More Foreign Legion support units

As part of a long-running series of gifts to my friend & gaming comrade, Tim, I've painted some more support units for his 15mm-scale Crossfire 1980s French Foreign Legion (2e REP paras).   Here's a photo of Section Bleu (the first platoon that I've finished for him, with all their attached support options (including an AMX 30 B2 Main Battle Tank).

I've now put together an additional Forward Observer, two more sniper teams, two 51mm mortar teams (plus smoke markers), & a .50cal team. Added to the support units which I already made for Tim, thats a total of two FOs, four sniper teams, two mortar teams, and three HMG teams (including one .50cal).  Next up for this force is to finish the second platoon, Section Rouge; & then a few APCs & a couple of 105mm-cannon-armed armoured cars.  I may also add a Company Commander squad & a combat engineers squad to round the force off.

French AMX-30 B2 tank

I recently painted this 15mm-scale AMX-30 B2 MBT for my friend & gaming comrade, Tim.  This is another wargaming piece that I bought for Tim as a birthday/Christmas gift a few years ago, to support his French Foreign Legion Paratroopers.  As a follow-up gift I've been basing & painting the force for Crossfire gaming.

This tank should provide some heavy armour & hitting power for his elite French paras, as they try to keep the peace between Israel, Palestine, & Syria in early 1980s Lebanon.

Tim requested the classic three-tone late-Cold War to present day NATO camouflage scheme, which will certainly make this vehicle stand-out from my khaki & green / khaki, green, & blue-grey Syrian vehicles; & from my grey-olive Israeli vehicles.  As well as a 105mm main gun, the AMX-30 has a paraxial 20mm autocannon, & a 7.62mm GPMG pintle-mounted on the commander's hatch.  I added the latter using an IDF MG from Peter Pig, as this QRF miniature didn't include one.  This MAG MG isn't technically accurate, but it's close enough, & Tim pointed out that it could've been scrounged from the IDF if the original had been damaged. We'll be treating the autocannon as a .50cal HMG in Crossfire rules terms probably.

Foreign Legion Paratrooper platoon

This weekend I also finished a platoon of 1980s French Foreign Legion Paratroopers as a gift for my friend Tim.  I had been buying him packs of 15mm scale modern French infantry & vehicles for a couple of birthdays & Christmases (originally intended for Force on Force games).  As Tim never got around to painting these, I offered to base them up & paint them for our new favoured system, Crossfire, instead.  These were to be his birthday present earlier this year, but I missed that deadline, so here they are finally, as a belated Christmas gift.  I'm even including the convenient mini storage box too :-)

These represent a platoon of Foreign Legion Paras ('Section Bleu'), of the elite 2e REP (2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment).  I've given them Middle East themed bases to match my own Syrian / IDF / PLO collection, as they will be serving in the multi-faction chaos of early 80s Lebanon.

Section Bleu itself consists of an HQ équipe (squad) of platoon leader stand, & accompanying fireteam; & then 3 équipes of 2 fireteams each, plus an équipe leader.  They will be interesting to play, as every équipe includes a sharpshooter with a scoped rifle, which we had decided to house-rule as allowing that fireteam to ignore normal Target Priority rules.  Typical for an elite platoon, this is on the small side for an infantry block (& emphasised further by only having 3 soldiers in each fireteam), but they will make up for this by being elite & having good leadership.

I've also been painting support units for this platoon - 2 sniper teams, 2 GPMG teams, & a Forward Observer for artillery / air strikes, so far.  As a bonus I also put together 3 bases of seriously wounded / dead Paratroopers.  These are just decorative really, to emphasise particularly FUBAR situations...

Tim has also purchased enough figures for an additional platoon of 2e REP, which I will paint as 'Section Rouge'. Then I need to get to work on their attached APCs, armoured cars, & MBT...

Here are a couple photos of the platoon & support in their cute little storage / travel box:

Festive Greetings Tim, hope you like them!

Crossfire platoon boxes

I've bought a load of these 0.55 litre boxes from Really Useful Products, as they are perfect for storing my 15mm scale Crossfire 'moderns' platoons.  I first spotted one of these pencil-case sized storage boxes in WHSmith, & bought it to try out.  It proved to be the perfect size for efficiently storing a platoon plus a few bases of support, so I bought the rest for cheaper online, direct from the manufacturer.  They are currently £2.37 each.  I may stick some bubble-wrap or foam in the lids to protect the figures more, but I'm really pleased with this storage solution.  Previously I had been storing all of my forces haphazardly in plastic chocolate boxes - these take up up less room, you can see the contents without opening, & they are more convenient for transporting.

New Crossfire ID markings

From experience of playing a few games of Crossfire now, I decided to modify how I paint ID markings for my infantry bases.  Playing with more than one platoon quickly demonstrated the difficulty in telling platoons apart (which is necessary for command structure in-game) - so I've settled on painting the edges of my bases in national flag colours to denote platoon, & using small white (or black) bars on the rear centre to denote section (squad) number.  HQ section elements have a wide bar, Section 1 elements have one thin bar, Section 2 have two thin bars, etc.  I was concerned that the coloured edges would be too intrusive visually, but at this scale, & because the players are usually looking down on the tabletop, I think that they strike a great balance between blending-in, being thematic, & being practical.

