My Generation Was Killed - Part 4 - Character Sheets

 

CPL Josh Ray Pearson rocking the Elvis Shades…

‘Sup Killers! Welcome back to MGWK part four, ‘Character Sheets’. Character Sheets you say? Has this moved to like D&D or something…? Nah, this week is all about the main characters in the show and how to portray them in 15mm…! 🤩

SGT Brad ‘Iceman’ Colbert with his M4 and NVGS Scope

The above pic shows the Iceman in typical pose with his M4 out of the window, scanning his arcs. For this mini I used a 3D print sculpt with an added greenstuff NVGS scope. This was fiddly, but I felt it needed to be done. I doubt you’ll see much of Brad once he is inside his Hummer, but we will see…

Next up is Ray doing his best Elvis Presley impersonation…! This one is BF ‘soft sculpt’ AFV crewman mini that I swapped the head with from a hard-plastic BF Infantryman. I added the Elvis sunnies and I am hopping you will be able to see these golden glasses shining out from inside the truck!

LCPL Trombley and M249 SAW / Minimi

I have just realised that I need to alter my Trombley mini as I have given him googles and he clearly does not have any… This mini is a BF hard plastic Infantryman with a shaved head to fit inside the Hummer. I will angle him so that he is pointing his SAW out the window, scanning for civilians, camels, or dogs. Which seem to be his favourite targets…

Next up I have SGT Leandro ‘Shady B’ Baptista’s crew. These are mostly conversions from the BF hard plastic minis. The main add ons are respirator haversacks, goggles, and filling out the bottom of the pants to simulate the MOPP pants that are worn by all. 

MOPP gear… Mission Oriented Protective Profile, or in British parlance, and NBC or ‘Noddy’ suit. Wearing one of these in +50 degree C heat was just the BEST! Even more fun when we had to don our respiratotrs. Now I am wearing a multi layer suit over my combats, AND I have a rubber face-welly stuck on my fizzog 😝

Photo below shows me in my Rover just before the kick off, with a copy of ‘Loaded’ magazine in my hands. I think there was some kind of free subscription deal if you sent in a pic of yourself in a war zone with a copy of the mag, but I never did send it in…! You will notice the small pieces of paper on the sleeves of my NBC jacket. That’s detector paper 1-Color and was in place to detect any droplets, mist, or splashes of chemical agent that may be in the atmosphere. As the lead NBC LO for my REGT, I also had 3 Color paper on the outside of the Rover and I had a CAD / CAM in the truck as well.

Next is me just after we were attacked by artillery for the first time. We were driving into our designated AO and BOOM, incoming… The first part of the chemical safety drill states, “If you experience a bombardment of ANY KIND… Assume a chemical attack has taken place, and adopt the chemical IA drill”. This meant me pulling off the road, getting onto the radio net and shouting “GAS, GAS, GAS” down it on repeat. Lol and I (Lol was the dude I was sharing the Rover with) along with the rest of the convoy then debussed and we started to dig in on the side of the road.

More shells were falling so the hole digging increased, it was around this time that a Cobra appeared and began strafing some Iraqi positions up ahead. Having shut them up, he then buzzed off to another sector. I felt a sense of relief when the Cobra appeared and a slight pang of angst when it left… 

Anyhoo, after some radio traffic, I checked my detection systems for any signs of chem or bio activity. Having found none, I reported this up the chain and was given the OK to conduct a 2-man sniff test… Fun times… That and the individual test was clear, so I got on the horn and gave the order to de-mask. This was not the last time that we went through this little procedure however…

Pic below shows a fairly nervous looking me having just removed my respirator, and our column of heavily armed and armoured, desert-cammed vehicles…😂

Almost forgot, Shady B’s crew…! These will be placed in the open-backed Hummer once painted.

You can see the added bottom of the MOPP pants and goggles here

These are the .50 gunner standing, and Shady B in the passenger seat with Bono’s. He’s converted from a metal BF WWII GI. I added a neck to his helmet, goggles and a respirator haversack. He’s gonna look pretty sweet!

Well my friends, that’s all for this week. Not a whole lot going on due to being in Welly all week for work.

