Sir Shvantselot's bolt action slow painting topic

[sir_shvantselot]

I have actually painted some Black Tree and Crusader 28mm Russians, but till I sort out pics, thought people might be interested in a scale comparison in front of a Heer 46 heavy howitzer: from L to R, black tree; warlord; rusader; black tree; warlord.

[Rowlybot12000]

Go on, show us the painted ones too

[Sardoo]

Very helpful! Thanks.

[sir_shvantselot]

Go on, show us the painted ones too

Wow. What a friendly forum. Haven't based them, which makes all the difference but here you go. I tried to keep it very simple. No more than three highlights and a bit of shading for anything other than the skin. Otherwise no idea how I how I will get through 50 minis. Annoyed about the weird join line on the turret on the old plastic Warlord T34. Also have no idea how to paint or weather tanks as only ever painted fantasy GW. Listened to some GHOST podcasts and sounds like a lot of work - paint in acrylics, matt varnish and then oil paints. Have a two year old so not sure how that will work...

[folnjir]

Great start so far.

[pocoloco]

Looking good. Any chance to list the colours you used for the uniforms?

[sir_shvantselot]

I couldn’t find anyone to play Bolt Action and so abandoned this project (and all the many Soviet minis I have!) but have moved to Borehamwood, UK where there is a gaming store where I have seen people playing Second Edition. So I am slowly reading up on the new rules and will dust off my minis. I’ll start painting more and get them up here over time.

I have one thing I’d like to confirm with people who might know. I love the look of Bren Carriers and think it would be super cool to make up three plastic ones for Soviets in a 1000 point list. Modellingwise is use the Warlord Italieri kits and heads from some Warlord plastics.

1.  First of all, I know I can have Bren Carriers under the lend lease rule and you can have a transport vehicle per each infantry unit and each artillery unit (I’ll definitely have three of those). So I can definitely have three?
2. Even with three Brens I could still technically take a 0-1 tank and 0-1 armoured car?
3. Here’s the crunch, you can replace the transport capacity of a Bren with a forward facing MMG in the Bren listing.
4. Can Russians do this too?
5. Can they just use the British Vickers MMG that will come with the kit as part of lend lease?
6. Does the Bren stop being a 0-1 transport if you replace transport capacity with a MMG!? It’s not an armoured car suddenly or a tank, so I would say yes.
7. Gamingwise is there benefit to having three 7+ damage soft skins with MMGs and LMGs? I would say yes as they can only be killed by MMGs/artillery/Panzerfäuste etc. and not small arms fire. And they have recce! And turn on the spot.
8. If the Bren is destroyed with this extra MMG then there’s no troops to dismount. They’re all crew and just die? Assume yes.
Well, however good they are, the modelling looks to be quite fun.

[vodkafan]

First off, welcome back and Happy New Year! The mini comparison was very useful, I would be happy using all those manufacturers figures together no problem.
Your painting is great.
 About your Bren Carrier problem,  (and please don't take this the wrong way!) it is plain to see that you are coming from a rigidly points based GW background. You don't have to agonise over it so much. If you want 3 Bren Carriers (or 7 or , go ahead and have them.  If you feel too constrained by a set of rules, find another set! There are dozens out there.
Personally I don't think the Soviets would have used the Vickers MMG  even if it had been supplied, because of the calibre issues; but they certainly did seem to modify and upgun any foreign kit they got their hands on so you have a lot of leeway to put Russian medium or heavy MGs on a vehicle to your taste.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Welcome back.

If you are allowed transport, and Universal carriers are on your transport list, then you can have as many as you have eligible (five or less figures)  infantry units in addition to any as armoured cars etc.

I would have to look at the army book to see when or where.

The only issue would be eligible infantry units, Soviet units demand quantity and you need units that fit in a vehicle.

[sir_shvantselot]

@vodkafan:

How dare you...

