Thursday, April 14, 2016

Finally Done

Its only taken me 9 years but this week I have finally finished painting my Russian 1944 cavalry division. It started while I was still finishing my PhD in Wellington, and has followed me to Nelson and then Palmy. And here it is, 5 battalions (4 large plus one small) and 115 stands at 650 points. Not a lot of tanks or infantry but 48 stands of SMG troops (and thats a lot of dice to throw to kill it). Its really not a cheap army money wise to build up as H&R do cavalry in packs of 21 figures, and as I've used 4 per stand plus extras on other stands, you can do the math...


Taking a closer look at one of the battalions I have modeled all the support units as well, including Tachanka's (which are subbing in for HMG's on carts. I can't seem to find any comments on if they were used as such in WW2, but assume the Russians were smart enough to use them as they had in the Civil war). 45mm ATG stands are useless for shooting at tanks, but do add to the battalion break point quite cheaply.
The stands at the left are the divisional artillery, all horse drawn, in fact everything apart from the 37mm AA gun is on horseback ( and I can't work out why they were lucky enough to get a truck, but its one less gun team to paint.)


 I've also provided for the option of either T34s or M4's (with a suitable Hq stand). The mottly collection of vehicles at the front is the divisional Hq.


Now all I have to do is arrange to get it onto the table and see how my lighting fast dismounting SMG stands perform.

I'm also pondering if I can get an entire Rusian infantry division (with heavy tank support) on table at 650points. I think its possible, but some of the troops will be green, and there won't be enough artillery to be usefull. Its also a lot of points to gift your enemy if it gets wiped out. I'm leaning towards using the using the Infantry brigade from a 1944 tank corps to get access to all the useful support units, though I must admit that 18 T34's are also attractive.

(Sorry Keith, I'm still writing a post on the SPI games as campaigns)

9 comments:

  1. It's fantastic! Nice army, man.

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  2. Well done Rhys. I'm not sure I want to face them on the table, but very impressive.

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  3. You have said that about a few of my lists....

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  4. Your lists are always different, the degree of difference is variable :)

    Joel & I were discussing lists today and how some scenarios use unrealistic combinations of lists. Our discussion was centred around Bolt Action which Joel plays in Auckland these days. He challenged me about Spearhead lists almost always having armour today. I had forgotten about your paratroop list!

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  5. Maybe its something to do with the level. bolt action (from my 2 minute investigation)seems to be a platoon level game, where an advance may not involve any armour. At battalion level it would be far more common to find a few tanks to help suppress enemy positions (HMG) during an advance).
    From my reading on the western front 1944 to 1945 the only reason that there would not be armour arround(at battalion level) would be airborne troops or the terrain was too rough)

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    1. From my understanding of Bolt Action competitions there is almost always a tank, or a tank and armoured car, on the table. It seems wrong.

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  6. So when will we get a post going over a list for this force?

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  7. I will ahve to write one up, but at 650 points its "buy everything on the page and use Guards regiments"

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  8. Rhys
    I had forgotten about this wonderful project of yours until Keith resent the link, when I commented that oddly enough I started looking at the Russian Cavalry div OOBs a couple of nights ago.. easy to see how you can get the full division in at attack list. I'm still pondering the project. I may or may not... too much unpainted lead still sits in boxes...
    R

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