Company command (ww2 Japanese)

As I know most will have gone to Salute and will do some very good blogs post about the show. I am simply showing my latest 15mm WW2 Japanese. A single stand of Battlefront representing Company command.

I settled on the army flag as opposed to the marine (Navy) flag for 2 reasons. 1, it is easier to paint. 2. it was a lot more common and allows these troops to function in Burma, Singapore, Malaysia etc. as well as the Islands of the Pacific.

So just 2 figures in 15mm, but another finished stand and dare I say from the game point of view a rather important one.

Enjoy all the Salute posts I am sure I will as well.

All the Best Clint

1st Platoon. (Japanese PBI)

Well as you can see I have now finished my 1st Platoon of Infantry for PBI pacific. The Platoon consists of Junior officer (with White tab at the back) 2 LMG stands, 1 light mortar (Knee Mortar) stand and 5 Rifle stands.

I hasten to say this is nearly as small as an infantry platoon can be in the Japanese Army list. SO expect more stands to be added.  In fact I am already on the next 2 stands as I type this. I hope to show some more stands by the end of the week. (Fingers Crossed)

As I am not going to Salute I have placed another order which is now marked as dispatched so shinnies are coming this week.

That is just a quick one for today. Now back to the Paint table!

Japanese Sniper Assets (PBI)

Well I have finished my first assets.  In PBI snipers are Assets and the Japanese you will not be surprised have the opportunity to get more than 1 sniper. So for now I have made 2. I will need to increase this number and may eve go as high as 4. For now 2 is enough.

So today is 2 sniper stands for ww2 Japanese army (Or  Marine). Only 4 figures but I hope to have the first platoon finished by the weekend.

The chance to get 1 or 2 or even 3 Japanese snipers in PBI is quite high. It depends on rolling well and being brave.  The Japanese in Pacific Island wars have a dice pool of 15 for a sniper.  You may select as many dice up to that score but the score or pool of dice is diminished each turn by the number you select. If any of the dice roll a "6" then the sniper would turn up for the rest of the game.  So with 15 dice in the pool it is VERY likely that at least 1 sniper will arrive.

The figures are by Battlefront and are 15mm in size.

Thanks for looking and with luck a whole platoon before Sunday.

All the best Clint

Scott M8 HMC 15mm

One of the wonderful things about the wargames club is that if any of us find something that we cannot use but we know another can we are happy to donate for the cause. In September Graham picked up a Battlefront M8 Scott HMC. He was hoping to use it for the British but the more he looked into it the more he realised that the British never used them. (The Canadians did). So knowing I have an American force he very kindly donated it to me. If you do not know the M8 (Scott) here is a link to the Wiki. (LINK)

A reasonably quick repaint later (with his permission|) here is my M8 Scott. I imagine it seeing service with my US troops mostly against the Japanese in the Pacific but also possibly against the Germans in North West Europe.

In Europe the Howitzer Motor Carriage (HMC) would not be a very potent threat as the German tanks would be able to chew through the armour with most of their guns. In the Pacific However I do see it being Far more powerful. As the Japanese tended to have smaller guns on their tanks penetrating the (wafer thin) armour would be more of an issue. In addition the howitzer would be a very potent gun for bunker busting or even tank hunting. Ok the gun is a 75mm Howitzer so not all that large but able to fire High explosive AND smoke (white Phosphorous) .  The Phosphorous rounds were for making smoke and not the same as used in Vietnam before anyone gets ideas above their station. While they may kill an individual it would need to be a direct hit or if they had a breathing difficulty, not a jungle clearing weapon of mass destruction.

That is it for this sunny Sunday. more again soon.
All the best Clint

And once again Thanks Graham.

Planned buys at Cavalier. Wargames show.

I will not say this is a hard and fast set of spending objectives. And NOR I will I give exact details. I do want you to look again on Sunday (night) and see the swag I managed to walk away with.

This is Just CURRENT thinking. IF I see a bargain either on a trader stall or the Bring and  buy I will nab it with no regard to what is written here! So Instead some clues.

Pacific theatre of operations.  Some troops to fight Graham. Possibly turning into a campaign MUCH later in the year!

Rogue Stars.
Yes it will be Science Fiction in 28mm and yes it will be able to fit with existing figures. This is the most open category, and the one I am most likely to sway away from and towards a slightly different thing. Partially it depends on the traders there o the day and what they are selling.  But I would expect to come back with something! I know in MY HEAD, but it may well change wen I get there. Partially it will depend on if 2nd City Games is there, as he does tend to carry some interesting second hand figures.

Yes it flies and is old! NO it is not my dreams hopes and ambitions. (You cheeky blighter!). The Markings "might" be an indication of what I am thinking nationality wise. And yes I am deliberately keeping it obscure. Some bright spark will know though of that I am sure. All I will say for sure is some troops with which to fight Matt.


It is unlikely but I will also be after some WW2 ships. Not any old ships but Japanese and American that fought in te pacific theatre. I must admit this is the least likely. I very rarely see ships being sold at a show. 90% of traders are selling ground related items. So this may be a scouting the Bring and buy more than anything (and avoiding over priced space marines!)