Hope you enjoyed the read, comments as always are welcome!

‘Till next time, Stay Frosty 😉

My Generation was Killed: Part 3: I am Greenstuff-ED…!

 

‘Sup Killers, and welcome to MGWK Pt 3! Hope you have been enjoying the ride thus far, its sure been fun writing 🤩

 It’s been a big, BIG week on Hummers! I have completed 7 trucks, or around a 1/5th of the total…! It’s been a wild ride, so come on and I’ll walk ya through it 😉

As you know, this army is based on GK and so the trucks need to bear at least a passing resemblance to the main ones used in the film. As we said last week, BF Hummers are Army, we need Marine ones. The main visual differences at 15mm are fitting what is known as the ‘Wading Kit’. This in the main consists of a higher air intake (Snorkel) mounted on the hood at the passenger side, and a higher exhaust mounted on the drivers side rear.

I started with the air intake and initially was making them by hand from a 5mm piece of plastic rod, and 1mm sliver of sprue. After I had made two I wished I hadn’t started, and the prospect of making another 29 just didn’t feel me with joy…😑

I was then fortunate to have a phone call with my good friend and Ex-USMC Sniper, Adam. He talked to me about the wading kits and then sent me some pics of his own 15mm Hummers that he had converted. What had he used for the Snorkel..? a NAIL! Yup, a small nail… SO I checked my extensive collection of nails and screws and found a bunch that were perfect! Now all I had to do was drill a small hole, snip the nail to size and we were GTG! First lifesaving event of the episode…

This is the passenger side of SGT Brad ‘Iceman’ Colbert’s truck, note the 2-piece Snorkel construction. I added Greenstuff door rolls, and a covered spare tire, and also the external stowage, more on that later… I also drilled out the windows and slimmed the doors, real fun…!

This is one of T-Boss’s ‘plain’ Hummers that I added the ‘nail’ Snorkel to, WAY easier! This one also gets door rolls, a spare tire with a tissue paper cover, and external stowage. The shiny panel on each truck is made from a Tomato Puree tube and will replicate the hi-viz warning panel that is on each truck in the show in that location. These differed widely in their placement in the real world, but I guess someone in the show’s art department liked it so they’d stuck with it for all the trucks.

This is LT Fick’s, the PL COMD’s truck that he rolls around in with G/SGT Mike ‘Gunny’ Wynn. It’s a 2-door ‘Wendy House’ stores / general use Hummer that has a large hoop-framed canvas back. This one was cut down from one of the 3D Hummers and was fairly easy to do. The canvas cover is once again, Puree tube and you can see the nail Snorkel and high-level exhaust. The exhaust is made from a piece of household solid wire with a few bends, covered in a 40 year old, that’s FOUR DECADES! Old, piece of Verlinden etched brass that I have had in the spares box since I was 15… 😂 I KNEW it would come in handy one day!!!

Although making these little extra bits is fiddlly, I really feel that they change the look of the trucks and make them stand out from the norm. Pic below is the same truck with the canopy removed to show the wire hoops and flooring made from, yup, you guessed it, Puree tube 😉

So, back to the title of this episode, I am Greenstuff-ED…! What’s that all aboot eh..? Well, it’s a known fact that Greenstuff and its derivatives are used in the modelling world to make changes to things, add extra parts etc. I haven’t really dabbled in this before apart from using it to fill gaps etc. So making 15mm stowage was certainly going to be a challenge… To aid me, I bought ONE pack of the BF metal stowage at $17.50. This was to give me ideas on size etc, and allow me to use the parts on some of the trucks to add weight.

So I started making thermal mats, and once they had dried, packs to add them to. The pack-straps were a challenge and probably scale out to about a foot wide…! But hey, you need to see them from 2 feet away, OK?! These are a bit of a strain on the eyes and after making a half-dozen or so, I am done. Below are some shots of trucks with various Greenstuff stowage on board.

Rear of Brad’s truck showing the packs, spare tire with cover and WWII period BF Jerry cans in frame, perfect! Note the high level exhaust.

