Empress Miniatures – M2A3 Bradley BUSKIII conversion wip 2

Empress Bradley update/conversion …

Just a small update showing off the new 3D printed air-con units (courtesy of Jason) and a little more detailing (various lift handles and the re-positioned rear M2 variant periscopes). Only really the fans to install plus a couple of lift points I missed then it’s ready for paint.

Q

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And managed to delete a the post before this while posting the above above update …. because of “reasons” … ie incompetence.
So here’s most of it reposted, hopefully.

Bradley M2A3 BuskIII wargaming conversion using the Empress (ex Imprint) Bradley M3A2 ODS as a base. Settled on using Laser cut acrylic for the ERA blocks (6mm) so as to get them more repeatable and consistent and pretty pleased with how the worked out to be honest.

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And some useful Bradley ref pics of various M2 and M3 A2s and 3s with BUSK kits. Also included are a couple of non Busk tracks (one a nice BFIST) in Nato with Tan accessories . Pics are from open web sources and included for discussion purposes only.

Bradley Fighting Vehicle drives off range.
CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE SPEICHER, Iraq – Infantrymen from 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Advise and Assist Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, drive their M2A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle off of Memorial Range after zeroing the 25mm main gun and M240B machine gun during a live fire exercise in support of Operation New Dawn near Contingency Operating Base Speicher, Iraq, July 29, 2011.
(U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Quentin Johnson, 2nd AAB PAO, 1st Cav. Div., USD – N)

Iraqi Freedom

And intermediate detailing progress ….

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Tamiya 1/48th Panther and Wargaming vehicle roundup

Just some wargaming tat ……..

A mix of 1/48th (Mostly Tamiya) vehicles completed for wargaming use and now mainly being used for Bolt Action. Various styles but primarily all in my older and darker finish. Just posted for a bit of fun but it makes me want to pick up and paint a few more, especially now I can improve on some things. Heck maybe even push them around over the fur table as well 🙂

Its probably easier just to list those that aren’t Tamiya ….. so all are Tamiya except;
– The Wespe and Opel Maultier are Bandai
– The Opel Blitz’s’ are some unknown Chinese diecast off E-Bay
– The lone M4A3 76(W) Sherman is from Hobbyboss
– There’s a Skybow Tiger1 late
– And the 3 SdKfz251 SPWs are from WGNZ, the only vehicles (along with the Blitz’s)
that aren’t really kits (just 12 parts)

cheers
Brent

FIRE TEAM – Russian Federation Ground Forces Infantry – Empress Miniatures Modern Russians 28mm

Back from the dead …….

It seems like another apology for an unforced absence is in order. 2015 started well but during the later half I struggled with various health issues that made modelling at best uncomfortable and when at worst – impossible. At present I’m back at the table and trying to catch up firstly and most importantly on commissions that are now very delayed and after those then hopefully to get back into some of our own projects.

Fortunately my brothers been picking up some slack on our modern Fire Team project and here’s some of that result, 28mm Russian Federation Infantry from Empress Miniatures, along with a few packs and simple conversions from their older Cold War range. The later figures are in the new Ratnik (Warrior) uniform system featuring new LBE, Coms and Armour Protection systems which have comparable levels of performance to those systems more commonly seen in Western Nations.  After being issued primarily to elite troops for trials the Ratnik system is now being rolled out to first line units with around 80,000 sets having recently been deployed.
Q

 

References and Painting

To go with the latest “Ratnik” uniforms the troops have been painted in the summer variant of the Russian pixelated camouflage. The “digital” style camo system was introduced around 2008 and is known as EMR or unified camo (as used by all armed forces) and the pattern is often called Tsifra, Tetris or “Digital Flora.” The other various colour combinations commonly used include Northern, Winter and Urban patterns.

We painted the figs to get an impression of the pattern rather than detailing the individual dots and used the following colours;

Coat d arms: Russian green for uniform
Coat d arms: Black Green for digital spots
Coat d arms: Panzer grey for weapons, gloves and some(little) for digital spots
GW: Tallarn flesh and elf flesh blend/highlight with gryphone sepia wash for faces
Any yellow paint and several layers of sepia wash for lens of glass goggles
Vallejo: Iraqi sand for drybrush dust – use lightly and very dry…

Useful Ref Pics …….

SABOT – Fur Gaming table

Teddy Bear Fur Gaming Table ….

As mentioned several times in posts about our gaming we recently picked up the fur we’ve been looking for to upgrade our gaming table. Craig (my brother and partner in gaming madness) managed to scam some time off work and as I’m still been too sick to do any sort of modelling, came up to stay and under my direction trimmed and joined our fur, managing to create both a useful gaming faux grass matt and a large family sized throw rug.

First steps involved trimming the fur down, removing the artsie-white bleached ends and getting it down to more of a scale length. For the trimming we used a trusty Wahl Chrome Pro (TM) hair trimmer which I must say performed the task admirably. The fur was trimmed roughly in one direction then cross cut and scummbled in the opposite direction to remove both the residual white and any pattern shaved into the surface. A vacuum was used to pull the trimmings off the blade as it cut and frequent stops were made to oil, clean the blade and cool the motor down. We were so impressed with the cutters performance that we contacted Wahl with a glowing testimonial to use in their advertising in exchange for some gaming sponsorship funds but so far haven’t had a reply. Joking aside it has ground, self sharpening blades and a heavy duty motor, both features that I suspect kept it cutting over the 4 days of shaving and from bursting into bright and hot flame ….

There’s still some touching up of the join area required and I may yet still cut some random sections down a little lower to add some more variety but basically we’re pretty happy with the result. Of note also during the project we pioneered a new system of extremely useful and versatile measurement, the Craig. We measured the length of the fur mat and indeed our cutting progress in “Craigs”, with approx 7m being equal to 3-3/4 Craigs. Imagine our quiet surprise when we realised that the “Craig” can be used to measure everything from the height of rooms to the length of the driveway – all very useful for planning future home improvement projects.

The “Craig” (pat pending) measurement system in action …

Q

New Gaming Table goodness …….

FIRE TEAM – 28mm Modern Skirmish wargaming

Rules testing ….

A few pics from a recent 28mm Modern Skirmish game being used for playtesting one of our rule sets. Nothing too fancy as it was more to test concepts and to make sure our WW2 rules would work (with the necessary adjustments) in a modern setting. Anyway it was a chance to push around some of my vehicles with my brothers figures and on his cracking Afghanistan / Middle Eastern terrain.

The game was actually the second in a series, the first being an ambush conducted against a UK Infantry patrol. This game featured US Special Forces called in to bring some heavy firepower to bear on the fortified compound located in the first game.

Vehicles are MATVs by Empress and a 1/48th M1A1 by Gasoline (M1A2 converted to USMC)
Figures are Special Forces by Empress and the “Insurgents” are mostly Empress with some Radio Dishdash.

enjoy
Q