15mm Private Military Contractors

All,

I recently watched the movie "13 Hours," regarding the attacks on the US Special Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi, Libya, on 11 September 2012.  While I found the movie a bit depressing and very frustrating, I was also inspired for a bit of wargaming.  Not likely a replay of the events that day, I tend to stay away from real life stuff, but something close, historical fiction inspired by reality, if you will.  For that matter, I've also recently had an eye towards the movies "Lone Survivor" and "Tears of the Sun" for the same purposes.

In any case, I had a yearning to paint up some modern PMCs, and so I began perusing figures I've got lying around.  I came close to using some Peter Pig Modern USMC or Modern Israelis, but neither seemed to fit the bill.  But then I gave another look to some Eureka Modern Australians I had lying around and thought, "ya know, those might work."  Well, let me know what you think; did they work?

A small, 6-man team of contractors, or maybe even Special Operations guys, in civilian attire with military weapons and gear, based up to work for desert and temperate climes.

The first operator, a grenadier moving forward.  As these are Australians, the weapon is an F-88 (Steyr Aug) with attached grenade launcher.  While the Steyrs aren't typical for PMCs, I figure the black weapon with all the various attachments can fit for pretty much any UGL in 15mm.

Reverse.  I really love these poses; they are very dynamic, realistically proportioned, very well rounded, and the gear looks great.

One more look.

The next guy, a kneeling grenadier.

Reverse.

One more.

The next guy, with a SAW (or, for Australians, a Minimi).

Reverse.

Again.  Here you can see I painted on brackets for the NVGs on the front of each helmet (this one is desert yellow as he has a dark colored helmet, while the rest of men have black brackets).  I also painted on battery packs on the back of each helmet.  The only problem with using these guys is the helmets are very big for what you usually see on PMCs.

The next guy, another SAW gunner.  You can see my 6-man team is very heavily armed.

Reverse.

Again.

The next man up is 'just' an ordinary rifleman...

Toting a 66mm LAW rocket.

One more.  Not sure why this photo is so washed out...

Last up is the Boss, taking a knee and providing direction to his men.  He carries a rifle.

Reverse.

And one more, coming right at ya.

Well, that's the team, let me know if you think they look alright as PMCs.  Not sure when these guys will see the table; I've got plenty going on already and nothing really planned for them.  I've got another post to make with my GHQ microarmor for WWII East Front, and then I've got two batreps to post.  Number one is the boy and I played our first WWII East Front game (the campaign will be called 'Panzer Aces'), and then I played the fourth game of Royal Marines in Afghanistan.  But...  for the first time ever I had camera/computer problems and I lost some pictures.  Twenty-eight pictures, to be exact.  Somehow I took and downloaded the first twenty pictures, lost twenty-eight, and then downloaded the last picture.  There's no way I'm going to post the batrep without those pics, so it looks like I'll be going back upstairs to recreate the fight from my notes and take pictures.  Doesn't sound like much fun...

V/R,
Jack