Recon in Nkizuna

The Republic of Nkizuna is a mineral rich, impoverished Central African nation in the 21st century. The year is 2016 and the populations of the west are resource hungry in a world with increasingly depleted resources. What was originally a race between the west, Russia, and China to grab onto remaining sources degenerated into armed conflict.
American, German, and Dutch forces are holding a thin defensive line between a Russian expeditionary force and the Nkizunan chromium mines. Refugees fled days before. Today a small contingent of US SOF and Dutch Kommandotroepen hold a defensive position on the edge of an urban slum. It is up to them to blunt the forward motion of Russian mech units until heavier support can arrive. They have air assets in the form of an AH-64.
The Russian mission is to probe the NATO lines. This is a recce unit, and it cannot withstand continuous fire. 

The initial set up.

NATO lies in wait.

Russians enter the table.

Hold your fire!

50. cal sniper provides overwatch.

Russians move slowly and carefully up the road. 

The battle begins.

Apache called in!

BTR is heavily damaged

Smokescreens deployed, 1st squad moves up in force.

RPG takes out the G-wagen

BTR no. 1 killed by a lucky .50 to the fuel tanks

Apache death-cam

More destruction.

One small group is flattened by a NATO airstrike.

The Ruskies return the favor.

RPGster holding the fort

Russians exfiltrate.

In all a minor victory for the Russians. They sustained roughly 1/3 of their force KIA, with one BTR destroyed and one other with heavy damage. The Dutch Kommando are all KIA/WIA and the Americans have two snipers killed by Russian artillery. 

The Russian commander was disappointed by the heavy casualties, but the purpose of the mission was to test how effective NATO forces would be against the T-90!

Winttrix Out.

Challenger 2

Here's my Dragon Chally 2. I left off the dozer blade but I might attach it later. The commander is a HaT head with an original body, sculpted by yours truly. This was one of the best kits I've ever built in my life; everything fit just right. Also, it has excellent rubber tracks which are very easy to attach and yet appear to be link tracks. 

To paint this behemoth, I just sprayed it od green, then washed all over with black. I also used some of my homemade chalk pigments on the tracks, wheels, mudguards, and ERA. 

In the first picture, you might notice some grafitti... er... historical appreciation painted by a crewmember.

Winttrix Out!

Guild Build- "Decrepit, Urban, Abandoned"

This is my entry for Group Build "Building." It is made from my standard cork board construction, paper, coffee stirrers, heavy card, popsicle sticks, various parts from an Airfix kit, and styrene strips. It was painted with a mix of DIY paint, cheap artist paint, Vallejo, and oil paints. I spent all night working on it and was pleased to find it dry and ready to be photographed this morning. 

It will be used in my urban warfare games. The figure is there for scale. 

Winttrix Out!

French Army Test Figures

Here's some of the Caesar figures for the French Army. I was really disappointed with all of these, except maybe for the sniper, which is an excellent pose. I added optics with copper wire to all the FAMAS rifles but didn't bother doing the whole FELIN thing. The CE camo was fun to paint but hard to get the hang of. 

Thanks for looking!

Winttrix Out.

GRU Spetznaz Operators

Here are my four GRU (Internal Spetznaz) Operators. The Sphera helmeted figures are Orion and the officer with the beret is an Orion conversion. The female sniper is a slightly converted Caesar figure. 

The GRU Spetznaz are the original Spetznaz unit, and the most experienced. They often wear the uniforms of the regular troops to hide their operations from the military command. One of their possible missions is to destroy US missile systems in the event of war. More recently, their missions have been expanded to include counterterrorism. They have fought in the Soviet War in Afghanistan, both Chechen wars, and the 2008 South Ossetia war. The GRU is the Military Intelligence of the former Soviet Union and now the Russian Federation.  

The camouflage is a Russian-produced urban coloration of M81 Woodland. Paints are Vallejo.

Winttrix Out.

M2 Bradley Diecast Repaint

I bought this Dragon diecast a while back and finally I've painted it. It was originally finished in NATO

three color woodland, but it's now a kind of greyish sand which is actually darker than it is in the photos. It is more suitable for the middle east even though I will use it against my Russians, but I figure:

1) Vehicle camouflage doesn't really work when you have lumbering, noisy monsters like these;

2) Most US vehicles are ready for middle east deployments so they would not have time for a temperate repaint;

3) This color is more suitable in an urban environment (especially one with smoke and rubble) than three color camo. 

But in reality I'm just cheap and don't want to have one vehicle for Europe and one for the Middle East. 

I don't have any MIG pigments so I made my own out of colored blackboard chalk. 

This is an excellent model that was a steal at just $10. 

Winttrix Out

AH-64

Here's my AH-64 by Academy. It's generically marked so it can be used with my US forces, my Dutch forces, or with future British forces. I can't wait to use it on overwatch against some tangos!

I hope Gunbird doesn't mind about the glass effects...

Marder IFV

Here's my Revell Marder 1A2 I did last month (forgot to take pics) for my Bundeswehr forces. It's out of the box except fot the commander sticking out of the hatch, a conversion of a Revell figure. Paints are Vallejo as usual.

German Panzergrenadiers will follow!