CoC Pandemic Project: 29 Let’s Go! - Game #1: Probe at LaCambe

[Tommy20]

Stone Walls & Gate
A LONG time ago I purchased a bunch of cheap Christmas village stone walls that were on clearance at Michaels.  So long ago, in fact, that I no longer remember what I had originally planned to do with them!  I do know that I spent some time trying to remove the cast-on snow that each piece had, and realized just how difficult a job that would be. 

When I discovered that I would need about 8 feet of stone walls for 29 Let’s Go!, I dug out the walls and got back to work.  I found that I could cut off chunks of the snow using side cutters that would leave jagged edges that more or less blended in with the stone texture.  It was somewhat labor-intensive, though, so I only removed about half of the snow, and camouflaged the rest with vegetation.  I gave them a light coat of primer so some of the color variation in the original paint still showed, and then painted with GW Contrast Skeleton Horde.
 
Before:


After:


I made 8 feet, and have enough of the original walls left to make another 4 feet if needed, as well as incorporate some pieces into my hedges.  The gate was scratch built from balsa strip on a Warlord base, and based on this photo:

[gamer Mac]

Nice good find

[Tommy20]

Entrenchments & Smoke
I bought these resin entrenchments by Easy Eight Enterprises back when Battleground WW2 was the hot new WW2 ruleset.  After 20-something years, it was nice to finally put some paint on them!




The smoke is just a small wad of nylon batting applied to a flocked 3” round base from Hobby Lobby:

[Digits]

Great to be able to incorporate stuff you’ve had lying around 20 years!

Good work with the walls.   Will you be doing fencing as well?

[Tommy20]

No immediate plans to do fencing.  The maps for 29 Let’s Go are full of stone walls and hedges.  I’m currently working on large hedges/small bocage.

[Tommy20]

Platoon Boards and the Troops!
I’ve found a lot of great tips and inspiration on the Tactical Painter blog, but perhaps my favorite takeaway has been the Chain of Command Platoon Boards.  These boards are great for organizing your miniatures, both before and during a game.  Since these were designed for 20mm figures, and I use 28’s, I had to expand to a second board per platoon in order to fit in all of the support options.  I made mine per his instructions, although I found it easier to design and print the pages in excel (guess I’m just a spreadsheet guy).  My addition to the design was to add page number references for a quick reference to the rulebook.




I built out the platoons per the 29 Let’s Go! Lists, including all of the support options.  I actually have one additional German MMG Team, not shown as it was on my painting desk.




My troops are all Warlord figures, many of them acquired when I was planning to play Bolt Action.  The bulk of the platoon, as well as a few of the support options, are the newer multipart plastics.  I really like the look of these figures, but the assembly nearly broke me (why they would opt to have small items like canteens as separate parts is baffling)!  My other gripe with these is the number of rifles supplied.  Both the US Infantry and German Grenadiers boxed sets only include enough rifles for half of the figures.  Even after using all of the kneeling figures for support (AT Teams, Snipers, Engineers, MG Ammo bearers), I still needed to buy additional sprues to get enough rifles to go around.  I built the figures last Summer & Fall, and finished them just in time to prime before the weather turned cold.  I’ve been working on terrain since then, but have just this week started painting.  I plan to paint up the base platoons and a couple of support options for each army first.

[Tommy20]

Hmmm...  Just saw that my Facebook images are expiring.  I guess I need to find a better way to include pictures...

<edit> AND Fixed!

[BeneathALeadMountain]

Great progress Tommy. The Tactical painter is a great gamer and helpful blogger, I love the platoon board idea (something I need to do in 15mm). You’ve done a great job and I’m envious you managed to sneak base coating in (I missed the only dry bit for ages and I’m currently on tenterhooks staring at the weather  ). I don’t game WW2 in 28mm and was shocked at the fragility of Warlord plastic weapons when I encountered them. Do you still need weapons I may have something suitable, I’ll look.
Keep it up,
BALM

[Tommy20]

Thanks BALM, but I'm good.  I ended up buying an additional boxed set for each side, which gave me the additional rifles I needed, and in different poses.  As an added bonus, I now have the start of a US Airborne platoon as well as an Early War German platoon!

