In the last several months since my last posting on this topic, I have been off-and-on continuing work on it. Recently I finished off the Commonwealth figures to form a scaled down tank-support (armoured infantry?) company.
 |
Kiivar Armoured Infantry Company.
I should have kept the flash on in the subsequent pics:
The colours came out well in this. I thought it would be too bright. |
The first thing to note is the range of uniform colours in the one unit. I'm not going the Green vs Tan route (though it will be a convenient division among many of the figures I have). But I have also decided I want to keep painting to a minimum for this project. So the uniform colours you see are simply the colour of the plastic: greens, browns, tans, beige, even greys. Aside from painting the details, the uniforms have merely been washed with Citadel shading ink 'Nuln Oil.'
 |
Kiivar armoured infantry. The uniforms are 'self-coloured' -
the colour of the plastic - with a wash of Citadel 'Nuln Oil'. |
The effect, to mind, is a rather pleasing polyglot appearance to the company, as if it has been in the field a long time, and operating hand to mouth.
 |
| These companies are organised according to the figures available. |
As there was a limited number of figures, and I'm scaling down the companies anyway, this gave me a 50-figure unit comprising:
Company HQ: Captain, signaller and senior NCO (CSM);
'Weapons' Platoon:
Platoon commander;
1 Vickers MMG plus 3-man team;
1 LMG with 2-man team;
1 Medium Mortar with 3-man team.
Nr 1 Platoon:
Platoon commander plus senior NCO
3 Sections each comprising 1 SMG-armed NCO commanding, 1 LMG, 4 rifles;
Nr 2 Platoon:
Platoon commander plus senior NCO
3 Sections each comprising 1 SMG, 1 LMG, and 4 rifles, as before.
Attached to company: Section Assault engineers: 4 SMG plus flame thrower operator.
Total: 55 figures.
The assault engineers might seem an odd attachment, but I figured I need to absorb the extra SMGs somehow, not to mention the single flame-thrower. I guess an alternative might be to add an extra SMG to each section, and add the flame thrower to the 'Weapons' Platoon. But I quite like the idea of the extra punch offered by the specialist assault section.
Below is the Nr 2 Platoon accompanied by a half-squadron of 'Cerberus Mk I' tanks. The cognoscenti will observe the uncanny resemblance to the British Centurion tank, except these look quite a bit smaller when measured against the (plastic) human frame. I have classed these as light-medium tanks: medium anti-tank, light armour.
 |
| Platoon with light-medium tanks. |
 |
| The light blue numbering isn't very easy to read... |
Below is the remainder of the armoured squadron, two up-armoured, up-gunned and up-sized Cerberus tanks. I'm still in three minds whether the are both MkII, mediums (medium anti-tank/medium armour), both MkII medium-heavies (heavy anti-tank/ medium armour), or they are MkII and MkIII - one of each AT/Armour classification.
 |
| The 4-tank squadron. T100 (farthest from camera) is the Squadron command. |
To explain, the rule set I'm using for this project is my own 'One Brain Cell' set still under development. The are 3 grades of armour, and 3 grades of Anti-tank gun. Although, of course, there are other anti-tank weapons about: AT rifles, bazooka types, mines, AT grenades and satchel charges, they are rated according to my 3-tier AT classification. Even flame-throwers will have some effect on armour.
 |
The vehicles are under-scale against these strapping fellows,
which I prefer, on the whole. But even within this company the figures
vary in size. This is not an undesirable thing... |
At any rate, you can see that the two tanks added are considerably larger than the others. In fact Tank 144 is a whisker larger than Tank 100 - the difference is hardly noticeable unless they are side by side. But the difference between them and the T121 and T125 pair is very marked.
I had painted up the larger two in Raesharn camo, but that seemed to be heading for too much of an armour imbalance between the two sides. Raesharn already has a pair of 'heavy' tanks (Army Men Pattons) and a company of 4 'medium-heavies' (Panzer IVs which are, in Kiivar, known as Python IVs). Once the idea of up-armoured Marks came to mind, I had only to bite the bullet and paint over the former scheme with my Kiivar light beige and green.
Some close-ups...
The size differences among these 4 Centurions are quite noticeable in this dive-bomber's view...
To conclude this posting, may I express my thanks to readers' patience during the long 'interregnum' (interduceum?) whilst I recovered some of my morale and motivation. Cheers.
