I was unsure exactly what I could talk about for my first
posting on the Code 40k site. In terms
of painting projects, I have a lot of Blood Bowl models that need to be
completed, as well as a couple of Tau squads that have been sitting under my
desk for a while now.
However, the project that I am determined to work through
over the coming months, and the one I’ll therefore talk about here, is my Bolt
Action US Airborne Screaming Eagles platoon.
Since moving down to Surrey, I have struggled to find time
to play much 40k, and with the arrival of Blood Bowl (a much shorter and easier
to transport game) and the imminent arrival of 8th edition, I am not
sure when I’ll get to play again.
Fortunately, a colleague at work is a keen historical gamer
(well pretty much a play-anything gamer) and I have tried a number of different
rule-sets with him and another colleague over the past two years, the most
enjoyable perhaps being Warlord Games’ Bolt Action.
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| American Civil War |
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| Epic 40k |
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| Waterloo |
Without going too much into the game itself, we have been
playing out a number of scenarios based around his British army, another friends’
US army and my German Fallschirmjager army.
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| Normandy farm |
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| Fallschirmjager (German paratroopers) |
Now the Fallschirmjager are fun for my first dabble into
Bolt Action (and they play pretty well too) but I always like to have a couple
of armies at least and what better counter to my German Elite Paratroopers than
the American Airborne division, and having recently re-watched the series I wanted to base a list loosely on the force portrayed in the HBO
show Band of Brothers.
I purchased the first unit, a squad of ten metal soldiers,
about 9 months ago but didn’t really start work on them until much later, and
really the whole army has been on the back foot until recently. The release of the new Bolt Action boxed set
last autumn did spark my interest once more, but I was rather disheartened as
the plastic airborne models included in this set were based on the later war
uniform.
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| 101st US Airborne (Screaming Eagles) |
As a side note I should probably add that for the Historical Gamer, accuracy is key and the correct unit-type for the correct era is very important. As I had already
committed to my force being based around the time of the Normandy landings, I
was also committing to keeping to the older metal miniatures in the older style
uniforms.
I started my army with a simple 8 man squad supported by a
HQ unit, mortar team, a medium machine gun team as well as a “bazooka”
team. This probably amounts to around
300 to 400 points so I knew I needed more as a decent game needs around 1000 to
1500 points worth of models.
Fortunately
Warlord answered my prayers with an offer of 10% off all US models in the Bolt
Action range. With this I went on to
purchase a number of new models, including a jeep, two more infantry squads and
an artillery gun. Once painted up, this
should give me enough to start using the army in a well-balanced game and open
the way for future development with the addition of heavy support, such as a
tank or two.
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| WIP (Howitzer team) |
The project is just starting (and other armies/teams need
attention too) so I am happy to work through this for the next few months without
rushing. I’ll do my best to provide an
update in a month or so.
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| Next on the to-do list... |
