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!

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!

IDF reinforcements

Here is the first batch of new reinforcements for my 15mm-scale 1980s IDF force - a couple more sniper teams, a Forward Observer (FO), a .50cal HMG team, & a Military Working Dog (MWD) team.  The FO will be handy for allowing the use of off-table artillery/air strikes.  I drilled into the figure's radio pack to insert a tiny section of wire as an aerial, to help him stand-out more on the tabletop.  As this was a success, I'll be doing the same thing to the existing RTOs on my commander bases. As Crossfire rules for MWD teams, I'm considering something like their presence automatically prevents friendly figures being ambushed when they enter a terrain feature containing Hidden enemies.  They could also confer a +1 bonus in assaults.  Not sure about allowing them a chance of detecting minefields/IEDs - MWDs probably aren't so good at this in a full-on combat situation.

All the figures are from Peter Pig's excellent AK-47 Republic range.

Syrian ZSU-23-4 'Shilka'

Not to be out-gunned by their IDF opponents, my 1980s Syrian Army force have gained a 'Shilka' this week.  Like the M163 VADS, the ZSU-23-4 is a lightly-armoured mobile AA unit that kicks out a hellish rate of fire.  Again, in Crossfire rules terms, I'll give this 5D firepower against infantry.  This is a very nice 15mm-scale miniature from the QRF moderns range.  The quad autocannons were slightly fiddly to assemble (& I'll have to be fairly careful when handling during games), but the rest of the model is very straightforward to assemble (only 9 pieces total).

IDF M163 VADS

This week I painted-up a support vehicle for my 15mm-scale IDF force - an M163 VADS (self-propelled Vulcan Air Defence System).  In the IDF's 1982 incursion into Lebanon, it was discovered that the M168 rotary autocannon on this vehicle didn't have the range to defend against the Syrian Gazelle helicopters that attacked from long-range with cutting-edge HOT missiles.  Consequently, the IDF tended to use their M163 VADS for clearing buildings of potential or identified ambushers.  In Crossfire rules terms, the vulcan cannon will have a horrific 5D firepower against infantry - however, being mounted on an M113 chassis, this unit is still very vulnerable to ATGM & RPG fire. The model is from the excellent Peter Pig AK47 range.