Er, Ok. Yes, most of my wargaming life has been spent playing either Warhammer 7th edition or Blood Bowl, which are heavily points based games + organisation charts. You are right i should loosen up. But I’ve always found it hard to find a gaming group for historical games never mind an open minded one. And most people I find to play with share my background. Or even worse - Warmachine!

Anyway, reading a bit more around this obtuse issue I have found that Soviet units are capable of being bought as NCO + 4 dudes. However. It is not spelled out but it seems to me if you do replace transport capacity with a forward facing vickers MMG, then you should read it together with this text in the British book on a heavy machine gun: “A typical team consisted of a lance corporal gunner, a loader and an ammunition bearer. They were often carried in a Universal ‘Bren’ carrier.” This means the unit you have being carried but not paid for separately is an MMG team. Which makes sense otherwise nobody is being carried and you’d fall foul of the rule that your transport falls into enemy hands without any transport capacity whilst still being a transport. And if it gets hit, the unit which jumps out if any survive is the three dudes manning your MMG, minus the MMG which is attached now to the Bren...

Anyway, I will have fun modelling three of these from the Warlord Italieri Sets and finally have some use for the many Black after Design MMGs I have acquired.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Most importantly, if your opponent agrees you can use it, then fine.

Gaming should be educational and fun (the education is that war is bad, it is just that the alternative can be much worse).

However, though I see your logic my understanding of the (admittedly first edition) rules and the two army books is...

For a British force, the MMG carrier is SP artillery, the infantry MMG team has the fixed rule even when it is carried by a Universal carrier (the crew, gun and ammo are carried in the carrier, they have to dismount to fire). The third use of the Universal Carrier was as an armoured Recce vehicle.

The Soviets used the Universal Carrier as a towing vehicle not as a transport, SP artillery, or .armoured car. You can replace kosmolets with Universal Carriers.

So strict Bolt Action games would not allow you to field multiple MMG carriers in a standard or theatre reinforced Soviet platoon. Even the Tank War reinforced platoon cannot field them.

But, if you ask nicely and use the "Rule of Cool", you might.

Hey, if you look on my thread, I have an FT and a Carden Loyd MMG for my Sea Lion defence force and a Panzer IB with light autocannon for the attackers.

Oh, and I think there is a patch for the issue with empty Transports with guns not being able to fire them for Bolt Action 2 and K47.

[sir_shvantselot]

http://forum.wwpd.net/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6076

OK. Thank you all for your time (and Ultra where is a link to your blog as i couldn’t find it in searching to see your carriers?). I have looked deeper into this vexed question, the alternative being to watch my children in a secure soft play area for the second hour running.

The above WWPD chat says “The defense of the interpretation of the Universal Carrier rules fall into that dark recess of rules lawyering known as "Unsaids".”

So, for the GW-trained mind, there is plenty to debate but I have arrived at some clarity, and agree totally with Ultra.

In the British book, the Universal Carrier is listed under a number of different categories. Take, for example,  “SELF PROPELLED ARTILLERY MACHINE GUN CARRIER The Universal Carrier was adapted to many roles, one of the more straightforward being the addition of a Vickers MMG turning it into a mobile firing platform for a machine gun. Although the Machine Gun Carrier is not strictly speaking ‘artillery’ we’re included it in this category as its role most closely approximates to that of a support weapon rather than, say, an  armoured car”.

Rick Priestley apparently said “Some 'transports' can be given permanent crews in which case they stop being transports and become mobile crewed weapons - for example a Bren Carrier mounting a Vickers MG or Boys AT rifle"

So it seems to me, as you say, if you put an MMG on a Bren it is no longer a transport and you can take 0-1 of them as your SPA choice.

But who cares about an MMG. The entry under Transports for Universal Carrier let’s you upgrade to a pintle mounted LMG, which is one dice less than an MMG, which together with the existing front LMG gives out  8 fire dice an activation and you get transport, recce, turn on the spot and 7+ armour. And you can have as many as you have infantry squads (which probably need to be able to fit into it - 5 vet guards with ppsh!)

