15mm Flytrap Factory US Marines Painted as French

All,

Some more of Anton's Modern Marines from Flytrap Factory.  I told you I can't get enough of these guys! ;)  This will totally crack you up: I had some lying around and wasn't sure what to do with them.  With the small size of most of my games these days I didn't need to simply add them to the desert and temperate MARSOC Raiders I'd done up previously, and I've got plenty of Modern US troops already done up in winter colors/scheme.  What to do? 

Well, I'm really not happy: I would love to do some modern French fighting in Mali/Central African Republic, but I can't find suitable troops.  As near as I can tell, there are only two manufacturers that have 'modern' French troops available, Peter Pig and QRF.  Peter Pig's are good figures but not suitable for Mali; they are sculpted as 1980s/early 90s troops.  QRF's are decent models, but not what I'm looking to use for close-up, skirmish gaming with just a couple figures on the table (I've actually re-based my QRF Modern French, temperate and desert, Flames of War style.  That is, four to a base, and I'm quite happy with the look).  So, dear manufacturers, I need some help!  I need one of the following:

1.  Jimmi from Flashpoint Minis makes the jump into Ultramodern Warfare with his introductory line of Modern French.

2.  Anton from Flytrop takes his Modern Marines and makes some slight alterations (basically just turning M-16s into FAMAS, maybe add some AT-4s, which is a good idea for the US Marines anyway, and perhaps even the French sniper rifle and 51mm mortar) to produce some Modern French.

3.  Martin at Peter Pig takes his Modern Marines and, as mentioned above, makes some alterations to convert them to Modern French.

Please!!!???  I'm begging ya, with tears in my eyes.  For those in the know, how much does it cost to commission someone to put out one pose, and if you do more than one pose, does it get cheaper?

Anyway, let's get to the Modern US Marines that I painted up as Modern French troops, in both desert and temperate uniform/basing.

There's a total of sixteen of these pseudo-Frenchmen; the guy at far left and the guy at center are both painted up as MARSOC Raiders.  The reason for this is: I needed one more grenadier for the French desert troops, and one more SAW for the French temperate troops, so I stole the needed guy from my Raiders and then painted up a rifleman (each) to replace the guy I stole.

So here's the desert replacement MARSOC Raider, a pose I hadn't seen before from Flytrap Factory.  I'm not sure what the deal is on top of the guy's helmet; maybe a Blue-Force Tracker, or a video camera (both things that were being experimented with as I was leaving the Marine Corps in 2004)?

Reverse.

And then the temperate replacement Raider.  He's also got the deal on his helmet.  It helps mark these two as leaders ;)

Reverse.

And now, on to ze French!

A pair of grenadiers for the desert troops.

Reverse, where you get a great look at the big French flags I painted on their sleeves!

And then a pair of grenadiers for the temperate force.  Guy on right is wearing NVGs.

Reverse.

Pair of desert SAW, err, I mean, Minimi gunners.

Reverse.

And the two temperate SAW gunners.

Reverse.

A pair of desert riflemen.

Reverse.  I really wish I had another of the pose at left, but I looked at all the guys I have and this is the only one.  His pack really looks like a medic's pack.

A pair of temperate riflemen.

Reverse.

And the last pair of desert riflemen.

Reverse.

And the last pair of temperate riflemen.  I didn't notice until I was painting them, but if you look closely at these two, they're both wearing helmets that are different (larger and more round, not angled at the bottom like the 'normal' Fritz or follow-on helmets) than everyone else.  The pose is exactly the same as the two desert riflemen in the previous photo, except for the helmet.  Funny.

Reverse.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, those are my pseudo-Modern French, at least for the time being.

One more post to make, then I've documented (pretty much) all of my painting efforts in 2017.  Now I just need to get back to gaming!

V/R,
Jack

15mm Oddzial Ozmy Modern Russians (Temperate)

All,

After years of staring them down on the internet, I finally got my hands on some of OO's beautiful Russian "Green Men," and I must say, they're pretty damn cool!  Great poses and sculpting, the weapons and gear look great.  My only complaint is that they are made out of that same, brittle metal they use on their 3mm figures, so you've gotta be pretty damn careful when removing flash or you'll snap something right off (flash is minimal, by the way).  Anyway, I bought several packs of the riflemen and weapons, then split them in half.  As usual, I'm doing up a desert group and a temperate group; this is the temperate, I haven't finished the desert yet, but will post them once I have.

