From BruceR - BEF moving forward (165 points)

For this week I finished the BEF troopers I had worked on last week, but could not finish without basing material.  

These include an AT gun and crew, a squad of infantry, another light mortar, a medium machine gun with crew, an Lt. and an NCO.  Again, these are Crusader miniatures and chunky means easier to paint.  

I'm not done (is any project ever just done) as I have two squads done with LMG's prior to the challenge that need highlighting and basing yet.  Once done I will have a force to play Chain of Command with these boys.  

AT gun support

MMG support.  I will have to steal from the AT gun
 or paint more crew to keep the gun firing for Chain  of Command

a Second light mortar

Squad of Tommie's

This weeks crew

I remembered I also had some trucks and armor support (if you can call it that) these are 3d prints I picked up at Adepticon last year so another milestone as getting them done prior to this year's ACon.  They are from Sherwood Games and called Tina's Tiny Tanks.  

I find trucks add to the scene even if not used and here one can use them to haul troops or the AT gun.  The trucks are Austin Tilly Light Utility Vehicles and the tank is a Vickers Mk VIb.  

The price beat the heck out of Warlord Games and I didn't have to build them.

I had not done any vehicles for a long time and enjoyed the break.  

I based coated these with my airbrush, a dark forest green.  I picked up a system from a blog years ago of using Burnt Umber oil paint, cut with white spirits, and then wiped away with Q-tips.  This leaves a really gritty looking field vehicle, which I like, as no vehicle is clean unless sitting in a museum or the motor pool waiting for inspection.  I than used a makeup brush to add a lighter green in open areas of the vehicles.  Added some decals I had in a bin and did a very light dry brush along the edges.  

I did try a new version of a windscreen I came across for the Tilly's.  This uses speed paints and starts with a black base and subsequent lighter greys added leaving a bit of the previous color showing.  Then wash with blue speed paint.  Add a white dot to corners of the window for glare.  I had left the backs and rolled up canvas black and then decided to depict light shining through, so I used the same procedure without the white dot.  

The markings research was a little sparse.  I did find they simply 
had white squares as force designators. 

I also discovered a force list indicating the use of the Vickers
Mk VIb as a reconnaissance vehicle for the 7 RTR.  I also read 
they would name their tanks in the same troop with the same first
 letter.  Something to learn every day.  

Tillys

Troopers for size comparison.

Points:  Not sure if the MMG counts as a crew served weapon for points and the trucks are somewhat small (Tina's Tiny Tanks/Trucks) so I'll leave that up to Greg.  

17 troopers 28mm @ 5                         =  85 pts

AT gun and MMG @10                        =  20 pts

3 28mm vehicles @20                           =  60 pts

Total                                                       = 165 pts

Weather update for the North.  We have moved into the 40 degree Fahrenheit range, meaning we had a 90 degree swing from last week to this.  I'm off to warmer climates this week so will not submit anything next week.   

Stay safe and keep a stiff upper lip.  Bruce

***

Great work Bruce. Excellent to see further progress on this project, but you are quite correct - no collection is ever truly "done", and it is heretical to suggest otherwise!

I am not much of an early-war WW2 gamer myself - I do tend to prefer the "real" tanks of the mid and later period. And besides, I was spoiled, as Dallas has an amazing early WW2 collection and so I have been able to enjoy some tremendous games in that setting. But I still enjoy the efforts of others, always causing me to reconsider this preference...

Your troops and crew look excellent, both for the door-knocker AT gun and MMG. The vehicles are very fine as well, and another great example of what can be achieved by the 3D printing folks out there (thank goodness for them!). Those vehicles may be "small" by the standards of what we know to be coming later, but I'm still counting them as 28mm vehicles. 165 points it shall be!

Enjoy your time off, and may your travels be safe!

GregB