[Marine0846]

Very nice additions to your gaming.
Some very useful tips for other gamers to use.
Thanks for the posting.

[BeneathALeadMountain]

Thanks BALM, but I'm good.  I ended up buying an additional boxed set for each side, which gave me the additional rifles I needed, and in different poses.  As an added bonus, I now have the start of a US Airborne platoon as well as an Early War German platoon!

And the snowball of hobby gathers momentum! 
BALM

[Tommy20]

German Platoon & MG42 Team

My first painted troops for the Germans is the MG42 MMG Team.  I decided to do this first in order to try out the method from Sonic Sledgehammer’s “How I Paint Things - Contrast: WWII German Grenadiers:


This was key, as I tend to paint very slowly, and the idea that I could paint up a platoon quickly using Citadel Contrast Paints is what finally got this project off the ground.  If I wasn’t happy with the results, it was going to be back to the drawing board!  Here are the results:



I’m not going to win any painting (or photography) contests with these, but am very happy with the results.  They actually look much better in person, and I’ll be happy to put these on the table, especially since it only took two nights’ (about six hours) worth of effort.

With the test team out of the way, I moved straight on to the core platoon.  Using an assembly line, I painted three figures a night, averaging an hour per fig.  The figures in zeltbahns added another hour per night.  I hate painting camouflage, and the pattern isn’t very historical, but it should work from a few feet away. Again, they’re not going to win any awards, but I’m happy with the results.  Especially considering that this is more painted figures than I’ve turned around in years, and it only took 11 days.







One neat feature I did was magnetizing the panzerfausts.  I don’t know where I first saw the idea, but here’s one version (https://www.tabletop-terrain.com/2015/07/28/bolt-action-magnetised-panzerfausts/).  This will allow me to remove the panzerfaust from the figure once it’s been fired.




I can’t decide whether to move on to the Americans next, or to go ahead and finish the German support options.  I’ve been on a roll with the Germans, and am leaning toward wrapping them up before moving on.

<edit> BTW, although the feldgrau looks very grey in my pictures, it's actually much greener in person, and looks more like the color in the video at the top of the post.

[Digits]

Don’t put yourself down...these look great!  I like the idea of magnetic panzerfaust....but I’d never have the patience!

I say continue with the German support.......you are on a roll!

[Littlearmies]

I feel your pain with the Warlord figures - I bought a couple of boxes and thought that the figures weren't to my taste and that Warlord clearly were in fantasy land if they thought the make-up of the box in way resembled a WWII platoon. So I put them to one side and bought some AB 20mm figures.

The good news is that the Americans are much easier to paint than the Germans - apart from not having camouflage gear all the webbing etc is the same colour. They are much less "busy" than the Germans. And the good thing about "29, let's Go" is that there aren't many support options on the vehicle side - three guns and teams for the Germans and a Sherman for the Americans.

[Tommy20]

Germans Finished!

Here's a photo of my base German platoon with better lighting.  While still not a great photo, it gives a better idea of the uniform color (which still looks greener in person than in the photo):


Having painted the base German platoon in such short order, I needed to slow down a bit while doing the support options, but still managed to complete them over the past two weeks.  Doing the camouflage was daunting at first, but with it now behind me, I’ve decided that I really hate painting camouflage.  I’m very happy to have this part of the project behind me.

Medic


Panzershreck Team


Sniper Team


MG42 Teams (I did two as this seemed the most likely support option to duplicate...)


FO Team


leIG18 Team


Pak38 Team


Pak40 Team



For the guns, I again turned to Sonic Sledgehammer for a tutorial and he didn’t disappoint with “How I Paint Things - Tank Camo (No Airbrush!)”:

After a failed attempt with the leIG18, I found a Pak40 photo online with a camo pattern that I 1) liked, and 2) felt I could reproduce, and just copied the pattern as best I could.  Satisfied with the results, I stripped and re-primed the leIG18 and began again, doing it and the Pak38 simultaneously.  All three guns are from 1st Corps, and are absolutely beautiful models.  They are so well designed that on the AT guns I was able to magnetize the breeches to traverse, and even hinge the trails for storage.

So that's a platoon plus all support options in just under a month.  That's definitely a record for me!  Next up: the Americans!