14th Army Reinforced Rifle Platoon

A good few years ago I read George McDonald-Frasers "Quartered Safe Out Here". It's a bloody good read about his time in Burma towards the end of WWII.

I dug it out again a couple of years ago and inspired I decided to start a project. I ordered from The Assault Group four blisters of their excellent 14th Army and four blisters of their equally excellent Japanese. I duly painted these up and ordered some more figures and also picked up some bits and bobs from Warlord Games when Northstar were having a sale.

I was looking at rules, about this time I started playing I Ain't Been Shot Mum  which although a fantastic set, I reckon that I will need to buy a lot more figures for. Bolt Action came out last year and although they look a solid enough set of rules I am not entirely sure that they are for me, that said I've not played a game with them yet - although that will be remedied next week.

Suitably enthused again I dug out all the remaining unpainted figures and decided that first of all I would finish off the 14th Army force, there were another 40 figures left to do, well it looks like my painting mojo is coming back, because in the last ten days I have painted and based 32 of those and the final eight just need to have the highlights finished and the bases done.

It's a pretty simple paint job to get this far, I do the following steps:

Clean up figures and stick on 25mm round MDF bases
Prime them with Halfords grey primer
I then rough out a base coat as follows:

• Vallejo Gunship Green: Shirts, trousers, some hats, some webbing, some gaiters, some packs, some water bottles
• Vallejo Khaki:  Rifle slings, some hats, some webbing, some gaiters, some packs, some water bottles.
• Vallejo Chestnut Brown: Rifle stocks, entrenching tool handles, bayonet handles, some boots.
• Vallejo Black: Bayonets, Rifle fittings, some boots.
• 50:50 Vallejo Beige Brown & Vallejo Basic Fleshtone: Exposed flesh.

Once the figure is base coated I give the figure a wash of Vallejo Sepia Wash. Once dry I apply the highlights as follows:

• Gunship Green areas: Highlight with Gunship Green then highlight again with a mix of Gunship Green & Dark Sand
• Khaki areas: Highlight with Khahi then highlight again with a mix of Khaki & Dark Sand
• Chestnut Brown areas: Highlight with Chestnut Brown then highlight again with a mix of Chestnut Brown & Dark Sand
• Black areas: Highlight with Black Grey for the boots 
• Black areas: Highlight with a mix of Gunmetal Grey and Black for the bayonets and rifle fittings, then bayonets are then further highlighted in Gunmetal Grey
• Exposed flesh highlighted with Basic Fleshtone then highlighted again with a mix of Basic Fleshtone and Ivory.

Once the highlights are done then the detail is picked out with Windsor and Newton Peat Brown ink.

The bases are then covered in PVA glue and dipped in a coarse sand mix that is painted Vallejo US Field Drab, highlighted with Vallejo Dark Sand and then washed with Vallejo Sepia Wash then decorated with tufts and scatter.

On to some of the photos, all the figures are from The Assault Group unless noted.

Platoon Sergeant and Lieutenant 

Artillery Observer (Hugh Jarce from Too Fat Lardies)

Vickers MMG

PIAT team (Warlord Games)

First rifle squad

First squad from another angle

Second rifle squad 

Second squad from another angle

Third rifle squad

Third rifle squad

Fourth rifle squad

Sherman V from BlitzKreig Miniatures

The force so far

They are going to need somebody to shoot at

 I'll cover the Japanese in another article, I've only got the original few done so far