Wednesday, 18 February 2026

From BillA: The Ever-Glorious Workers' and Peasants' Red Army! (70 points)

Inspired by MarkG and DaveD's exemplary efforts this Challenge, I've begun work on my own set of Copplestone figures for the Back of Beyond. I've admired these figures for a long time, and in 2024 I started buying quite a number of them with an eye towards...something, gamewise, with the Back of Beyond? I've quite enjoyed reading histories about the region and its conflicts in the Interwar years, but whether or not I can translate that into something on the table (the various local wargamers who'll touch historicals at all, unfortunately, believe historical wargaming begins and ends with WWII). I did two packs of White infantry and an artillery piece over the course of 2025, and primed a couple packs' worth of Bolsheviks, Chinese and some Cossack cavalry ahead of the AHPC this year. So to start off, here's a dozen Bolsheviks:


This is one pack of Bolshevik infantry, and I decided to try some different things paint-wise with these, since I'd treated myself to Mark Hargreaves' painting guide last year, and used more washes than I usually do - predominantly Army Painter Soft Tone. Tunics I did all the same, but there's a total of four different colors used for trousers (two browns, two greens), and the rolled greatcoats are done in two different shades of dark gray, one warmer and one cooler. 



Accompanying them are a Commissar and one of Mark Copplestone's wonderfully characterful Bolshevik Heroines, sporting a Mauser C96 broomhandle. The Commissar was given a black leather jacket in my usual way - Reaper's "Coal Black" highlighted with "Midnight Blue," which was also used on all the boots. He's also got a heck of a lot of character to him, with that exaggerated yell he's got going on. I might have gone a little bright on his teeth! 



Finally, I've got a set of objective tokens to go with my Maya, and they're a grisly set indeed - three piles of severed heads, produced by Acheson Creations as single-piece resin castings. These were painted pretty quickly and intended to look like putrefaction had set in - a base coat of Reaper's "Ghoul Skin," washed with GW Druchii Violet, and then drybrushed heavily with another layer of "Ghoul Skin" followed by "Moldy Skin." They're on a raised integral base that's been glued to a 40mm Renedra round base, and are probably pretty close to 28mm tall overall. 


That's 12 28mm figures, for 60 points, plus whatever my illustrious minion considers the head-piles to be worth. And I'll claim a Squirrel point for "Back of Beyond," bringing me up to 5 (Maya, Modern Horror, Modern Africa, Dinosaurs, and now BoB).

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Sylvain: Very colorful figurines indeed, both in palette and in character. I find your collecting choices very interesting because I'm a big fan of Corto Maltese, a graphic novel character created by Hugo Pratt, who had adventures in the back of beyond, among other places. As for your heaps of heads, how about 10 points for the three of them for a total of 70 points? Fabuleux!

 

 

15 comments:

  1. Great work Bill! I too find DaveD's RCW work to be alluring, so I'm glad I'm not the only one tempted - and encouraged to see others falling in!

    And those are grisly markers indeed...piles of "Kulak" heads, one assumes...

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    1. Thank you! The headpiles work across a broad range of history, to be sure!

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  2. Great stuff Bill. You’re adding to BoB temptations

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    1. Thanks! It's an easy setting to want to get involved in, that's for certain!

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  3. Be the pathfinder-I have drifted to early war from ww2 not quite able to drift further but quite simply tigers and panthers being pummelled by the allied total industry output but on the table freed of that liability so pummelling Sherman’s - it all becomes quite repetitive. Great painting and thanks for the story of how you did it.

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    1. Thank you! I spent all last year trying to build local interest in any sort of wargaming - historical, scifi, fantasy, etc - that wasn't Bolt Action or tournament 40K, without much luck.

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  4. RCW seems so popular these days and is definitely catching my eye - the colour variations you've introduced work very well

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  5. A great start to your BOB forces! WWI or earlier 'modern' forces can be fun at the squad or company level. For my old group it was a nice change from the WWII battles. That said all models were provided and others just showed up to game.

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  6. Great work, Bill. Aren't those Copplestone minis great to work with? I hope you can get some games in with your group in order to broaden their horizons. Get a couple of the whacky armoured cars, that should peak their interest. :)

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    1. I love Copplestone figures, but I'm hoping Nick at North Star arranges for the molds to be refreshed sometime soon - they're definitely showing their age and the amount of excess material I need to clean off mold lines and casting defects seem to be rising with each new pack I purchase.

      Armored cars are on the list! I might aim for putting on a participation game at a localish one-day show in 2027; my 2026 plans are already filled with the Maya!

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  7. I'm enjoying all this BoB stuff. The heads are ghoulish.

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  8. Oh my - not sure this tidal wave of great BoB won't overwhelm me and make me dip into the period. Great work!

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  9. Great work Bill and I free the cobblestone minis are excellent.

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