The Men in Charge

I really set myself up for some special kind of pain when I decided to paint a mid-war Strelkovy Batalon.  In Flames of War terms this really is going to be a horde army when it's all done.  I plan to play it smart and pace myself.  The other thing is not to buy more infantry until I have painted the one's in my lead pile.  One thing I've heard about people doing Strelkovy Batalons is that they buy all the troops quickly and then lost their motivation looking at all those unpainted figures.  So, I'll paint a platoon before buying the next.  We'll see how that goes...

This batch I just finished is my Batalon commander.  When you buy this blister you get 5 command stands and 3 stands of komissars.  This will be handy to bulk up some of my other units as well.  

Now to start cleaning and prepping my first rifle platoon.

Rod

A fresh start!

I was a pretty active blogger, posting pictures of my games and miniatures before I went on a bit of a break.  My old blog was called "Close the Ranks".  What did I do during this break?  Well, I happened to meet the love of my life, dated her, married her, bought a new house and finally we got all settled.  Now I'm painting again and so I thought I'd start another blog.  Why?  Because for me it's a fun way to see how much I've accomplished.  Also, it's motivation to paint, because I hate to let my blog go too long without any activity.  So, here I am and I'm starting a new project.  This project will be for the Eastern Front of WW2 around the time of the Battle of Kursk.  Who doesn't love big tank battles after all?

The first unit I got is a gift from my wife, an artillery unit of 76mm ZIS-3s.  One of her favorite things about this unit when she was picking them out was a dead cow on one of the bases.  When I unwrapped it she pointed at it and said, "Because... DEAD COWS!"  Now you see why I love this woman!

And so... here they are.

I read and saw lots of pictures of vehicles covered with mud because it had been raining so I took this as an opportunity to play around and see if I could make some muddy-looking bases.  Unfortunately, as a side effect I think my soldiers came out looking a little glossy.

The dead cow... also slightly muddy.

Anyway, it feels good to be painting again. So there will be more to come!
Rod