Front side of SGT Rodolfo ‘Rudy’ Reyes 2-door flat-deck truck. This was also converted from a 3D one and involved cutting the top off, filling the rear doors smooth and installing the side rails and flooring. I also needed to make the .50 cal mount as shown and added a spare tire and a heap of stowage.

Same truck from the rear, the gaps will hold 3 Marines, one manning the .50 and the other two in firing positions. There will be Marines in all of the open top trucks, and I am also fitting them to Brad’s truck as the ‘signature’ vehicle in the army.

Another open-top truck, haven’t decided if this will be the 2nd HQ truck to go with Fick’s or if it will be one of the other signature trucks, maybe Pappy’s or Shady B’s. This one was another 3D conversion, this time loosing the roof and all the doors and adding the framework back in. This was the only other vehicle apart from Brad’s that had the OG 2-piece Snorkel arrangement. This one was fun to build, and I expect I will do some others.

One thing you cannot see, as I removed it… All the 3D Hummers have open, and folded flat front windshields. Now that doesn’t work for my needs, so I had to painstakingly remove each one… It’s a pain but the hi-viz panel covers the damage well 😉

No, I am obviously no Evan Allen when it comes to sculpting in Greenstuff or any other medium! So its a good job that the real Evan Allen is a good buddy of mine who only lives 40kms away… On a visit to see him today, he not only gave me a spare BF Hummer sprue, awesome(!) but we also got chatting about me making stowage out of Greenstuff. Now Evan is a Master Sculpter and was the BF Lead Sculpter for 25 years until they decided to ‘retire’ him recently… (That’s a story in itself..) He told me to use Grey Milliput as the best option, noted, and then had a rummage in one of his bits boxes…

Upon finding what he was looking for, he held up the OG masters for the stowage I was trying to replicate!!! He then casually told me he would make me a mould from this so I could cast my own!! Second lifesaver of the gig!!! SO now instead of having to make around 120 Greenstuff packs… I could just cast them to my hearts content!!! RESULT!!! 🤩

Well, Ladles and Jellyspoons, that about wraps it up for this episode. I am away on a course all next week so progress will be light, but I plan on churning out some of the figures I will need to crew these babies and post about that at the end of next week.

In the meantime, please hit me up with any patai (questions) or comments and I will do my best to answer them. Thanks for reading this far, and I do hope you are enjoying the ride!

In the words of the Iceman, ‘Stay Frosty People’…🫡

My Generation was Killed Pt 2 - I need Hummers, LOTS of Hummers…

 ‘Sup Killers! Well, here we go on pt 2 of the Blog, and yup this week we are concentrating on the backbone of the list, the venerable HUMVEE, High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle in case you didn’t know… 😉

In a world of high-end tanks and tank-killing HELO, what better panacea than 31 Hummers..? Yup, you read that right THIRTY ONE Hummers, SIXTEEN of which have TOW 2… Oh yeah…!

So, 31 Hummers, easy right? Just order from BF at about $50 plus post for FIVE… 🤯 So that’s about $300 JUST in Hummers, umm, YEAH-NAH…!

So I reached out to my friendly neighbourhood 3D Printer-Man, T-Boss. 3 days later and I have ALL the Hummers PLUS some awesome ‘chunky’ infantry to represent 2nd PL, Bravo COY, 1st RECON BN USMC, AKA ‘Generation Kill’…

Check his Insta as below for all your 3D printed needs!

I am using some BF Hummers, but they are Army ones, and lack the deep-wading exhaust and high air-intake of the USMC ones. They also have armoured doors, and solid windows, and they are of only one shape, the Bustleback. 

So, with the BF ones, I need to smooth the doors, add a high exhaust and intake, drill the windows and add a tonne of stowage etc to make them rep the Recon Marines ones.

Remember when I said this was also about my time in the sandpit in ‘03? Well here’s a pic of me with a Marine Hummer to just illustrate how crap these things were. This was armoured warfare and these dudes are rolling in soft-skin vehicles with ZERO protection… Note also they are all in European theatre Camo… Much like the trucks I was using… More to follow on that later..

