New Recruits Arrive - 15mm QRF Russians

Thanks to a wonderful net buddy, I am now 64 15mm Russians richer. This gent, kind enough to send me these troops for the price of shipping, has given me a big push into getting the 15mm version of Alcovia going.

While I wait for Eureka and, hopefully, Pole Bitwy get their 15mm modern Russians and Chechens out, I'm planning on painting these cold War era Russians as the sorts of second line troops that make up the bulk of the rebel army in the Alcovian civil war. A few simple conversions should also close the generational gap, but as Alcovia is certainly not Russia, it is easy to imagine they still have some older gear around. Heck, even Russia doesn't have its whole army modernized.

As reward for his kind donation to the cause, I shall be converting a command figure into the donater's likeness as the rebel commander Jonaz Keprozchi (a play on the fellow's real name).

So, thank you to the kind soul who sent the new recruits!

-Eli

Sneak Peak at New 15mm Modern Russians From Eureka Miniatures

While cruising around looking for information on 15mm modern Russians and following up on Eureka's 300 Club project for the same, I stumbled across a blog by an Australian gent called "Wargaming With Barks". Imagine my delight when he had posted pictures of the majority of the range.

Traditional Helmets

Sphera Helmets

While I won't be so crass as to pull all the images off of his blog and re-post them here, I have nicked one simage to post above. Please visit his blog to see the rest and get the full story.

I did ask if he knew how long it would be before we would see these released and he said he believed they were about two months out. I emailed Nic Robson at Eureka to ask, but he is away at Salute and I'll have to wait until he gets back for a direct answer. It's also worth a quick note that in addition to the extensive range of Modern Russians we are also going to see Chechens released near or at the same time. 

Looks like 15mm Alcovia is about to get A LOT easier.

In the meantime, and because I want to make use of these figures to their fullest, I'll be converting some existing minis to militia minis. Most of these are Peter Pig AK-47 and Old Glory NVA figures that I'veh ad languishing about for a bit. I might even be able to mix a few of my Old Glory Vietnam era U.S. Troops as it seems that a fair number of American assault rifles seem to make it into the hands of modern European militias. In fact, whole caches of US arms turned up in raids in Chechnya.

-Eli

New Troops for Alcovia

  
Well I've ditched the Elhiem Afghanistan VDV in helmets - looked like they were wearing potato sacks plus SS covered helmets. Some of the bayonets weren't properly moulded whihc resulted in the foresight on AKs missing. This after my previous order where the figures had a 'drop' cast shiny look, soft details and one of the Americans was missing a leg from knee down. Can't be arsed with them any more.

Good news though is that Shaun at S&S Models is remoulding and re-releasing his 1980's Russian Motor Rifles and will be available for sale shortly. He kindly sent me samples of both and despite these minis being 15 plus years old, the detail of the sculpting is incredibly good. I started sculpting myself this week and these have definitely raised the bar.

The Motor Rifles and VDV are 23mm sole to the eye and are slightly taller than Rolf's Liberation Minis but on a par with Bill's Ultra-Modern Russians at Under Fire Miniatures.

The S&S Motor Rifles ooze character. They have a helmet that could pass for the dome helmet, body armour and in many cases chest rigs. In fact, these guys are perfect fodder for Alcovia.

You can see them 'in action' in The Escape Committee's game here at SALUTE 2011.

S&S Models 'tank/BMP' riders

Shaun is a real gent. Email him at Sales@sandsmodels.com for a full set of pricelists.

Cheers
Mark

New AK armed Modern Militia from S&S Models

Shaun at S&S Models will shortly be releasing a pack of 10 militiamen in berets and body armour with AK47.

 Look like they would be perfect for manning the roadblocks in Ivica. You can see more pictures on the Ambush Alley Games forum.

Cheers
Mark

война миниатюры игры

After a fruitless weekend trying to work out how I could make a regular army squad out of the packs currently available from Under Fire Miniatures - and I'm talking combat poses here, not just milling around eating the Russian version of Chicken Supreme rats straight out of the tin or texting the girlfriend on the mobile - I decided to call it quits and bring my handful of remaining (30 years old?) Platoon 20 Modern Russian Motor Rifles up to full platoon strength.

Placed my order with Platoon 20 on the webstore late Sunday night, got an email from Tony on Monday to say they'd been despatched and today, Tuesday, I have them on my kitchen table.