Here are two examples of this new ID scheme - on the left, my 1980s Syrian AT commandos with dark green edges, which I chose because the stars on the Syrian flag at that time were green, & these are elite fighters; & on the right is one of my Syrian mechanised infantry platoons, with red edges.  I have another mech infantry platoon under construction, which will have white edges, & the other band colour from the Syrian flag, black, will be reserved for if I add another mech infantry platoon to reach a full company.

My two IDF platoons will use blue & white edges, as per the Israeli flag, whilst the two platoons of French Foreign Legion patatroopers (2e REP) that I've been painting up as an overdue gift for my friend Tim will have blue & red edges (Section Bleu et Section Rouge).

Battle for the town hall

Here is a brief summary of mine & Tim's 2nd Crossfire game from the weekend.  In this, another Meeting Engagement set in 1982 Lebanon, we switched sides, so that I was the Syrians, & Tim the Israelis.  We also played the board in the opposite axis for some variety without having to rearrange the scenery.

As in the first game, the Syrians were able to begin advancing just prior to the IDF, due to the particular deployment rules of this scenario favouring smaller forces.  My Syrian regulars moved through a patch of woodland to occupy the objective - the town hall on one side of the board; whilst my AT commandos advanced through nearby ruins, taking up forward defensive positions amongst the barricades in front of the hall, & at the crossroads in the centre of the board, bristling with ATGMs & RPGs to strike any IDF armour that might reveal itself.

Battle for the crossroads

This Saturday, my friend Tim & I finally got some more Crossfire gaming in.  The setting was Lebanon, 1982.  Our first battle was the basic Meeting Engagement from the rulebook, which saw Tim as the Syrians - with a platoon of regulars & a platoon of 'hunter-killer' AT commandos; & me as the invading Israelis, with a platoon of Golani regulars, & a platoon of Sayeret Golani veterans. We also each had a single piece of self-propelled AA as armoured support.  This was the largest game we had played so far.  The objective was to take & hold the designated objective for five consecutive Initiative Phases (or kill/capture two thirds of the enemy units).

Ruined apartments

Here is a block of ruined apartments that I made for 15mm-scale modern Crossfire.  I used foamboard, textured with coarse paint thickener & sand; along with bits of cocktail stick, Gale Force Nine concrete chunks, & bits of plastic sprue for debris.  As this structure is mostly intact (the walls are still standing at least!) In Crossfire rules terms I will treat this as a building complex of two blocks, without roof cover, rather than 'ruins' (which don't block Line-of-Sight in Crossfire).

I have numerous other miniatures projects on the go, but given the hot sunny weather at the moment, I haven't been finishing much to post it lately.

2 IDF infantry platoons

This week I finally finished my 2nd IDF infantry platoon, for 15mm-scale Crossfire. All the figures are from Peter Pig's AK-47 Range.  These represent a force of the Golani Brigade - the 1st platoon (on the right) is intended to be a mechanised infantry platoon, armed with Galil assault rifles.  I've posted photos of them with their M113 APCs previously.  The 2nd platoon (on the left) are intended as Sayeret Golani (the brigade's elite recon), armed with a mixture of Galils, M16s, & AK-47s.  In the background is an attached squad of combat engineers (centre), 3 sniper teams (left), & a .50cal HMG team, Military Working Dog team, & Forward Observer (right).  Looking forward to getting these on the tabletop battlefield!

Palm grove

This week I put together & painted a palm grove for 15mm-scale 'Lebanon 1982' Crossfire gaming.  Same recipe as the Lebanese woodland in my last post - laser-cut MDF area & disc bases from Fenris Games, textured with sand, painted, & detailed with Gale Force Nine static grass & flock, plus some tiny stones.  These soft plastic trees are less realistic that the deciduous ones in my previous post, but I think they look alright for gaming purposes, & are nice & durable.

These palm trees could also be used with my 'Day of the Rangers' Somalia figures, once I finish rebasing them from Force on Force to Crossfire.

I had some trees left over from making these terrain areas, so I also made a few stand-alone trees.  These won't have any in-game effect, they will just be dotted about to enhance the tabletop battlefield.

Lebanese woodland

This weekend I put together these three sections of woodland for 15mm-scale Crossfire, based on photos of trees in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon.  The trees are mounted on various sized laser-cut MDF discs from Fenris Games, so that they can be removed from the base (which denotes the actual extent of the terrain effect - also from Fenris Games) to allow easy fireteam placement.

I've included a stand of IDF infantry in these photos for scale.

I'm really pleased with how these turned out.  The trees are cheap Chinese imports from various manufacturers.  The bases were textured with ready-mix paint-thickener before being coated in sand using PVA.  I added some Gale Force Nine static grass & meadow flock to the bases, along with the classic lichen clumps for scrub. The rocks are just tiny stones that I've painted.  I went a bit far & actually painted some of the large sand grains & shell chips on the bases as 15mm-scale stones... :-s

Mercedes Benz cars

This weekend I painted a couple 15mm-scale retro Mercedes Benz cars for Crossfire.  These will be nice little scenery pieces to add some detail to my Middle East & African tabletops.  The black & maroon cars are 5-piece metal models (car body + wheels), & the wrecked car is a single-piece resin cast (which I painted a while back); all from the excellent Peter Pig.

I'll be buying a couple more of these, & maybe leaving the wheels off one to paint as a rusty/ burnt-out wreck.  The centre of the wheels  left off this wreck could be drilled-out to make a little stack of tyres to enhance a scenery piece.

I've just noticed that I forgot to paint the number plates of these cars. Doh!