Enter the 28mm project that wasn’t even a blip on my radar at the beginning of the year. After Adepticon we had a long chat and decided that we should pick the event we want to do next year at Adepticon to give us more time to build and paint the forces as well as plan and playtest the scenario. With that in mind we wanted something that people would recognize instantly and be excited to play. After narrowing it to a few options the one that came out of top was the iconic Battle of the Bulge. We’re still narrowing the exact scenario down, but in the mean time we assembled some lists of equipment to acquire which would give us plenty of options to test and work with. Ben already has some excellent late-war winter Germans painted up, so he was the choice to cover that half. He’s going to add some goodies to what he has to bring it up to what we want. I volunteered to undertake the American forces. I’ve been itching to paint up some American steel and how could I pass up a chance to do such an iconic force?

The Force

As per usual I’ve situated my core platoon around a Chain of Command list. This time the standard Infantry Platoon from the Bloody Bucket Pint Sized Campaign.

The composition is as follows:
HQ
1x Senior Leader,
1x Junior Leader
1x 2-man Bazooka Team

Rifle Squads 1-3
1x NCO
1x BAR Gunner
10x Riflemen

For support options I’ve decided to have the following available:
3x BAR Gunners (One additional for each Rifle Squad)
Bazooka Team (2 men)
Sniper Team (2 men)
60mm Mortar Team (5 crew)
.30 caliber Medium Machine Gun (5 crew)
57mm AT Gun (5 crew and Junior Leader)
M8 “Greyhound” Armored Car
M4A3E8 Sherman
M4A3 (76) w Sherman
M18 Hellcat tank destroyer

The Models

With what I needed sorted I had to figure out where to get all the models and minis. To be frank I had been waiting for an excuse to go over to the RKX Miniatures site and buy up a bunch of their American STLs so I did just that. I bought the following:
-US Greatcoat Squad
-US Infantry Squad (Late War)
-US M1917 HMG Team
-US Winter HQ Team
-US Winter 60mm Mortar
-US 57mm AT Gun
-US Bazooka Team

This left me short a good number of riflemen but mere days later I received a notification that the first wave of files from the 3D Breed Join or Die WW2 Kickstarter were available. Having printed the sample figure a few months back I was excited to get my hands on them and I quickly printed up a healthy excess of what I needed. They printed wonderfully from the pre-supported files and I’m very pleased with the kickstarter as a whole. This left one thing left: the armor.

While I could 3D print the armor options, I started the hobby many years ago as a scale modeler and the chance to build the occasional kit is just too good to pass up. I immediately went to Kickass Mail-Order and grabbed up two of the Rubicon M4A3E8 Sherman kit, plus the M8 Greyhound kit. For the Hellcat I decided to give the Warlord kit a shot. I read a great review of it here and decided it looked nice enough to pass muster (I’m picky after being spoiled by Tamiya kits).

I’ve managed to get everything primed and some things base-coated as I dive down the painting rabbit hole. I have a soft deadline for myself to have these done by Labor Day… we’ll see how that goes.

Evan