The Russians are coming!

While the photographs of miniatures on this blog are generally me stealing other men's glory - these chaps are Russians are actually painted myself. I've been chipping away at a Cold War collection for Force on Force, mainly inspired by the beautiful work produced by Elheim miniatures. The sculpting, the proportions of the figures, the little touches like the Russian sniper having a smoke make them really stand out.

I've been painting these fellows up with a mind to playing the Top Malo House scenario from the main rulebook with the dastardly Reds taking the role of the Argintineans, mainly as I didn't like any of the Argies currently on the market. The painting is very simple and based on some excellant advice I received on the Guild.

1. Undercoat black. This is harder than it looks with a spray as there are plenty of undercuts.

2. Paint uniform Vallejo Khaki.

3. Wash with GW Devlan Mud.

4. Paint hands and face with Vallejo fleshtones.

5. Paint webbing with Vallejo Dark Brown and bag, etc with Vallejo Khaki.

6. Paint Helmet Vallejo Reflective Green.

7. Paint wooden weapon furniture Vallejo Mahogony Sand

8. Paint weapon an off grey, I usually mix black and white and then add a slightly lighter grey as a highlight.

9. Crush capitalism to taste.

My research into Russian Cossacks is going very well. 

In other news, it appears that Command & Colours: Napoleonics will be getting a Russian expansion next with a tentative release date of November. This is great news, though I haven't managed to finish playing all the scenarios in the basic set yet! Certain parties have prophesied that this means that I will have to study an aspect of the Napoleonic wars that doesn't involve Wellington or the Peninsular an area, they have rather laughingly described as "the real Napoleonic wars" (I'm looking at you Takacs). I'm skeptical, but I'm digging into Zamoyski's 1812 again and I'm quietly confident that this won't result in too many new books...

Fortunately, I'll be able to reuse a lot of my French troops and Strelets and Zvesda have almost everything else for the Russians covered. 

And lastly, there are Russians coming for one of my favourite computer games Company of Heroes, a skirmish based real time strategy PC title. It's tremendous fun - it's a historically based game rather than a historical wargame per se, but it provides an entertaining game and I find playing against the computer very relaxing. It's like playing a game of 1960s Second World War films. It's not exactly right, but it is close enough. The original game featured Americans with the British forces arriving two years later in an expansion. The third expansion wasn't up to much - but apparently the sequel is due in 2013. It will feature a single player Soviet campaign and in addition to having terrain that can be blown up and deformed, will also feature snow fall that will affect visibility and movement and that will build up over time.

There are questions of course of whether it will run on my laptop, but we live in hope.


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