Sahel Conflicts: Modern French Foreign Legion

With the insurgents complete, I've started working on my French Foreign Legion. Currently, no single company makes all the pieces I wanted, so I've gone with a combination of Eureka Miniatures and JJG Print 3D figures. Based on information from people with more knowledge than me, the Eureka figures are good for the 1990-2000s, and the JJG for the 2010s to present (depending on the sculpt). Since I was planning to game Operations Serval and Barkhane in the early 2010s Mali, I figured a transitional force wouldn't look grossly out of place.  I still have more to paint, but have completed a command team, a combat group, and some specialists

Command Team: 2 officers, medic and radio operator

NCO and 300m Team with FAMAS rifles and AT4s

600m Team with FAMAS rifles, Minimi MG, and LGI Mile F1 mortar

Two-man sniper team with FR F2 sniper rifle and suppressed HK416; Special forces drone operator

Tracker Unmanned Aerial System (Note: I don't think this drone type was deployed in the early 2010s, but drone options are limited) Edit: Raphael Longbow, the sculptor for JJG Print 3D, sent me a message on Facebook to clarify that the drone model is actually a DRAC, which became operational in 2008.

I am in no way an expert on the French Foreign Legion, so I found the Foreignlegion.info site to be invaluable in terms of painting references.  From photos of troops deployed in Mali, it seems that camouflage was mostly the desert pattern, with some temperate pieces as well.  Webbing elements tended to be tans and greens, with some individual soldiers having a mix of the two. As such, I've decided to go with a mix of appearances to add more variety and make it easier to differentiate between combat groups.

If anyone is interested, here are the painting mixes I came up with:

Desert Camo: Vallejo 891 Iraqi Sand base with Vallejo 821 German Beige and Vallejo 983 Flat Earth splotches; Wash with a mix of Vallejo Mecha Weathering 521 Oiled Earth and 522 Desert Dust

Temperate Camo: Vallejo 884 Stone Grey base with Vallejo 893 US Dark Green, Vallejo 871 Leather Brown, and Black splotches; Wash with Army Painter Soft Tone

Tan Webbing: Vallejo 821 German Beige with Vallejo 884 Stone Grey highlights; Wash with Vallejo 521 Oiled Earth

Green Webbing: Vallejo 887 Brown Violet with 924 Russian Uniform highlights; Wash with Army Painter Soft Tone

Metal Equipment: Vallejo 894 Camouflage Olive, with Camo Olive/833 German Camouflage Bright Green mix; Wash With Secret Weapon Green Black

Since people are also curious to see how figures mix with one another, besides the painted figures, here are some of both manufactures in the raw. 

 The JJG figures are slightly taller than the Eureka and are also a little bulkier, with it being particularly noticeable in the helmets. Similar to injection plastics, some of the details can be softer than seen on the metal Eurkea figures, but it also allows the use of thinner parts (check out the radio antenna on the commander's walkie talkie or the sunglasses in the hands of the AT4 operator wiping his eye) Overall, I think once painted they blend in well on the table and I would recommend both manufactures wholeheartedly.

Sahel Conflicts: More Insurgents and Journalists

 The last of my insurgents are now ready for the table.

This batch of insurgent infantry comes from The Assault Group's terrorist line rather than than the Africa irregulars, as I thought both the clothing and sculpting style was a better match for my current miniatures. In addition to the AK equipped members, I grabbed some PK machine gunners and a couple of snipers with SVD-63 Dragunov rifles. Sculpting was good, but I had to do a lot of clean up in the space between the arms and body.  Additionally, all the rifle barrels were badly bent coming out of the packages, and they took a fair amount of work to get straight (and I managed to break one during the process). TAG may want to looking into using thicker foam in their packaging to prevent this.

Next up is the Footsore technical and machine gun with an Empress gunner.  The body of the technical was a well cast resin piece and I had no issues with the primer and paint sticking to it.  Detail parts were white metal, and you got a variety of options, not all of which I used here. 