The 'Green Men,' just for Ivan ;)  Fourteen dudes in temperate uniform and basing.  To keep my life easy I painted them uniformly, but to make my life more difficult, I painted them in camo, rather than just keeping them a simple green color...

First up is a rifleman with AK, sporting some goggles on his helmet.

Another rifleman, moving up.

Another couple rifle poses, with my favorite "let's crouch down and think about this for a moment" pose.

Reverse.  The guy on left is, actually, slightly different than the first pose photographed above.

An RPG team, which is pretty damn cool.  Not too often you see the assistant, with his distinctive pack designed to carry more rockets.

Reverse.

A couple of snipers/designated marksmen.  The guy on the right has the venerable Dragunov, while the guy on the left has the silenced "Vintorez"/VSS.

Again.

Some more support weapons: PK machine gun on left, AK with UGL on right.

Reverse.

Lastly, we have the Boss at left and a rifleman with RPG-22 at right.

Reverse.

So, some pretty damn cool modern troops I need to get on the table.

V/R,
Jack

15mm Flytrap Factory Modern Brits Painted as SAS

All,

More goodies from Anton at Flytrap Factory!  Previously you've seen where I painted up some of his 'new' version Modern British troops, which I did up in Multi-cam.  Well, I had another ten lying around, so I got to work.  I decided to do up a five-man team of SAS types, one in desert/temperate uniform/basing, the other in winter snow uniform/basing.  I haven't finished the winter guys yet, but here's the desert/temperate troops.

The five-man team, in sucky lighting.

The five-man team, in a little less sucky lighting.  Man, it's been cold here (well, cold for Texas), and we haven't seen the sun in a week!

First man up is the team leader.

Reverse.

Next up is the team's grenadier, probably my favorite dude.

Reverse.  I experimented with a lot of different camo techniques on these guys.

The team's SAW gunner.

Reverse.

Riflemen #1.  I really love the camo I did on his trousers, just can't remember which colors I used...

Reverse.

And Rifleman #2.  Busted out the DPM camo trousers for this one!

Reverse.

Pretty damn cool, if ya ask me!  Can't wait to get them on the table.

V/R,
Jack

Battlefront 15mm US Infantry

All,

I recently decided to take on yet another skirmish project, but this one is back in WWII.  I've always wanted to follow a group of dogfaces through WWII, probably following this path: Tunisia-Sicily-Italy-Normandy-Breakout-Hurtgen Forest-Bulge-Into Germany.  I don't know when I'll get this started, I've got way too many projects going on already, plus a really big one planned for 2018, but I'll get to it at some point.  Probably follow a Recon Cavalry Platoon, very small games, like "six dudes and an armored car taking out a German machine gun nest"-type small.  I'd really like to develop the characters, almost to an RPG-type (which I've done a little bit of with my Sword of Gideon blog and my Operation Currahee action for Cuba Libre) level, using Ivan's "Five Men in Normandy" rules.

I've got a jeep, 37mm ATG, halftrack, and M8 armored car for the Americans, a Pz Mk III, halftrack, and Sdkfz 222 armored car for the Germans.  All but the Pz Mk III are from "Gaming Models."  The panzer is a toy from Axis and Allies Miniatures that I painted.  The Battlefront 15mm troops are at bottom; I didn't paint up the whole platoon.  These guys have early war uniforms and are based for Tunisia-Sicily-Italy.  I'll use the remainder of the platoon for 1) winter snow basing, and 2) late war uniforms.

The troops.  I like'em, nice and chunky, but these are really old sculpts, so some of the metal was really brittle (broke a few of them), some of the poses are 'samey,' and some of the detail is a bit soft.  But in the overall scheme of things they work and I dig'em.

The German vehicles.  I need to get them an anti-tank gun.

The American gear.

I also got an LVT from Gaming Models for my WWII Marines.

First up is the Skipper, leading the way with his 1911 drawn.

Reverse.

Rear, with his officer stripe painted on.

Next up we've got a squad leader with a Tommy Gun and the Platoon Sergeant with a Garand.  Seeing this guy I can't help but think of Fess Parker in "Hell is for Heroes":

(top right)

Reverse.  You can see I tried to paint Sergeant's stripes on them.  It doesn't look that crappy in real life...

The bazooka team.

Reverse.

A couple Corporals, one with Tommy Gun.

Reverse.

A rifleman and BAR gunner.

Reverse.  And then there are a bunch of rifle poses:

And so there you go, more guys for yet another project.  Just need to find some time to get them on the table.  And I always have a hard time coming up with skirmish scenarios for Tunisia, so any ideas are welcome!

V/R,
Jack