise the hardest part was getting a reasonable uniform color. I expected the internet to be flooded with armchair historians that would point out whether I needed Vallejo US Airborne Uniform A or Vallejo US Airborne Uniform B to color my troops. No such luck. To complicate matters apparently the troops switched from a greenish brown they wore dropping down on Normandy to a standardized green they wore when they were off liberating my neck of the woods (I used to live around the corner of the US Airborne monument in Eindhoven). With a lot of care I managed to more or less reproduce the brown looking green that is typically used in movies to show us what the Airborne looked like. When I was done washing they turned out more in the regular green of the later war. It's good enough for me. I did find out in time not to paint their boots black though and gave them proper airborne yellow-brown jump boots. So there is that. 

Having now run out of pictures :) I should add that the little plastic ruin is also part of the starter set. I tried a speed painting technique for terrain on that, painting the entire model in fifteen minutes by just spraying appropriate greys, off-whites and browns at it with an airbrush, gloss coating and covering it in streaking grime. I really should get stock in AK, that streaking grime is awesome :). Next up soon some naughty Germans and their little tanky. Also I couldn't resist buying a King Tiger. Might as well own a representation of one of the silliest tanks ever produced. With that finished I should play some games and get my British troops assembled. There is actualy a color called 'British Uniform' so that should help there. Anyway, here to June the 6th and my first bunch of paratroopers.