Note the M16A4 with underslung M203 and Iron Sights, no ‘Scopes here..! Note how flimsy the doors look, they are literally a metal frame with a canvas skin. Barely keeps the rain out let alone 5.45 Russian…

Note I am wearing Desert DPM Pants and private purchase desert boots, but I am wearing a DPM windproof smock. At this time, about 3 weeks before the start of the ground war, I was the only soldier in my REGT that had a set of Desert DPM Shirt and Pants. And that was only because I had been in AFG 18 months earlier… Prepared we sure were not…

You may ask why I was hanging out with the USMC so often? Good patai… I was my REGT’s CBRN adviser and as such, had to build relationships with flanking FF, in this case the USMC. I was in charge of all CBRN Training and the issue and maintenance of CBRN detection equipment such as the CAM, Chemical Agent Monitor, a smaller hand-held device that needed very specific batteries.

I remember having to go the REGT stores QM one morning as my new CAM’s had arrived in country, which was handy as at this stage I had none… SO I uplifted 4 new machines and left to set them up. I got halfway back to my lines when I realised I had no batteries… SO I turned around and went back to see the Q-Bloke. “Hey mate, I forgot the batteries for those CAM’s, can I have say, 10?” His response, “Nah mate, we don’t have any…” 

“You don’t have any I replied? WT ACTUAL F? Bro, you realise were about to kick off, that we’re here to find WDM’s (Spoiler Alert, there were none, Thanks Tony…) and that I NEED those CAM’s to protect the REGT as it advances?” 

His reply almost made me laugh.. “Yeah sorry mate, the RAF have declared them as DAC (Dangerous Air Cargo) so they are coming on a ship, ETA SIX WEEKS.”

SIX WEEKS?! Mint! Go Air Farce… I turned around and left, no point getting out of shape with this bloke, he was only telling me what he knew. So, what to do I thought to myself..? I know, my buddies down at the USMC…

Let me introduce you to the two main USMC dudes I was hanging with, Warrant Officer CASS, and the other guy… I feel bad that I don’t remember these guys names, had a lot going on. All I do remember is that these guys were legends and couldn’t do enough for me and my REGT. Anything I needed, if they had it, I got it. So, 10 CAM batteries? Sure Bob, no worries, here ya go! Sign for them? Nah, we’ll just say they fell overboard… Now THATS how to conduct business! 😜

And yes, we are all smoking cigars INSIDE a tent… Ahh, 2003…!

Right, back to the minis! Here’s a pic of what I am dealing with in Hummers alone…

As you can see, there are a few there… I have 8 with built in stowage 7 BF ones and the rest are plain bustle backs. I will need to do some conversions as I will need 2-door ‘Wendy House’, no-door, open tops, and a few other variants. I have started converting a BF Hummer into the Iceman’s vehicle. I drilled out the windows, added a spare tire from greenstuff and a high-level air intake and an air-recognition flag on the hood, top mount is the MK19 AGM. Still to go are the high-level exhaust, plenty of stowage and the minis to rep The Iceman, Trombley, Person and ‘Rolling Stone’.

I plan to have the signature vehicles from GK in the list, prepped as they are in the TV show. They are not exact replicas, but then the ones in the show aren’t either!

Next up is SGT Tony ‘Poke’ Espera’s truck. This one needed some thought as it’s a no-door, open top vehicle. Now the BF ones have an interesting inner-bracing that runs inline with the side windows, they also have zero interior detail.. So, how to make this one? I turn to one of T-Boss’s 3D-ers! And even better, I use one of the ‘failed’ prints that he sent me for FREE… So, I chopped the roof, added the side and top rails, gun mount and spare tire. The air intake is plastic rod and a sliver of the Hummer spruce. To add are stowage and the crew. I am pretty happy with this first attempt at a conversion, let me know what you think!

So, that’s the START of TWO out of THIRTY ONE trucks…! Man I must be insane! But hey, I am loving this! Hope you are too 🙏 Not sure if this post was too long, but it’s probably indicative of how things will roll from now on… I guess I shouldn’t look to have this army finished too soon…!

Right that’s it for this one, take it easy and feel free to let me know what you think. I am not in this for the ‘likes and subscribes’, but I am happy to hear from you! 😊

My Generation was Killed…

 

Oi Oi!

