Going Pro in Modern Africa ... 15mm Western Mercenaries

For my modern Africa games, I wanted the stands to easily note the quality of the troops.  I decided on 4 militia to a base, 3 regulars, and 2 for professional/elite troops.  I also attempted to give the mercenaries an orderly look, but with small individualism between the figures.  This is the look I was attempting.

Note the variation in weapons, and slight differences in gear.

These are 15mm Rebel Minis Contractors.  They are more towards 18mm, but look great mixed with the true 15mm Peter Pig stands.

The rest are various lines of Peter Pig miniatures.

Some French Foreign Legion in berets - these were by far my favorite figures of the entire lot that I painted.

 

Here is a crazy close up.

No hat in this red-haired fellow.

The group picture.

I will post up the sniper team and HMG teams next week.

MIG-15 Card for African Gruntz

I decided to make an attempt at incorporating a MIG-15 into African Gruntz.  I really wanted to simulate strafing runs, with a chance of being deterred or even shot down by anti-aircraft fire.  I think this should work, it is limited use and should add another interesting element to the game.  I also updated the African Gruntz cards that I have already made, fixing mistakes that I have found.

Here is the card.

The Mig during a strafing run in a game!

I love the smell of napalm in the morning ... 15mm Aérospatiale LAMA Heliopter

I finished this helicopter to use in my Modern Africa games.  Now it is an Aérospatiale Alouette II Heller Kit, but I wanted some guns or rockets on it, so I added the rocket pods.  The HAL Lancer is a variant on the Aérospatiale LAMA, so that was what I attempted to build.

Here is the kit.

Here is the actual helicopter.

I will say that it is very light, which is nice in building a flight stand.  The problem is that it is a model, which means fragile, not to be touched, etc.  I broke it in three places, just attempting to paint it.  I ended up having to magnetize the blades after I broke them off.

Here is the finished kit.  I should have left the cockpit detached to paint on its own, but this was a bit of a learning process for me.

Size comparison.

The flight stand, a little over nine inches of acrylic rod in a wine cork, glued to a washer.

Here is the finished product.

A detailed shot of the base.  It has 2 large washeres for weight under the cork.

Blue background with some infantry.

Landed, with some mercenaries.

Here it is broken down into its components.

Here is the African Gruntz card.  We will see how the stats work out.

Keep on Truckin ... 15mm Truck with ZPU-1 & DShK

I finished up a 15mm flatbed truck.  I think it is a 2.5 ton Old Glory miniature with a Peter Pig ZPU-1 team, and a Battlefront DShK.  I added caps to the crew so they fit in with the Peter Pig Hardened Militia that I have already painted.  I also added the DShK and made a few extra boxes of ammo for the ZPU-1.

Here is what I was attempting to create.

Here are the finished conversions.

Here is the truck without weathering.  I primed black, airbrushed a base coat of brown, built up the desert look.  Here are the paints I used.

Here is the weathered look.

Here is the final product.

  Working on a helicopter, and I still need to get a post with the professionals.

Here is the Gruntz Africa card.

15mm Modern Africa with Gruntz

We play in a group that usually has 5-8 participates in an evening.  We need to get everyone a command, finish in three hours, and have fun.  This means a convention style game every Thursday and finding rule sets that fit these parameters can be a challenge.  We attempted Force on Force, it was fun but seemed to bog down with the number of commands we need.  Are latest effort was using Gruntz, where each stand represented 1 Grunt.  We had a lot of fun and the game worked well for our group.  I think the Baron will put up a battle report on his blog.   I spent of bunch of time making new stat cards, so here they are.  Note I made these in Photoshop, and they are supposed to be 2.5" x 3.5" and that is how they look in MS Word, but here they seem a bit bigger.

Militia

I did many Google image searches to find the various pictures, I liked the Congo rebel wearing the wig, smoking, with a slung RPG the most of anything I found.

 

    On the 2nd African Militia card, I added a Perk.

 

 

 

Regulars

 

 

Professionals

 

The sniper team has two perks, I am hoping we can read the small text during the game.

 

 

And last some extras.  The transport is universal and I have not painted a T-55 yet, so it was just an experiment in playing with the values to see if a tank would work in the game.

I am sure there are errors in there somewhere, but it is better than what the online Gruntz card generator could give me.  My professionals are done and I am working on some Land Rovers and a large flatbed truck.