Hasty Attack: Bolt Action - Here come the Yanks.

For a while now, I have played Flames of War (FOW) and little else. Whilst I enjoy FOW, it is time to expand my horizons.

There are a number of things that drew me to BA, the games I have seen look amazing - with beautifully painted figures and well prepared tables. It is a WWII game which is a period I am particularly interested in. The most popular scale is 28mm so presents a new painting challenge. There seems to be a large and healthy community and finally a couple of mates already play it.

My first FOW army was a US Rifle Company assembled many years ago. Starting BA with a US force seemed like a good choice. I started with a Warlord Games US infantry box.

Figure Frame.

My first thought as I cracked open the box was to wonder what I had gotten myself in to. The box was filled with 5 figure frames and 3 weapons frames. There were hundreds of pieces, all to make 25 infantry! However as I consulted the instructions, it didn't seem so daunting. Each frame provided a number of options designed to make a variety of poses with a variety of weapons.

Weapons Frame

The first couple of figures were a bit of a slog. However I quickly got into a rhythm of looking up the instructions and picking the correct arms and weapons for the poses I needed. I assembled an NCO with a Thompson Sub machine gun, 2 men with BARs and 5 GIs with Garand Rifles.

Instruction Sheet.

It has been more than 10 years since I painted a 28mm figure so I did a little research and read some of the excellent articles on the WWPD pages and looked at the amazing pictures on the Australian and New Zealand BA Facebook page to draw inspiration. There are some real gun painters out there. I figured if my figures look half as goods as theirs, I would be doing OK.

Initial Assembly

I chose to use a similar technique that I have used on my FOW figures and borrowed some ideas from what I have seen on the net. After a white undercoat and a base coat, I would hit the models with a strong tone wash before a highlight of the base colour again. Finally, I would do a second highlight with a 70/30 mix of the base colour and VJ Iraqi Sand.

Close up before dull coat.

After some feedback on the Bolt Action Australia and New Zealand Facebook page, I hit the helmets with a lighter dry brush and I think this worked well.