Warlord Games M3A1 Half Track Plastic Kit

I recently got my hands on a pair of these.  I hurredly opened one, assembled it, sprayed it quick with Grey Primer, hit it with some Light Green Camo paint from the spray can, washed it with thinned down Olive Drab, did some black edging, and painted the driver.

less than 2 hours of work:

Gaming on a Budget - Part 2

I opened the Minwax then stuck the minis on the end of my custom drill bit, consisting of blu-tack and washers.  I dipped the Miniatures fully in the minwax and spun then out in a box to get the excess off.

Here is what they look like straight out of the Minwax.  I put a base colored model next to them to show you that the Minwax will change the color slightly of whatever you are putting in it.

So now I have all 4 AT rifles and the scout squad painted and dipped and they are dry and ready for basing.

Using sand that I found in the alley behind my house from all the washouts and rain, I collected it and put it in a container.

Then I cut up a couple old plastic sprue remnants and put them in a cup to use as debris, as this is a Stalingrad based army.

Applying white glue to the bases, I stuck bits of the sprues on the base and I took an old CAT5E cable and used the sheathing to make broken pipe looking debris and took the wire and added it to the bases.

TBC!!!!!

Gaming on a Budget

I created this entry into my Blog mostly to show new people that miniature war gaming does not have to be intimidating nor expensive to get into.


I saw these on sale over Easter at $12.95 a box on Wargames Factory's website.  That's 31 miniatures for $13, quite a steal.

I was not planning on a new army, but my buddy was interested in playing and could not "afford" to play the game.  I picked up two of these boxes to form the core of the forces.

I went to work on Armybuilder (http://www.wolflair.com) and plugged in what I thought I could use out of these two boxes.  I used the Stalingrad Theater Selector and came out with this list:

Battle of Stalingrad August - November 1942 List

Reinforced Platoon, 371 pts
Senior Lieutenant (SMG; Great Patriotic War)
Soldier  (SMG x1; Great Patriotic War)

11 Light Machine Gun Squad (LMG x1; Rifle x10; Great Patriotic War; Team)
1 NCO (SMG)

11 Light Machine Gun Squad (LMG x1; Rifle x10; Great Patriotic War; Team)
1 NCO (SMG)

7 Assault Engineer Squad, 179 pts (Flamethrower x1; SMG x4; Rifle x2; Body Armour; Flamethrower; Great Patriotic War; Team)
1 NCO (SMG; Body Armour)

6 Scout Squad, 119 pts (SMG x6; Behind Enemy Lines; Great Patriotic War; Scouts)
1 NCO (SMG)

11 Free Rifle Squad, 0 pts (Rifle x11; Molotov Cocktails; Great Patriotic War; Green; Tank Hunter)
1 NCO (Rifle; Molotov Cocktails; Tank Hunter)

Sniper Team, 65 pts (Sniper Rifle; Great Patriotic War; Sniper; Team)
Sniper Team, 65 pts (Sniper Rifle; Great Patriotic War; Sniper; Team)

Anti-Tank Rifle Team, 39 pts (Anti-Tank Rifle; Great Patriotic War; Team)
Anti-Tank Rifle Team, 39 pts (Anti-Tank Rifle; Great Patriotic War; Team)
Anti-Tank Rifle Team, 39 pts (Anti-Tank Rifle; Great Patriotic War; Team)
Anti-Tank Rifle Team, 39 pts (Anti-Tank Rifle; Great Patriotic War; Team)

Commissar, 15 pts (Pistol; Great Patriotic War; Not One Step Back)

Medic Team, 30 pts (Pistol; Great Patriotic War; Medic)

Total List Cost: 1000
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This used all the models in the boxes save for two, but I needed to get 4 AT Rifle Teams.   I looked at my old standby, www.blacktreedesign.com and picked up a pair of 2 AT Rifle Teams for $6.29 (35% off at the time) for $12.58

So there, I got my entire list bought for a tad under $39.  What a deal.

So after about 5 days, the army arrived at my house.

I got busy assembling the various infantry squads and teams.

I used some green stuff (you can use automotive putty which is way cheaper and you get a ton more) and even sculpted some body armor on the engineer models and I created a custom flamethrower out of a rifle and a pieces of the sprue.  The wire was from a CAT5 cable that was scrap left over at work.

I had a plan at this point to go extremely thifty on this project and bought nothing except Wal-Mart Brand Apple Barrel Acrylic paints and Wal-Mart Daler - Rowney paintbrushes to paint them with.

I also picked up a can of Minwax Polyshades Antique Walnut Wood stain to "Dip" the miniatures in when I was done.

Now when using Minwax Antique Walnut, you need to use a shade lighter paint color as it will tend to darken the colors you use for your miniatures.  I chose a light green color called Lime Tree to paint the basic uniform colors for the Soviets. I have painted another set of soviets for a friend using a khaki base, but there are a range of colors for the soviet uniforms, so I went with a green tone on this army.

Here you can see me starting to apply the base color of the uniform to the models.

I have completed base coating all the models in the army with the color, I have started to focus on the veteran scout squad and apply the jigsaw camo on them.

Here are the same guys 1 color applied to each section.  Basically ready to go into the Minwax.

To be continued!!!!!!