New SpecOps available

Today I put the new Special Forces sets online at Enfilade Figures.

Two new sets have entered the shop:  Another group of Special Forces in Light Gear in skirmishing poses and a pair of Snipers. 

Klick on the banner to go to the shop if you want to get them :)

Tank Busters - 15mm Sherman Firefly

A few months ago I receieved two Sherman Firefly as a gift - I believe the intention was to get me into 15mm WW2.

They´ve been sitting on my painting desk and someday I grabbed them and gave them some airbrush treatment because I felt like using the airbrush and these were suitable models to do so.

Of course I had to finish them up after getting them halfway done, so here I am with two 15mm Sherman Firefly.

I don´t want to get into 15mm WW2 - I just painted these for the sake of painting.
They´ll probably be sold off at some point to finance some new minis or equipment :)

Communication is Power - SAS Radioman

What´s better than bringing a lot of heavy firepower with you?  Having it flown in by Aircraft or Long Range Guns, of course.   Apart from that, your Com-Link is very handy whenever you want to report back home, whatever the reason - status updates, pickup, support. Being on your own is a very uncomfortable situation.

Hence it´s always good to have a Radio Operator with you!

The Gimpy - SAS Machine Gunner

This is probably one of the more odd choices for a support weapon set.  It´s lot like carrying a GPMG into combat is your first choice of action in most cases. Special Forces often need to cover long distances and already carry enough heavy gear. However, in some more direct action missions, bringing the firepower of these machineguns can be invaluable. And again, it´s been done historically, especially if transport is available.

That´s how the SAS GPMG-gunner came to be. 

Raining Fire - SAS Grenadier

An underbarrel grenade launcher is a weapon you don´t want to miss in your arsenal. Being able to hit enemies by indirect fire after suppressing their positions or - heck - just lobbing a grenade over a distance of 300m!  -  is a very powerful capability.

That´s why my SAS support weapon packs naturally had to include one of these. Apart from the fact that it´s historically accurate of course ;) 

Minimi-listic Design

The daily showcase continues with Cold War SAS troopers.  Again, the set is already a few months old and didn´t get painted so far.   The rough quick-inked figures didn´t show the models full potential.

I painted my Woodland camo using a very similar approach as outlined in my Tutorial on How to Paint DPM/Woodland Camo - I used a much darker wash than in the tutorial and slightly different colors.

Yet the approach is very similar - paint basecoat, wash, re-highlight, apply blotches in a sandy color, add brown splotches and draw very fine lines with a dark brown. The trick is in applying the right color in the right places, which can be very tricky.

Eye on Terror - The Marksman

On to the last figures of the Special Forces Set - the Marksman!
Actually, I´m not sure what to say about him apart from the usual stuff.

So let me share some trivia about the set. My original intention was to put a SAW-Gunner into the group, but the sculpt turned out so horrible that I had to scrap him. If I´m not mistaken, he´s found his resting place in the box of failures where all the bad or unfinished stuff is collected. 

I don´t remember which figures finally replaced him, but I believe it was this marksman?

Keep Moving!

This guy was a bit unlucky during the photo session - he got into positions that make it hard to see the full extend of the paintjob. I messed up the angle a bit with the pic on the left, so you can´t see that much (though it makes for a cool effect)

That´s not a Chainsaw...

This guy again represents what I was going for with the set. Take away his weapon and attitude and he´ll look like a local woodcutter. Except he doesn´t carry a chainsaw

He got a brand new paintjob and I think the difference to the older models is visible.

Fight Fire with Fire!

This is the second figure from the SF-set that has an older paintjob.
I still like him better than the Grenadier, who´s had a rather plain color scheme with little variation. This operator at least got some interesting camo on the trousers, which unfortunately is hard to see on the photo.

 

The set of figures was created especially with this interesting mix in mind - Special Forces in Light gear, i.e. with a mix of military garb and hardware + local garment to conceil their true nature. 

Codename UGLy

I prepared the next set of pictures to keep this rolling for a few more days.
After taking a good look at the new Insurgents, we´re moving on the Special Forces - an older set that - again - was unpainted for quite a while.


Well, unpainted is not true. Two minis had been painted more than a year ago, but I never got the remaining three figures coated in color.  We´re starting off with the least impressive, the Grenadier who was one of the long-painted figures that is barely good enough to still be acceptable without a repainting session.

But I promise the next few figures are going to be better painting-wise.

A quick glimpse onto my desk...

Hey folks,

I´ve been silent again for a while, mainly due to holidays. There´s a lot going on both in my regular job, on the figure front and I´ve recently spent some more hours playing PC than I did throughout most of the last months.

Figure wise, I´m preparing to release the new batch of miniatures that I´ve presented recently. I´m also trying to push ahead on the painting front, getting some more figures painted up for the shop.