Well, here we go… Long time reader, first time Blogger…

What’s this all about you may ask..?

For those that don’t know me, I’m a war gamer / painter and a Veteran. This Blog is going to combine my love of tabletop gaming with my journey through the war in Iraq in 2003.

The plan is to build and paint a Team Yankee force based on the Recon Marines from the book / TV show’Generation Kill’ with some added stuff from my time in Iraq.

I’ll be using a combination of BattleFront minis, 3D printed stuff and scratch building to get to where I want to go.

It’s going to be light hearted with the odd tinge of darkness, so buckle up and let’s go for a journey with the Ice Man, Whopper Junior and Captain America…

Now I just have to work out how to add pictures…!!

ValleyCon '25

It was a great weekend! The format of running bulk medium tanks was a lot of fun. Of course, the lazy post-event blog is the photos from the army parade:

Tom's Panzerschule

Richard's Russian SUs

McBeth Sr's Tankovy

Russell's Tankovy

McBeth Jr Jr's Clausewitz Panzers

Julian's Recce and TDs

Sofia's Desert Rats

Graham's Shermans

 

McBeth Jr Sr's French

Steve's Brigade Panthers

Ric's Comets

Tom's Tankovy

Bob's Chaffees

My Brigade Panthers

 How did I do? Fourth equal, one point behind friend Bob's Chaffees that gave me SO much trouble in the fourth round. And Best Painted, which is a nice result for me. I like the cleanliness of my summer Germans and the foilage adds a nice touch. I was, when I did it, and remain, very pleased with how the ambush camo came out on the Hetzers and the Jagdpanzer IV/70s. 

Next Time

I'm aiming to finally finish my Soroitas squad. I've done six of them now so just four and a cherub to go...

Slow going but progress on some things!

It's been a slow week - already done a bit much socialising and playing video games and not a lot of hobbying. I have finally finished the first sister in my Imperial Agents Sororitas squad and I'm pretty happy with how she came out. 

She still needs basing (there are tufts inbound from the UK) and some transfers on the tabard but that'll happen when I do the whole squad. It was good to go through this one from beginning to end as now I have the order of operations that gets me to the end without TOO much repainting white... 

I've also started on getting my Early War Germans up and rolling. I started with these two tournament objectives that I picked up at Panzerschreck last year. They're going to be actual 88s (because you can't play EW without them!!) and I had enough models lying around in the bits box to crew them:

I've also started on the insane task of cleaning off my Early War Germans to repaint them. At least I thought it was insane till I borrowed Blogger McBeth's ultrasonic cleaner and ho boy. You can see how well it's worked on a couple of the models on those 88 bases and it's worked even better on the tank hulls. In one case, I think it took off nearly 20-year-old primer! 

There's still a dozen Panzer IIs, some self-propelled guns, some trucks and a bunch of infantry to do but I'm optimistic that it'll be fairly easy over the next little while. 

Next Time

It's our club's annual event so there'll be a late blog with some how it went and hopefully some good photos of the Flames comp and anything else pretty I see over the weekend! 

Testing Brigade Panthers

 So with ValleyCon25 a mere two weeks away, I booked in a couple of practice games to make sure that my proposed Brigade Panther Company was as bad as I thought. Here's my advanced secret tech (as I am wont to do every time this rolls around) for our Flames of War event: 

Core

• HQ Brigade Panther (Late)
• 3 Brigade Panther (Late)
• 3 Brigade Panther (Late)
• 3 Brigade Panzer IV/70 
• 4 Brigade Wirbelwind

Support

• 4 Volkshetzer
• Full Ardennes Assault Platoon
•  SdKfz 250 Recce Platoon
• Lucky
  

I'm musing on swapping out the Hetzers and the 250 Recce for 4 Panzer IVs but I do love a Hetzer and the rare occasions where a Spearhead move would come in handy will be pretty awesome. Hard to know right now...

Anyway, I played a game of Scouts Out with McBeth Jr Sr running a French tank company with no infantry and 13 as the best AT. This felt like a game where sending my Panthers up the guts was the right answer since I should be able to facetank AT 12 76mm guns... 

