From HerrRobert (Robert H): Street fighting (95 Points)

Next stop, Benito's Brook:

This is probably as close to a point's bonb I will ever get, short of sandbagging. I just can't sit still long enough to paint dozens of figures at a time. This entry has been taking me the entire challenge to put together:

I've been playing a lot of Chain of Command and Bolt Action, and we've done a lot of street fighting. But nothing is really as savage, or as brave, as the street fighting in Stalingrad. From the guidebook:

A figure or vignette related to some brave feat of arms, almost hopeless against impossible odds.

A few ideas: A forlorn hope. A heroes assaulting a bunker, trench or fortified position single handed. A wounded soldier covering the retreat of his brothers-in-arms. The last Spanish Tercio square surrounded at Rocroi. The last stand of the Old Guard at Waterloo.

Most of the figures I've painted for Challenge X have been straight out of the tin, as it were. However, plastics give a lot of scope for conversion work, and figures based for urban conflict demand a certain bit of atmosphere.

All of these were based on Renedra's plastic bases. 25mm for individual figures, 60mm for the PTRD team. I sculpted out of greenstuff paving stones, and filled a Warlord oval base for the one figure with the ammo box.

I then created rubble, cutting down the plastic bases some figures came with, chopping up sprues, and applying copious amounts of railroad ballast to make smaller rubble. Then it all got primed.

First up, from the Plastic Soldier Company, I made a PTRD anti-tank rifle team:

This is my absolute favorite of the lot, though the pictures don't really do them justice today. For the Soviet uniform, I used Army Painter Skeleton Bone for the base, then hit it with Games Workshop's Agaros Dunes contrast paint. While the photos do not do them justice, they look like they're straight out of the Osprey book on the Red Army. The helmets are also a lot more work than they look, Vallejo Dark American Green and Reflective Green, then Army Painter's Military Shade. The rubble has at least four or five grays on it, then washed down.

The two additional figures are planned to flesh out a Warlord 50mm mortar team (very useful in Chain of Command). Both are also Plastic Soldier Company figures. I didn't like them until close to the very end, then I did. Painted the same way as the PTRD team.

These are actually Tamiya figures, from their Russian Infantry set. They're later than Stalingrad (you can tell from the banana magazines on the PPSH), and were frankly absolutely no fun to paint. But they look all right now that they're done.

These are 1st Corps resin casualties. I was converted by some of the incredible games I have played with the Jay's Wargaming Madness crew at Kublacon. His games are always a visual spectacle, and they have lots of casualty figures for atmosphere. Since I do a lot of skirmish games, it seemed appropriate.

Last up is a 76-мм полковая пушка обр. 1927 г., or the 76mm regimental gun M1927. This was the standard Russian regimental gun, and served throughout the war, though it was increasingly superceded by the M1943, which put the 76.2mm gun on the same gun carriage as the Russian 45mm. 

As far as I know, Company B is the only firm that makes the M1927. The gun is a great model, though fiddly to put together and comes with no instructions. The crew I am less thrilled with; the helmets are exaggerated, the faces not that great a sculpt, and overall casting was crude. I had a hard time enjoying the paint job, which may explain why I started the challenge with them, and did not finish them until the last day.

So there we go. Eight standing 28mm figures, for 40 points, six prone 28mm figures for 15, and a gun for another 10.

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Soviet close-support artillery in Stalingrad? Yup, that sounds pretty grim to me (only to be exceeded by being German close-support artillery in Stalingrad, now that's last stand). Great job on the little vignettes and basework, Robert. Urahhh Stalino!!!

-Curt