These Platoon 20 miniatures are excellent in their own way. I may have a soft spot for them, but they arrived very well moulded, crisply detailed, no flash, practically nothing in the way of mould seams and are by far superior to the originals that I bought a lifetime ago now. 

The KLMK hooded camouflage oversuit worn by the figures is still fine for modern operations. The M60 (M40) helmet is a little anarchronistic but I may be able to make an impression of the new 6B7 with some Green Stuff if I deem it worth the effort. The M60 proxies for the M68 but this being Alcovia the older pattern M60 helmet is certainly not out of place. There's probably warehouses full of them in Byzerk left over from Cold War Soviet occupation forces.

I also included several packs of Modern Soviet Paras with my order. One pack is destined to have heads swopped with the Motor Rifles, but the rest will become hardened Alcovian milita.

Let me recommend M-SM12 Paratooper Support Weapons (RPK, RPG16) and Command - it's worth buying on it's own. Either as an 'ambush' pack OR simply because the Para BMD crewman/NCO walking with AKSU74 (photo on the left, painted by Mark Griffin) makes a beautifully arrogant militia leader and his buddy firing his AKSU74, is a perfect bodyguard figure.

I already own a few Platoon 20 East German Paras in berets. These will now become nasty Alcovian militia types. The plan is to add a pack of P-DDR6 East German Para Support Weapons with my next order to Tony to beef up their firepower.

So there we have it. Seriously nice figures. A very welcome blast from the past plus some useful additions to my Alcovian forces.

Cheers
Mark

Under Fire Miniatures: Modern Russians

Contacted Bill at Under Fire Miniatures earlier this week regarding his range of Ultra Modern Russians.

Georgians in 'Fritz' helmets are in the pipeline and more Russians in 'combat' poses will be available later in the year.

Under Fire's Russians are 1/72 rather than what I would recognise as '20mm'. They are a good half to full head taller than RH Models/Liberation Miiniatures and similar ranges. The figure's heads themselves are smaller which gives the figures a more gangly look about them. Still, some good posing if lacking in 'warry' poses. The 6B7-1L helmet looks particularly good but the faces on the guys with 'OMON' helmets can lack detail.

I bought a pack each of ModRus7 (Mortar and AT14 ATGM) and ModRus8 (SPG-9 Recoiless Rifle and AGS-17 Plamya automatic grenade launcher) all lovely models and each weapon is a kit in it's own right.I felt these could stand alone regardless of minis I end up using.

Like Winter of '79, what was supposed to be a discrete project is growing arms and legs. Again like Winter of '79, my initial intention was to use Combat Miniatures (ex-Hotspur) from Stonewall Figures as the principal protagonists but have been let down in both cases by the poor casting of the miniatures.

Under Fire Miniatures have all been well cast and I like the clean lines of the sculpting - what Craig at Critical Mass Games would call a "painters' miniature". Ideally I'd like to see the range increase with a mix of weapons for both standard troopers and MVD/OMON to allow me to build a full platoon before I would seriously consider these for more than fireteam sized skirmishes.

Cheers
Mark

Possible Command Team

No-one produces a true command team for Ultra Moderns. Rolfs got a pack planned thanks to Eli, but in the meantime I thought this pair of Under Fire Miniatures Ultra-Modern Russians on the right might make a nice command vignette:

What about the civvie on the left? Converted to hold a shotgun or baseball bat in each hand, resting on his shoulders, a la Vinnie Jones and he's perfect for Winter of '79 or as a Zombie hunter.

Cheers
Mark

Focus on Factions

I'd like to bring some focus to collecting figures for Alcovia.  Whilst I aim to broadly follow Eli's thoughts on the troops for each of the different factions, I think I'll wait till I get them on the table before pinning a monicker to any particular figures.

The standard selection of Russian hardware will naturally remain pretty much standard fare throughout, - AKs, RPKs, RPGs, etc. and the uniforms will of course have a Russian and East European / former Warsaw Pact feel.

The National Alcovian Army (NAA) will have a more uniform look than the Alcovian People's Army (APA) forces, who will be more of a mixed bag. Local village volunteers will have Eli's favourite BYOG (bring your own gun) look.

The Alcovian Liberation Front (ALF), all militias and militants, perfect for displaying the ethnic diversity of Alcovia will be a hodge podge of figures, probably best defined as "Have AK47. Will travel"

Organisation? Always a tricky one - luckily the recent acquisition of Battlefield Evolution: Modern Combat helps here. The NAA and APA will be organised as per the Russian List and ALF after the Middle Eastern Alliance. At least to start and we'll take it from there.

