The Painted Thumb

One of my goals for 2016 is to complete a Mid-War US Rifle Company in time for the Mid-War FoWSA tournament on July 6th. My list will be a 1700pt US Rifle Company from the North Africa book. I've been documenting my progress as I've been painting and assembling each unit. The Field Artillery Battery with M2A1 105mm Howitzers is completed. I used a the Battlefront box set for this unit. It includes 1 Command Carbine Team, 1 Staff Team, 1 Observer Carbine Team, 1 Jeep, and 4 M2A1 105mm Howitzers. This was a really fun build. The box set was priced very high ($75). But, it is a critical component of virtually any US Army list in the game, so there is no avoiding it. The set came with pre-styled bases for the howitzers and the staff team. It was a nice perk and added some realism to the unit. For the Observer team, I found a fallen tree limb from my backyard, cut it to size and glued it to the base. In 15mm, the twig becomes a thick log to serve as improvised cover. ...

Blake runs a monthly Saga Night at our FLGS. This month, the attendance was light. I showed up and so did Martin. He brought along his own collection of armies. I have not painted my Anglo-Saxon force as of yet. Instead, I used a group of Lord of the Rings figures as a stand-in for a Welsh army. Initial Setup Initial forces Anglo-Danes Standard Warlord Monk advisor 8x Hearthguards w/ axes 8x Warriors 8x Warriors 12x Levies =======7 Saga Dice Welsh Standard Warlord 6x Hearthguard 5x Hearthguard Banner Bearer 8x Warriors 8x Warriors 12x Levies =======6 Saga Dice (I now realize that I should have been rolling 7 Saga dice) We chose to play the Clash of Warlords scenario. Martin setup his warriors and levies in a tight group in the right side. His warlord and monk advisor started right behind them, with the group of 8 Hearthguard bringing up the rear. On my side of the map, I spread out my units. I was hoping to push my troops to around the flank so I could draw ...

Carl and Wes showed up at the weekly LSHM Tuesday game night ready to play some Team Yankee. I have been looking forward to playing this game for a long time now. Carl had about 75 points of Soviets, Wes brought about 75 points of US troops The scenario was called "Meeting Engagement". It was a simple smash and grab scenario with two objectives per side laid out on each side of the table. The forces consisted of the following: USA Soviet Infantry and Carriers M113 APC platoon w/M47 Dragon team BMP-2 platoon M113 APC platoon 2x Bradley AFV w/chain gun Anti-Aircraft M48 Chapparral SAM launcher 2x SA-13 SAM launchers ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" Tanks 2x M1 Abrams MBT 5x T-72 tanks 2x M1 Abrams MBT 5x T-72 tanks Artillery 4x M109 Howitzer 4x 2S1 M-1974 Carnation M113 observer BMP1 Observer Anti-Tank Vehicles M901 TOW vehicle platoon M901 TOW vehicle platoon Rotary Aircraft 2x Hind helicopter Fixed Wing Aircraft 2x SU-25 Frogfoot Wes ran the US side; C...

No game reports this week. Just some progress on my Flames of War US list. I opened my box of Battlefront 105mm artillery. There are lots of components to this unit! There are four guns with custom bases and five figures to go with each gun, a custom base for the artillery command team, one stand for the observer, one stand for the HQ team, and one jeep. My list includes a second jeep for some reason. Luckily, I have an extra jeep already base coated. The guns are metal and in spite of the good packaging, they were badly bent and needed to be straightened into place. I stumbled on a good trick of placing the guns on the grid of my craft mat and using the grid as a reference. This helped tremendously. I base coated the guns and jeeps with Vallejo Brown-Violet, the un-official "green" of the US Army. And I used the handy Testor's spray paint kit. This really saved some time. The custom bases were resin. I had never worked with resin before so I primed it just to...

Lone Star Historical Miniatures held another Muster Game Day this past weekend. This was called the April Muster and it is the third such event we have held. Basically, we occupy one of the game rooms at the FLGS and run about 4-6 games from different time periods. These are single-day events  but they have a convention atmosphere. They are free to attend and anyone can drop by and join a game. The events have been great opportunities to get the word out on Historical Miniatures and lure in new players. The games played were: Johnny Reb (ACW) Wings of Glory 5150: Fringe Space - Ed Texiera of Two Hour Wargames came by to run this game. WWII Continuation - a homebrew game created by a club member, based on the Finn-Soviet front during 1941-1944 I played in the Wings of Glory game.  Ian Straus had put out three beautiful battle mats that made a large area for us to play on.  I chose to play the iconic German Fokker Dr1 triplane. Carl was my ally on the German sid...

Flames of War progress report: I finished this small unit for my Mid-War list. The CO, the 2inC and some bazooka teams for escorts. These painted up quick and easy. I chose the two-toned colors for these guys instead of the later all-green uniforms. This army will be a mixed bag of old and new uniforms. I so wish I could have done the entire list in the same colors. Perhaps, I could have two lists, one for Mid-War and another for Late-War, each with the appropriate colored shirts and trousers!  Yes! That would be the ideal solution. But, time is my enemy right now and I'd just like to get an entire list completed.   My overall progress so far. I'll flock the bases after all the painting is done to ensure a consistent style. This past weekend, my good friend Dave held a clearance sale. His intentions are to pare down his lead pile. Going forward, he plans to stick with just a few game systems that he loves playing. Dave has a huge collection of painted and unpa...

Things have been very quiet for a very long time on the Painted Thumb blog. Rather than bore everyone with tepid excuses for why I haven't posted, I'll just get started with a new post. I was trying to complete the Glider Rifle Company in time to play it at FOWSA 10, but I couldn't get it done in time. 1800 points is a big army! I underestimated how much time it would take me to paint up the whole thing. My plan for 2016 is to complete a Mid-War US Rifle Company in time for the tournament on July 6th. The standard rifle platoons are already finished and now I have completed a platoon of Shermans. I purchased a box of the 5x M4A3 Wet Stowage Shermans from Plastic Soldier Company. These are essentially 1/100th scale plastic models, but they are designed for 15mm miniature games. The boxes are very affordable at about $25 and they come with a enough pieces for 5 tanks and two different turrets for each. The turrets have a pin that plugs into the top of the hull and fit...