As Toyota seems to be the king of technicals, I used some Woodland Scenics dry rub decals to add the company name.  They were a bit fiddly to apply compared to wet decals, but I think the final effect is acceptable.

I also added some brass rod clippings to look like spent shell casings in the truck bed.

Finally, I painted up a few Empress journalists to use as objective markers during games. The sculpting of the main reporter's face unfortunately looked a bit like Voldemort with its very flat nose, but what are you going to do. The "Press" wording was added to his vest using more of the dry rub decals.

The journalist figures were another of the oversized type Empress is releasing in their modern range. As you can see below, this supposed 28mm figures is almost 33mm to the eye when on its base. I'll just have to say it's a Dutch news crew if anyone comments on the height.

Which brings me to the next question, how do all these ranges in my force compare to one another?

Left to Right: The Assault Group, Footsore (no cast base), Empress (base removed), Empress (base removed), Eureka

Left to Right: The Assault Group, Footsore (no cast base), Empress (base removed), Eureka

Left to Right: The Assault Group, Empress (base removed), Footsore (no cast base), Eureka

As you can see, there was some height variability among the Empress figures, and with the bases removed it was hit or miss on if they would still tower over the other miniatures. Figure bulk varied across the brands, with Footsore being on the thin side, Eureka somewhere in the middle, and Empress and TAG being a bit more hefty. Weapon sizes were fairly close across all the brands. With the unifying paint jobs and basing, I think they we will generally look good en mass, with perhaps just a few figures that shouldn't be put in the same units.

With that, it is now time to start on the French Foreign Legion force to counteract them.

Sahel Conflicts: Islamic Insurgents

 During a virtual painting meet up, one of my gaming group members floated the idea of moving forward in time from our usual WW2 games and trying some modern skirmish wargaming. Though I've been trying to resist the urge to start a new project, he didn't have to twist my arm too hard to take the plunge. We toyed with a few options (Middle East, Afghanistan, former Soviet territories), but decided Africa gave us the best option in terms of army variety and not requiring a lot of vehicles.

From my perspective, I thought the Mali insurgency in the early 2010's seemed the most interesting, so I started with an insurgent force appropriate for there. That said, I wanted it versatile enough that it could represent an Islamic terrorist group from any anywhere across the Sahel, from Ansar Dine in the west to Boko Haram in the east.

My initial purchase was some masked Somalis from Eureka USA, which I felt made great generic Africa insurgents. They also make bareheaded gunmen, but I thought that the bare chests and short pants of some figures looked out of place in an Islamic force. The figures are technically very well sculpted (particularly the weapons), but I do find some of them stiff and lacking in a lot of individual character.  However, they do paint up quite nicely.

There were no heavy weapons in the Eureka Somali range, so I picked up a Russian SPG-9 recoilless rifle from their Afghanistan range instead. The SPG-9 was used in the Mali conflict, and since the figures were masked, I thought a bit of blue robing could turn them into a reasonable facsimile of Tuareg rebels.

The next batch of figures I ordered were the Boko Haram insurgents from Footsore North America. The figures are thinner in style than Eureka's and a hair taller, but they do not have cast bases, which leaves the finished figures at a similar height.  While I think the sculpting quality is rougher than Eureka, these figures have a ton of character (the bearded machine gunner is my favorite in the army) and bring a lot of life to the force.

The last batch of figures I ordered were the Empress Miniatures, and these proved somewhat problematic. I had previously bought some of their Abyssinia and WW2 figures (both excellent), and they were a good size match to my Eureka and Footsore miniatures. So I expected the same with their modern line. However, it appears they were using a different sculptor and the figures were closer to 1/48 than the usual 1/56 (one figure was almost 32mm from base to eye).  I cut the bases off to help, and while pack INS02 looked more reasonable, the INS11 pack was still relatively big looking, particularly with the overly elongated necks on the figures.

I was really unhappy with how they were looking, so decided to take the radical step of beheading them and removing a few millimetres of neck, covering the cut with some putty.