During October I tried to mix in some Renaissance Warfare stuff again - this Blog is called Rifles and Muskets after all, as it was always my intention to dig into this era as well. I somehow never managed. Still, my very long term project of building as Muscotive Army for the 17th century has come ahead somwhat - I´ve produced a few custom 15mm models for that purpose, but I´m planning to purchase a sizeable force at Totentanz Miniatures sometime in the future. They´ve recently released very nice Cossacks both foot and mounted that are fabulous for my purposes.

 You can see my current progress if you look closely, the infantry bases will finish my first regiment (yay) and the cavalry is the first step towards a mounted unit.

In the foreground, my figures being painted up for the shop.
As you can see, I´ve made good progress throughout the last week. As soon as I have a large enough batch prepared, I´ll start a photo session.  You´ll get to see each of these miniatures in detail, I plan to take pictures of every one of them, maybe even reviving the idea of a mini-related christmas calendar?

We´ll see how my productivity keeps up and if I´ll be able to pull that off!
Stay tuned for more. :)

British Patrol

After a long break, I´ve finally returned to finishing some British Troopers for my Cold War Setup.

These have been painted recently, using all the new tricks and shortcuts I´ve acquired in recent months - rather quick paintjobs in fact, painting 7 or 8 minis within a few hours.

So the result is not suuper tight, but good enough for the scale.

Hope you like it - more (and better) stuff is coming up soon before I´ll disappear in silence again while being away from home for a holiday break.

Mai Releases at Enfilade Figures

Hi folks,

after a very long period of silence, I am finally able to present some new products at Enfilade Figures:

Cold War Bundeswehr Panzergrenadiere

Modern German Commandos 
 

Modern British Infantry

 Russian Support Weapons

African Irregulars with SKS

Taliban PKM MG-Gunners

Click on the pictures to get to the right category, the banner above to get to the main page or take the plain old link: www.enfilade-figures.com 

More Modern British Armed Forces

Hey folks,

just a single pic today to show what I´m working on at the moment:  More British Infantry.
While the photo is not ideal, it should give you a basic idea what you can expect in the second set of these guys.

British Armed Forces: Fireteam finished

During the breaks I took while painting the rest of the mountain warfare project, I also finished the last figure of my British Fireteam.

So here we are:

4 UK soldiers modelled after reference pics of current gear and plans for the Army 2020 layout of the section. As there´s still some vagueness, I put in the L86 as Marksman rifle. I know there´s the L129 being phased in as Urgent Operational Requirement and I´ll do a fifth figure which uses the L129.
As the future of L129 vs. L86 seems to be undecided yet, I´ll let you guys pick the right weapon. Not sure how I´ll configure the unit though - 5 man team or Fireteam + optional guy with the other weapon to swap in? Trouble is: which weapon goes into the main set, which will be the addition? :(

Anyway, currently it looks like this:

Pretty sure I´ll add a scope to the Minimi-Gunner before they go into casting.

British Armed Forces

Hey folks,

a short update for today, but an update nonetheless:
As I´ve got no FAMAS ready for mass production of Modern French and got sick of doing more Chinese after finishing 7 out of 9 guys for a basic infantry squad I switched to doing a British soldier, as these would be next in line:

 

More Easter Eggs tomorrow...

I Hate DPM - SAS Painted

Painted up the first set of SAS from my latest releases at Enfilade figures:

1.) Photo with "Cold" Light Settings

2.)  Photo with "Warm" Light Settings

Still working on the other set with M16s, should be painted up soonish, the hardest part is done. (Yes I´m talking about you, dreaded camouflage pattern!)

New Stuff

Reinforcements have arrived! New sets are available through my website:

Modern Russian Support Pack: 
-SVD Dragunov,  PKM, RPG-29  and RPO-Shmel-M

Modern German Riflemen: 
-3x G36  (some might be missing the handle, like the guys on the pic)

New SAS with M16:
-4x SAS Operators with M16

Preview, reference pic still to be painted but already available

New SAS with SLR:
-4x SAS Operators with Self Loading Rifle

Taliban Sniper Team:
Sniper + Spotter

Taliban Militia:
-3x Militia with SKS Rifles:

Available at:

Click the Banner to get to teleported to the webshop ;)

SpecOps (UPDATED)

As promised yesterday, some first pics of my SpecOps unit. Will add another Rifleman or Teamleader figure and an LMG to complete the set.

It´s supposed to be Special Forces in Light gear, partly disguised in local civilian garb, kept as generic as possible to be suitable for a variety of theatres..

Updated picture so you can see some more details and the two latest figures to complete the group:

 And the original picture with another angle on the figures:

Hope you can pick out the details despite the less than ideal picture.