Category Archives: Bolt Action

Bolt Action! 28mm T-34/85 Tank Platoon

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Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

The T-34/85 platoon shows off their freehand slogans.

Well, I finished my first official Bolt Action models – a platoon of three Soviet T-34/85s. It took a little longer than I’d originally planned/hoped, since I wanted to get the markings more-or-less right, while still making the models look good. I found some information that the red star was used sparingly, (and that a white star was even used at times) and that individual unit markings were often left up to the company commanders, so after a fair bit of looking around, I decided that the red star added an attractive bit of spot colour to the models, as did the Guards Tank badge. I also added some freehand slogans, which was a lot of fun.

I chose to use freehand for the slogans because I wanted to have something a little more unique than the decals provided, and because I really enjoy doing things like that. I also freehanded the ID numbers on the obverse side of the turrets (but not the diamonds). I did those in freehand because I’ve seen many images where they were clearly painted on by the crew as well. I felt making them deliberately a little wonky also works well for what they are. I can paint more uniform than that – though not nearly as perfect as a stencil, obviously!

Now, LOTS of pics.

Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

T-34/85 321 “Crush the Fascists!”

Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

T-34/85 321 “Crush the Fascists!”

Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

T-34/85 321 “Crush the Fascists!”

Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

T-34/85 321 “Crush the Fascists!”

The commander is removable, he’s blu-taced into the hatch for a bit of variety, and for use in games where the “lead” tank might matter – to keep it obvious for the players.

Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

T-34/85 322 “For Moscow!”

Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

T-34/85 322 “For Moscow!”

Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

T-34/85 322 “For Moscow!”

Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

T-34/85 322 “For Moscow!”

One thing that really got me going with these tanks was their simple assembly. I often find myself getting distracted when working on models that have overly-complex assembly, as my favourite part of the hobby is really painting – and specifically completing painting – the detail work. Followed by gaming (which I don’t get to do nearly as often as I’d like). Modelling and assembly can be fun, but as much as I love multi-part HIPs figures and so forth, I’d be just as happy to have almost all figures come pre-assembled so I can just get to the painting. These really are very simple kits, so the assembly for all three was done in a day so I could get onto the fun of painting them.

Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

T-34/85 322 “For the Motherland!”

Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

T-34/85 322 “For the Motherland!”

Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

T-34/85 322 “For the Motherland!”

Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

T-34/85 322 “For the Motherland!”

These kits aren’t super-detailed, and won’t win any prizes in any modelling shows – nor will this paint work – but for the purposes of gaming they’re just fine. I also found I enjoyed painting these up with their military greens, rough damage and weathering more than I’ve ever enjoyed painting any 40k tanks.

And now – some action shots!

Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

A glorious unit of Soviet tanks retakes the ground tainted by the fascists just a couple of years ago!

Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

The sun shines on our glorious boys as they heroically push back the opressors! За Родину!

Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

Commander of the unit, Starshina Yarik, beckons to his platoon to look beyond the dusty dragon’s teeth at their destination.

Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85

A ruined building provides no obstacle for the Heroic Liberators!

So yeah, I had a little bit of fun here. It also shows off some of the terrain I finished recently to provide some sense of their scale with the Bolt Action armour.

I guess now I need to get hold of a platoon worth of German Armour, so these guys have someone to fight. Panthers? PzIV? Both? Hmm…

More Fast Scenery – Confrontation Walls, DUST Dragon’s Teeth

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Continuing the drive I’ve been on in knocking over fast-ish scenery projects recently, here’s a couple more things I’ve completed in the past week or so.

First up are some stone walls from the Confrontation starter set – which is also the place that the recent Hill Ruins came from. This time, I remembered to add a figure for scale. I like these walls a lot. They’re just the thing (along with the hill) that whoever owns the current rights to should be churning out en masse as cheap and great-looking scenery in hard plastic.

Because I’ve got two starter sets, I’ve ended up with 4 of each piece (the set comes with 2 of each piece, plus the hill, figures, dice, tape measure, rules, etc. Just the usual as far as painting goes on these – base coat, drybrush, wash, drybrush again, weathering powders.

Small Confrontation walls, with Elf for Scale.

Large Confrontation walls, with Elf still for scale.

Confrontation walls again, alongside Italieri Fountain

When I first showed off the Italieri fountain, awhile back, I got asked quite a reasonable question about scale. So this time I’m showing the figure to demonstrate both the scale, and also how well these ruined wall sections fit in with other scenery to create a space that could fit in anywhere from a Fantasy world to WWII to the 41st Millennium. Take away the fountain and the walls will work just as perfectly in an Ancients setting.

Confrontation walls combine nicely to make a ruined building. Call Time Team!

 

I also started and finished a second batch of 6 Dragon’s Teeth/Tank Traps from DUST Tactics sets. I started with 6 of them, from various starter sets and so forth, painted them at least a year ago, then they sat around. In the last year or so, I’ve discovered another 6 of them, gleaned from various DUST expansion sets, and so the lot of them sat around taking up space in my painting area, until last week when I finally pulled my fist out and painted the new ones. Which predictably took just a couple of hours in a day that I was also busy doing all sorts of other things in. So – probably not worth the delay in getting ’round to them, then.

DUST Dragon’s Teeth Tank Traps

Nothing amazing. Painted with a base of Woodland Scenics’ Concrete, then some washes, drybrushing and Tamiya weathering stuff. They look decent and suitably grubby with a realistic enough look on the table top.

DUST Dragon’s Teeth – Area Denial!

With 12 of them now finished, there’s enough of them to provide a fair bit of Area Denial to enemy armour. Again, suitable for battlefields anywhere from WWII through to the far future. Though I have admittedly just realised that there’s no scale shot with a vehicle for size context. I’ll get that sorted shortly.