Well those are my plans for the show at least as far as spending is concerned. I will show you what I come back with tomorrow when I return

Enough talk, time to start. (Zone Russians part 1)

 Yes Finally started. Here are my first squad for the Russian in "The Zone" . I knew I would need Russians so while I was figuring out the rest of my forces I thought I should start. The figures are Battlefront Tam Yankee figures. They are not absolutely ideal, but they are as good a figure as I can currently get for the price/effort, without either commissioning my own greens, converting or perhaps easier importing from abroad from a variety of sources. So for convienience It has to be Battlefront which are availiable from my local wargames shop (4 miles away).

Casting wise they are Ok but not brilliant as there was a lot of cleaning up to do in regard to mould lines where the moulds had slipped and also spare waste metal Left from the air vents. Also as they come from New Zealand they are not so very cheap as they have to be shipped half way around the world. Complaints aside they are the best I can get though and the sculpts are nice.

In a Russian squad (according to Osprey Publishing "Force on Force" rule book) there are 6 men armed as follows.

• Squad leader (AK74)
• Assistant Squad leader (AK74)
• Gunner (RPK-74)
• Grenadier (RPG)
• Assistant Grenadier (AK74)
• Rifleman (AK74)

 For a BMP 1  squad change the squad composition to 2 gunners with RPK-74s and loose the Rifleman with AK47) . So not a huge difference in squad composition. And one I hope to adjust in different games.
3 Squads to a platoon so there will be more of these. Colours taken from the same Osprey Publishing book mentioned above and the picture on the right has been my main guide.

Each transport vehicle has 3 crew (Commander, Driver and Gunner) all of whom stay with the vehicle and do NOT dismount in combat situations. I have not as yet finalised my transport choice they may be in BMP1s (A TRACKED APC with a 73mm gun and antitank missile), BTR 70's or BTR 80s (An 8 wheeled APC with a 14.5mm Heavy machine gun)  or perhaps something less ordinary like a MT LB ( Also tracked and also armed with a 14.5mm HMG, ).  The joy of the Russians is that the infantry could be transported and any of those 3 vehicles and I am sure once I am fully up and running with the project I am equally sure I will get them all so I can field a greater variety of units, although the basic foot figures will stay the same but with different squad load-outs to suit the different regiments!

I suspect I will be starting with either BMP-1s or BTR 70's though. But most importantly I am now off the mark and started.

Engineering Paras and extras.

And so my US Para company comes to an end with yet another platoon, this time the engineers Platoon.

As you can see I have Lt Spiers in command this time. Dave Docherty (curse him) supplied the name of an officer of Dog company so I felt forced to include him. Which would mean these are the 101st regiment and not the 82 "All American" regiment. But I will use them as both.

The engineers platoon consists of 7 bases including the lieutenant command stand. I am sorry to have to admit this command stand has M1 Carbines and not Thompson SMG, just because I ran out of SMG figures. But perhaps the M1 will make a nice change. So other than the command stand we have 3 Garand Rifle stands and a .30 Cal LMG stand and special to the engineers 2 flamethrower stands, But No Bazooka stands (Shame).

Having never used a flame thrower in the PBI rules I have no idea how good it will be but I am hoping it will be able to make any armoured vehicles think twice.


 The very knowledgeable among you will realise that the flamethrower figure is not actually in Paratroop uniform. But at this scale I am not going to worry about that as I knew my opponents will not either. For those of you looking to stop the difference it is most clearly in the boots, the helmet and the knees of the trousers. For those of you not worried, well done as it is only a playing piece after all. While all the other figures are Battlefront the flame throwers are Peter pig US Marines! I have only a single figure on the Flame base as let's be honest no one wants to stand too close to such an explosive bullet magnet. Well would you?

In addition the Peter Pig rules require dead markers so here are 8 dead counters. These  are the figures that you paint but hope never to use, but you have to have anyway. But with me in charge they will get a lot of use I am sure. In Fact I may need to go and buy some more! Yes perhaps I should put another order in right now!




As I had spare figures I also made 5 additional .30 Cal stands. This will allow me to swap out some of the BAR stands if I choose to give better LMG firepower. In the rules you can mix and match LMGs in the same Platoon as long as you do not go over the limit of 3 per platoon. So this option may well pay dividends only time will tell.





And Finally I have an assortment of figures made up into stands which technically I do not need but again you never know and it is a case of using up spare figures. And as I get points for them in the Painting challenge it made sense to do so.

So an extra SMG stand* a bazooka stand and another Rifle stand. I know I said I had run out of SMG figures for the command stand (Lt Spiers) but if I had used it there they would have been in identical poses and I would have always looked at the stand with an unformed question on my lips.

So that folks is all of my 15mm US Paratroopers for PBI. I will try to do a basing walkthrough on Friday so until then, take care, have fun, try to roll some dice and shove figures around the table.

All the best from Clint