Can the Soviets use Universal Carriers as SPA or as infantry carriers like this with two LMGs? It is not clear what saying under lend lease rules that a Universal Carrier is a substitute for a komsomoletz means unless you are correct - that it’s a tractor. Which is no fun.

But under the rule of cool I doubt anyone I am playing would care. It’s quite pricey pointwise to get a couple of double LMG shots off, then dismount the troops and have a 70 point Universal Carrier with nobody left to fire the weapons for four turns.

So maybe I would take one Universal Carrier with an MMG as an SPA, one as a recce vehicle with 2 LMGs, ie as an armoured car but no transport capacity and maybe a couple more with no upgrades and as usual transports...

And having driven everyone nuts on this, I also have a lot of Black Tree and Artizan British late war Commandos and, thinking about it, the Universal Carriers I have described are probably a best fit with them - mobile, armoured and delivering small groups of heavily armed vets to where they’re needed... and probably much easier just to do some head swaps than work out how do Soviet crew!

[Ultravanillasmurf]

The carrier and the FT are here http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=97132.msg1262346#msg1262346.

Blog: http://ultravanillasmurf.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/empress-miniatures-carden-loyd-mmg.html

I look forward to seeing yours painted.

[sir_shvantselot]

The carrier and the FT are here http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=97132.msg1262346#msg1262346.

Blog: http://ultravanillasmurf.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/empress-miniatures-carden-loyd-mmg.html

I look forward to seeing yours painted.

It all looks really great and is an inspiration.

[sir_shvantselot]

So I recently played a game of Bolt Action. Soviet vs US Marines. Cold War gone hot. This was my list:

1. Regular First Lieutenant with Regular friend with SMG
2. Inexperienced Commissar with friend
3. Free green squad (12 anti tank grenades but no LMG)
4. 12 Green militia squad rifles (only)
5. 2 anti-tank rifle teams
6. Veteran sniper team
7. 10 Guards squad 7 SMGs
8. 10 Guards squad 7 SMGs
9. Inexperienced heavy howitzer  + 10 (Spotter)
10. Regular KV2 3 MMGs (one coax) and heavy howitzer
11 Inexperienced truck (carries 12)

1000 points

Marines had a lot of regular infantry, flame thrower, anti tank gun, maybe a couple of MMGs and a Sherman. There was a lot of terrain.

We just played who could wipe out the most units and just got to four turns, taking quite some time to engage with the rules as it es basically our first game. I lost 5-4 or something like that.

The Soviet infantry rushed forward into buildings and mostly stayed in them and shot outwards without hitting anything, and the marines were too scared to charge them, and didn’t hit much in return. My sniper and spotter were up in a church, which the anti tank gun hit and killed the spotter and pinned the sniper for the rest of the game. It also meant my howitzer couldn’t really see anything for the rest of the game (lots of terrain). My anti tank rifles couldn’t hit the Sherman. One SMG infantry unit jumped in the truck, rushed  forward and machine gunned and then charged and wiped out a marine squad standing front of the Sherman. The Sherman drove past them and shot at the Soviet infantry in the buildings and didn’t hit much. It took two pot shots over two turns at the KV2, the second one of which just turned it into a burning wreck. The KV2 had failed to hit anything with its howitzer. I really should have set it up opposite the infantry on the other side of the table (though I think the anti tank gun would have done for it. There was some cinematic moment where the marine flamethrower rushed into the open to spray the Soviets in a building but...click...click, they rolled a one to hit. And the Soviets just machine gunned them down.

The rules were fun but we were a bit slow with them. Not sure the tank was worth it. Not sure I needed such a big howitzer either.

I’m wondering what to substitute in. I have loads of Soviet models. A few MMGs, mortar, scouts, sailors, maybe enough infantry for another two squads
, T34/85, Gaz jeep, BA10 armoured car and SU76.