Bolsheviks for BoB / RCW - a couple of questions

[Warboss Nick]

I am looking at BoB/RCW as a skirmish project. The plan is to build a force of 20-40 miniatures plus vehicle(s) and maybe later some pulp characters and/or a second faction. For rules I have already ordered T&T.

One option would be the copplestone range, which I will definitely use for pulp characters. I'm a little uncertain about the composition of the blisters though. Would I need more than one standard bearer, officer and commissar for a command group and two or three infantry squads? I like the idea of revolutionary flags being carried but have no idea how accurate that would be. And how many Lewis guns would be appropriate?

I would have liked to mix with renegade's WW1 range. Unfortunately they are offline. Can anyone tell me what character figures and extras they have, maybe even with pictures?

The other option would be to use warlord soviet plastics with conversions. Would that be viable or require too many changes? So far I thought about headgear and Lewis guns which should be possible I think. Vehicles would then be scratch built and british taken from rourke's drift.

Thanks a lot in advance!

[FramFramson]

If you're doing traditional early 20's BoB, WWI Russians will be much closer to what you need than WWII Soviets, as there are a fair number of uniform changes in the 30's.

Also, I don't believe that Rourke's Drift (or any Victorian English) will work for BoB at all. There are several massive uniform changes between the Zulu Wars and the BoB era.

[Turbo-Ben]

I'd go for the copplestone russians. They are cheap and easy to get, and you don't have to convert anything.

If you think that the flagbearers and lewis gunners are too much, save two of them for your second force as there are no models for white standard bearers and light machine gunners in the range.

Most of the BoB gamers (that I've seen so far) aren't that much into Knöpchenzählen as in other periods, so if you think a lot of flags would look cool, go and paint them!

[Franz_Josef]

In addition to the very nice Copplestone range, Brigade Games also does some interesting Pulp/RCW early Soviets:
http://www.brigadegames.com/Storm-in-the-East--WW1--RCW--PULP_c_206.html

See also this pack of Artizan partisan rifles:
http://www.brigadegames.com/Partizan-Rifles-3_p_1463.html

[Mr. Peabody]

Wirelizard's recently hosted a wonderful RCW game, featuring a host of Brigade minis. I was impressed. They are really great pieces.

[Turbo-Ben]

But they are rather expensive in europe and I idn't find a shop where you could buy the whole range here.

[Warboss Nick]

Sounds a lot like Copplestone...

I must admit that I know very little about this period, hence the questions. With copplestone my idea was to buy one pack each of officers, commissars, standard bearers and Lewis guns plus two infantry packs and organize them into command and three squads leaving each unit with a flag, an officer, commissar and Lewis gun.

As extras I'd get a Maxim HMG and a vehicle - either scratch built or a garford-putilov. Would that be ok?

Turbo-Ben: the plan is to paint the bolshevics and get someone else to play the opposition. Otherwise my Second choice would be Chinese, Chinese bandits or British - or a Trip to Mannheim ;-)

[Turbo-Ben]

Turbo-Ben: the plan is to paint the bolshevics and get someone else to play the opposition. Otherwise my Second choice would be Chinese, Chinese bandits or British - or a Trip to Mannheim ;-)

I had the same plan when I started, now I have some small forces of whites, reds and british indian. At the beginning of december I also bought a small chinese force!
If you don't use the models right now, you will use them next year!

If you want to play T&T then you will probably have to many automatic weapons for a fun game. A higher number of mgs makes the games very stationary.

[Wirelizard]

Thanks for the shout-out, Mr. Peabody. Still need to blog about that game and see if any of my photos turned out; I've just gotten back from a week away visiting family so haven't had time or computer access recently.

Both the Copplestone and Brigade figures are great and work well together. The Copplestone rank & file have a bit more character than most of the Brigade rank & file riflemen (all nice figures, just the Copplestone ones are a bit more individual) but some of the Brigade command/personality packs have figures as nice and as characterful as anything Copplestone has done.

[Warboss Nick]

I got myself a Christmas present from Copplestone to start Bolsheviks: commissars, 20 infantry, Lewis guns and a Maxim. A bit heavy on machine guns, so I will either have some Lewis guns left over or will have to expand the force later...

The first five infantry men are under way after I settled on the colours. Now I have run into the next problem - how to paint the commissars? I would like to keep them a bit different from the officers but I have no idea if there was any difference in their uniforms and have so far drawn a blank while searching on the net. Any pointers to RCW bolshevik commissar uniforms?

[cuprum]

In fact, the commissars did not have any special differences from other Red commanders. Only on the left sleeve, below the elbow, could be sewn red star the size of 6-8 centimeters. But this is not always the case.
More their favorite clothes were leather jackets (black, and less often - not colored skin), sometimes leather cap.







I invite you to my site. You will find a lot interesting variants uniforms for this period.

http://siberia-miniatures.ru/forum/showthread.php?fid=12&tid=185

[Ignatieff]

cracking images, again, Cuprum!

[Hammers]

I so want a leather coat like that. It's dead snazzy.

[Hammers]

And a Broomhandle makes such a cute accessoire.

[Ignatieff]

And a Broomhandle makes such a cute accessoire.

I can see you stalking the catwalk, firing randomly into the air whilst have that 'glint' in your eye.....