Red Army 120mm Mortar Team

Produced for the most recent speed painting challenge on The Guild forum.

The figures were selected from the Bolt Action Soviet Forward Observer blister and the 120mm Mortar Team (since I purchased this, Warlord have apparently added another figure to the mortar blister).

If it wasnt for this being a speed build, I think I would have made different decisions:

• I was very unhappy with the scale difference of the rifles on the various figures - and I think I would normally have dremeled off the sidearms and replaced them with consistently-scaled rifles. I have noticed this before with the Bolt Action Soviets - there seem to be vast differences in scale and style of sculpts between blisters.
• The mortar ammo and ammo cases were all over the place, scale-wise, and I think I should have scratch-built replacements.
• The spotter with the map has 5 fingers AND a thumb on his left hand - I didnt notice this until I washed in some ink, and then I was a way down the road with the painting, and decided I couldnt afford the time to correct it.

There were times – early in process – that I considered abandoning the entire project – even on the nicer sculpts (from the spotter blister) there was a lot of flash and mould slip, and the mortar crew proper were nasty-looking castings. Not ideal entries for a competitive build! I hope that with the repackaging of the mortar team they took the opportunity to remaster and correct these issues.

In the end I wont be too unhappy with them on the table (especially as more often than not I will only be using the spotter team, assuming the weapon is off-table), but I normally try to approach things with less of a wargaming attitude and more of a scale modellers attitude.

Figures from the Warlord Games Soviet 120mm Mortar Team blister (since repackaged to 4 figures).

Figures from the Warlord Games Soviet FOO blister.