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| Who's got small hands now, huh!? |
I can't believe it –
it's actually been almost two (2) years since my last update! Crazy.
And a bit sad, since I had big plans for this blog once! But live and
learn, right?
Too many hobbies, to
little time (and money). Anyway, it doesn't mean that I haven't been
busy. I've done some nerdy stuff and even had the opportunity to do
some gaming. I won't bore you with every one of my projects during
the last two years (well, not yet – hopefully I'll make more posts
in the future!), but here are some pics of a project that I started
and actually finished earlier this year.
Team Yankee in 6mm
I've been playing a bit of
Team Yankee, and decided that 15mm is way to big for any games larger
than a reinforced platoon. Sorry Battlefront, but it just looks
horrible with hordes of modern armoured vehicles going
fender-to-fender on regular 6x4 tabletops. Besides the aesthetics of
it, the table gets filled with minis and manoeuvring looks more like
chess rather than a miniature wargame. I think that 15mm works on
30-40 points though, so I won't stop playing it (unless the coming
Battlegroup rules change that...).
However, in 6mm it works
just great! It looks and feels better, even with (almost) no rule
changes. Oh, and I've halved down the size of the bases for infantry
– I use small FoW-bases instead of medium ones for the infantry,
and half sized small ones for weapon teams like the RPG-teams. Any
large size teams (I don't have any yet) would be placed on medium
sized bases.
The distances makes more
sense too, even though they are still a bit off (3mm would be more
correct), especially regarding artillery. Still, it feels way better.
Batalion Pancerny, marsz!
So, being into Polish
military history I decided to build a Polish T-72 battalion (so far
using the East German rules). Since it's 6mm I also liked the
possibility to make all of the fighting elements in a chosen unit.
Well, at least the ones that would be on table using the TY-ruleset.
In order to keep costs
down, but still have decent miniatures I bought everything from
Heroics&Ross. Sure, it's not GHQ – but it didn't break my bank
either. It still looks good if one paints it right.
I went quite generic with
my army - this could be any of the updated Polish tank battalions,
with the most up-to-date gear available around 1986 (I really don't
buy that this is 1985 anymore...). It should be one the units in 1st
army though, poised towards northern Germany and Denmark (the Jutland
army group). Doing some research, I finally opted for the following
list:
1 HQ-tank:
3 Armoured Companies; 10
tanks each (1 command tank and 3 platoons with 3 T-72's in them). One of
the companies got the T-72M, while the rest got the T-72M1 variant (the
one depicted in TY):
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| T-72M, the first export version built in Poland |
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| The T-72M1, not built in Poland until 1986 |
1 Recon company (with 7
BRDM-2's – 1 command vehicle and 3 small platoons with 2 cars each):
1 Self-propelled
AA-company, with 4 ZSU-23-4 in 2 platoons:
1 Infantry company, made
up of 10 BWP-1's (3 platoons and one command vehicle) and infantry. BWP is by the way the polish name of the the BMP:
As far as I've
seen there were no separate PKM-platoons in the Polish army. Instead
the PKM was used as a squad support weapon! I've yet to have to
change the spec's in TY to reflect this...
By the way -
I like most of the H&R-models, but the BMP-1 just doesn't look
right. Here's a comparison with the Battlefront one in 15mm:
Since I'm comparing scales - the difference between 15mm and 6mm is really big:
Anyway - thats a Polish armoured battalion around 1986. I haven't made the sappers though, since they don't have any rules in TY.
This battalion has some divisional support too, in the shape of two 3-gun batteries of the self-propelled 2s1 "Goździk":
...and two platoons of the 9m31 Strzała-1 AA-system:
All vehicles were painted with Vallejo Air US Dark Green as a base, pin-washed with Army painters Strong tone, drybrushed with Vallejo Grey green and with some high-contrast highligts with Vallejo Deck Tan. The bases were painted Vallejo Flat earth, drybrushed with sand and grey paints. The infantry was painted Vallejo Grey green, over a Field Grey base.
In a hopefully not too distant future, I plan to buy and build a battalion of T-55AM "Meridas", to swap with the T-72's, and some TOPAS transports (a BTR50pk variant) for the Polish marines and a company of PT-76 tanks. Oh, and some Danish resistance...