So we shall start with a photo of my first save of the game:

My COs Panther blown to bits by some M18 Hellcats. Because I can facetank 76mm guns right? I popped a Hellcat in reply but ho boy what a trade that wasn't.

He jumped into a new tank and promptly bailed out the following round to more Hellcat shots. From there, I pushed my remaining Panthers forward supported by the 250s (!) who removed the M18s from consideration from the game. The French HQ exchanged ineffective fire with my Volkshetzers.

Having seen off the M18s, I sent the 250s to distract the remaining Sherman 76s before any French reserves arrived. I also pushed my reserve Panthers forward, getting ready to shove Panthers onto both objectives - they're just on the left of the photo below:

This next pic was taken about turn 6 when the game fell apart for me. The HQ Shermans sold themselves to pop a pair of Panthers (four shots, two hits, two ones for saves, two successful firepowers) before my Panzer IV/70s sent them to the shadow realm exposing the front objective.

At the top of this photo you can also see my response to the arrival of French reinforcements where I retreated slightly after I lost another Panther to rolling ones. After I destroyed the 76mm Sherman in response, a couple of 75mm Shermans made the brave run through a forest onto the flanks of those two Panthers and the result can be seen in the picture below - two bailed out Panthers...!

The last photo is me making a cheeky shove to grab the objective, relying on range and smoky wrecks to keep that Wirbelwind alive:

 

But McBeth Jr Sr managed to get enough shots to hit it and break my company. I probably could have pushed on another turn but my Volkshetzers were about to get 76mmed and my IV/70s were too far back to really impact the game. 

So it mostly worked as intended, except for my staggering ability to roll ones when I really didn't need or want to. It was a useful reminder that I shouldn't trust my dice either... I think I like the idea of having this many Panthers. It is a lot of fun to be cruising around with arguably the best tank in the game but with some of the most hamstringing crews that Germans can field. It's a really good challenge. Playing it well is really rewarding.

My second game, with McBeth Jr Jr, went according to the plan suggested by McBeth Jr Sr - where it was Panther v. Panther, playing more conservatively was the go. McBeth Jr Jr was running a Mixed Panzer Company with Panthers and Jagdpanzer IV/70s and the realisation was whichever one of us started to collapse first would probably go down. We played Scouts Out again and this time it was McBeth Jr Jr whose armour saves were not where they needed to be. My firepower rolls weren't good either but they were made up for by a series of failing 5+ Remount and Last Stand rolls that meant my Panthers emerged victorious. 

It was a useful series of lessons. Am I prepared for how wildly swingy Brigade is going to be? Not really, but I am looking forward to it!

Next Time

I'll be working on finishing my Sororitas squad and kicking into a new/old project - repainting my Panzer Is and Panzer IIs for Early War...

Hot rides...

Been slowly grinding away at Immolators for the past couple of weeks and here we are:

 

 That, dear readers, is too much white. And if GW hadn't thrown Contrast Paint into the world then it would have been even more miserable. I have seen a couple of designs since that had a white turret and top plate on a black hull and, in hindsight, I could have done that. All in all though, happy enough with how they came out. I suspect each time I get them out of the box, I'll find more patches of white I want to tidy up and that's kind of okay.

 I really love the way the Aethermatic Blue came out of the statues for a real pop of colour and it was definitely a good idea I stole off the internet. I'm happy that I didn't put too much colour into the glass and while it's frosted (because you really have to spray some varnish on the model to get the paint to stick) I think it looks good being that simple. Didn't enjoy painting it though...

Lessons? Review the assembly guide before you start painting. I had the good sense to leave the gun mounts and the stained glass parts out before I started painting but I should have left the altar off the back and in pieces too and probably left the pilot's torso out but given what a pig getting all the parts glued into the cockpit and lining those up with the pilot were not easy at all.

The Immolator kit has been an exercise in frustration to be sure. There are some kits that go together like a dream and are so easy it's not funny (see Battlefront's Jagdtiger kit for an example) but this one feels like it fought me every step of the way.

Next Time

The Sisters squad that'll be riding in these Immolators with Inquisitor Greyfax are underway now and hopefully will get smashed through a lot faster than this insanity...