Cheers

Mark

Coming To Alcovia

It's a real pleasure to join Alcovia at such a momentous, if turbulent time in this small states history. It is going to be fun bringing to life on the tabletop epsiodes from the struggle for control of Alcovia.

At a recent wargames show my mate Maff picked up a platoon of Combat Miniatures (ex-Hotspur) Russians in 'tropical' hat for me. I was always impressed by Tim's Cold War Russians on Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog and couldn't resist the offer to turn these into Alcovian Motor Rifles. These 'hatties' are rounded out with some of Tony's Platoon 20 Modern Russians/CIS in helmets. I've had these Platoon 20 Motor Rifles and VDV since the 1980's and it's a great opportunity to finally get them into action.

My original intention was to buff out the Alcovian rebel forces using the rif raff available from Rolf's extensive range of Liberation Miniatures (RH Models) Cold War/Modern Russian and Balkan Wars figures. However yesterdays release of Wartime Miniatures ultra-modern Russians in a mix of helmets, 'ranger caps' and bandanas made me take a step back and go with these new minis instead.  So a platoon's worth is winging it's way to me to check out .

Wartime Miniatures: MRO4

Modern Russian Support Pack

Under Fire Miniatures have added to the muddle. They also recently released ultra-modern Russians. Fired up by the ultra-nationalist Russian missions in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, both Maff and I bought these based on the photos, only to find that they are very leggy and a whole head taller than other 20mm modern figures. Nevertheless, our idea is for them to be Russian special forces ensuring the integrity and stability of the Alcovian-Russian border through the odd cross-border 'police action'.

Platoon 20, Wartime & Under Fire Miniatures have all benefitted from the ease of ordering their figures online. Clear photos of what you get and straight forward Paypal transactions mean that if mt interest is fired up or if I need to work off a bad day at work through firing off a quick order, I can.

So there we have it. A great mix of figures available to play out Alcovia. Some classics, some new. I'm really looking forward to collecting the forces, painting the miniatures and getting down to some Alcovian action on the tabletop.

Cheers

Mark

Proof!

Just a quick post showing folks that Crisis in Alcovia is more than just vaporware. I've got a good 50+ Liberation miniatures from RH Models in the works.

The quick camera phone snap shows the larger group of hat and camouflage fatigue wearing Russians with AKs. The gents with the green stuff are a bunch of figures wearing what look like civilian coats and M40 helmets, carrying AK-47s. The green stuff I'm adding to make them each a little more unique with scarves, pouches, backpacks, a beard and even a couple of puffy jackets and vests. I'll give more detailed looks at them when I have a chance to take some quality pics.

I still need to figure out a way to get a spotlight for a Trumpeter T-55 model. The darned thing doesn't come with one.

-Eli

Rethinking Scale

I have been thinking that I may have to rethink the use of 20mm as the primary scale for the Alcovia project. Though there are a few models available in 20mm/1:72 that are not found in 15mm, these are few and 15mm supports the scale well. The main thing that 15mm does seem to lack is suitably modern infantry models.

Even those models that there are are relatively few and far between. QRF and Peter Pig both do 15mm modern Russians, but these are all good up to the 80s/90s and both of very generic and aging castings. The 20mm miniatures I have seen go all the way up to current Russians and have much more character in them.

A plan comes to mind to use 15mm for larger scale battles in the open regions of Alcovia, played out on typical 4'x6' or 4'x8' tables at the company level and play the 20mm stuff at the platoon level on 2' x 2' or 4' x 4' board that focus in on a block or two of close-in fighting.

As it stands I already have three T-55s and 3 BTR-152s in 15mm leftover from an aborted project or two.

When it comes down to it, I still want to work with some 20mm miniatures as I never have worked with them before and it does bring back a certain nostalgia from my childhood when I bought box after box of 1:72 models and figures.

First Recruits On Their Way

Managed to take advantage of a deal and now have two lots of Liberation minis on their way to me. These were mixed lots sold in loose bags of figures from similar codes -

Russians 70/80's; all in 1 piece uniforms with ak 47 - 33 figures mainly in ushanka some in helmet

23 figs with ak47 all in russian m40 helmet.

These figures will likely work for either side of the conflict as the only units with any distinctly different uniform are the Lifeguards units who have the most modern gear. I will post pics of the raw lead and a bit of a review when they arrive.

-Eli