Project Vietnam

Project Vietnam

Here at All Miniatures Great and Small we found ourselves in a lull between the conclusion of  Shifting Sands 12 and the next release of new goodies from Battlefront (Flames of War) and Spartan (Dystopian Wars, Firestorm Armada)

There are many projects that could be worked on however I wanted to do something "Different"

 I've had boxes of Battlefront's Vietnam release on the bench now for the better part of a year. Now seemed like a good time to get some of them done and give the Battlefront's Tropic Thunder a try.

Before we could play we would need to get together some armies... and some terrain (more on that in another post). My son Jake and I decided on shooting for 600 point armies initially and expanding from there.

So that means we needed to paint Infantry... and lots of it.


Painting the USA

Yes, yes, the basing isn't done yet...

I started the US forces with some tests to nail down a paint scheme I liked. Since I didn't have as many US infantry to paint as NVA, and the fact that I am a US player at heart, I decided beforehand that I would be spending more time on the US forces.

I started with a test scheme on a single command stand.

I pretty much went with the paint scheme as presented in an older issue of Wargames Illustrated. The base Uninform is Russian Uniform and the helmet cammo was whatever colors I had on hand that looked "close enough". Black boots and gun were pretty straightforward.

I also started tackling the US vehicles. First up were some US Helos.  First up was a Huey Hog with chain guns, rockets and grinning Shark mouth!











I also put together a "Slick" transport Helicopter to allow my 7th Cav Troopers to arrive to the battlefield in style.

Painting the NVA

We started with the Vietnamese (NVA) forces. As with other horde armies I am not inclined to spend massive amounts of time on detail work. The goal is to get a visually acceptable but quickly painted army on the table.

.

Figures glued and sand added to base... Miners light shaved off helmets

For speed's sake we based our NVA before painting. We also added basic texture at this point as well. I should note that I hated the pre-molded insignia on the NVA helmets and tried to sand them off. It slowed down the process but my troops no longer have the Miner Light look about them

We spray painted the base coat on using Krylon  Sand. This was the perfect base coat and would provide the uniform color for the majority of the troops.

Base Coat down

We base coated two infantry platoons, Battalion CO and HMG bunkers all in one go.










We then painted on the basics, brown for boots and rifle stocks, Flesh, for hands and heads, tan for straps and pouches, Bolt Gun metal for the metal bits of the gun. Lastly we sprinkled a few green shirts, pants and hats through out the force. At this point these guys look UGLY but hopefully the next step will correct that.

Basic colors blocked in... speed painting

Once that was done it was time to bring out the secret weapon, GW Devlin Mud. (it may stink but it does wonders!)

We applied a liberal amount of Devlin Mud to each soldier and let dry for 24 hours.

Next we painted the emblem. A dot of Yellow with a smaller dot of Red within. This was the last of the painting.

Lastly it was basing, applying static grass and grass clumps.  Not too bad!

While they won't be winning any contests they look good on the table and fit the part.

All in all not a bad start, Jake and I hope to get a real game in within the next month.... Hopefully Battlefront or Spartan games doesn't tempt me with any bright shiny new toys before this project is completed!