The modifications helped, but I still found the INS11 body proportions off, with skinny torsos, fat heads, and arms that seemed too long (pack INS02 was much better sculpted). 

As you may be able to tell, the Empress modern figures were not my favorites, and with the larger sizes and hit and miss sculpting quality, I think I will avoid this line in the future. But that said, I was able to hide these in my army without them being a major eyesore.

In terms of painting, this was a new challenge for me, as I'm not really experienced at painting camouflage uniforms, and my usual painting style uses few to no washes (but most modern army painting videos recommend their use for shading). It was a bit of a learning curve, but I think I got better as I progressed through the figures and overall I'm happy.  For the paint schemes, I used a lot of reference photos of insurgents in Mali, Chad and Nigeria. Uniforms seemed to be quite a mishmash of camouflage patterns, even in the same units, so I tried to reflect that here. I also tried to throw in a little bit of blue fabric to represent the Tuareg elements. For the skin colors, I mostly went with dark and medium brown sub-Saharan tones, with a few lighter skinned figures to represent Berber fighters who had come south.

As with most of my hobby projects, there has been some scope creep, so I have some more insurgents making their way to the painting desk (including a technical), and then will move on to some French Foreign Legion to battle them.  My local opponent has yet to select and paint an appropriate force of his own, but my hope is we'll be able to to get these on the table later in the year.

Warbases 28mm Zhu House

I'm continuing with my Chinese terrain build; this time it's a building from Warbases' 55th Day-China line. The Zhu house kit seemed most similar to a wooden Chinese house, so I opted to forgo my usual brick texture and find some wood paneling online.

I didn't have any large wood panel images in my collection so had to perform an online search. Textures.com proved a good source, and I found some wood planks that I thought would fit the bill. Normally I would print these textures out using a good laser printer, but with the Covid restrictions, I only had access to my home inkjet printer. Sadly the images weren't as crisp and the colors not as vibrant, but I think it still gave a reasonable result.  

The kit was built as standard, expect for the addition of the paper textures (including window frames on the lower portion) and the plastic roof tiles from Plastruct (part 91666).  The fit tolerances were very tight on this building, and just the thickness of the paper was enough to cause some gaps on the MDF wood framing. I also had issues with the roof fit being too tight, and ended up having to shave the end caps to keep it from scraping the paint off the building.  The trickiest aspect was trying to fit the plastic tiles to the curved roof. I bent the tile strip at three places using a steel ruler edge to try and pre-shape it, but it still required several clamps and a generous helping of superglue to hold it down.

To hid the tile gaps and provide a more finished look, bit of plastic tubing was added to the top of the roof lines.

The kit does break apart so you can put figures on both floors, but again, the fit was really tight and the floors don't separate easily.

As with my other Warbases build, the doors were a bit on the low side for Copplestone figures on thick bases, but it was nothing egregious.

While I'd wait for laser printer access before again trying to print large texture sheets, I think the end result still came out decent, and the kit itself is one I can recommend.

Another Dragonfrog Asian Shop

The push to keep assembling buildings for my Chinese hutong project continues. This is another 28mm MDF kit from Dragonfrog Games. Its a combination of the shop 4 and 5 kits, with my usual upgrades of printed textures, card, and bits of plastic detailing from Plastruct and Evergreen Scale Models.

The height of the upper story window frames caused some spacing issues when applying the plastic trim, so my attempt to hide the seams between floors wasn't as successful as on my other shops.  However, I don't think it will be too noticeable when looking down at the gaming table.

As with the other shops, the building can be opened up by floor (though the attic level is too short for standing figures).

I also made another error with the shopfront tiles, forgetting to take into consideration the lower portion of the window frames when measuring. I trimmed the bottoms off to compensate, and just have to hope the design looks intentional. 

Below is the actual storefront in Penang, Malaysia that inspired mine.  Though I will primarily will use this for China, I also plan to start playing the Malaysian campaign now that I have a South Asian British force for WW2.

If you would like the architectural details for your own projects, feel free to use the files below.