Bolt Action Battle Report: Winter War Meeting Engagement

I finally had my first game of Bolt Action recently, after years of wanting to give it a try. My friend Seamus agreed to show me the ropes using the Winter War forces I have painted. It worked out to about 630 points on each side, made up entirely of infantry. I fielded the Finns and Seamus commanded the inexperienced Soviet horde. We played the fairly straightforward Meeting Engagement scenario out of the rulebook. In this scenario, any forces not held in reserve would move onto the table in the first turn, and one victory point would be scored for each enemy unit destroyed. It turned out to be a pretty exciting and dramatic battle. Have a look below to see how it went.

Warlord Games plastic Soviet Infantry painted for Winter War

Back when I pre-ordered my copy of the 2nd edition Bolt Action rule book, Warlord Games were giving away a free box of infantry with pre-orders. Unfortunately the Winter Soviet Infantry weren't an option, so I went with the regular Soviet Infantry box. I figured, given the supply difficulties the Soviets had at the start of the Winter War, it would be fine to have a couple units in the army without greatcoats. A lot of the options in the box aren't useful for a Winter War force, but I tried to get the most I could out of it, mixing in some extra heads I had from the Baker Company Winter War Kickstarter.

What I ended up with is three units. I made one unit of 12 in padded jackets and helmets, including a light machine gun. I made one unit of twelve in caps, a few with molotov cocktails. This will act as the "free" unit of green infantry with anti-tank grenades allowed in the Soviet army list. I also made one unit of NKVD border guard with three sub-machine guns. Have a look at the results below and let me know what you think.

Baker Company Winter War Soviets First Wave

My first batch of Baker Company Winter War Soviets (from their long-ago Kickstarter campaign) are finally finished. Below you can see pictures of the finished first wave (consisting of 6 squads of 10 infantry each and an officer with three infantrymen accompanying) plus two commissars and a standard bearer from the second wave of stretch goal extras. If you're interested in how I painted them, you can find all the details in my previous post: Painting Winter War Soviets. I came up with a pretty quick method that allowed me to paint this many infantry relatively (for me) quickly. Since what is pictured only amounts to about 600 some odd points for Bolt Action, I still have quite a lot more painting to do, including all the other Kickstarter extras. Let me know what you think so far.

Painting Winter War Soviets

I have finalized my process for painting my Winter War Soviet infantry. There are a lot of steps, but most of them go very quickly and don't require careful painting or much skill, so I was able to get my infantry painted relatively quickly using this process. The paints I used are mostly out of print Citadel paint colors, but hopefully by looking at the pictures below for each stage you can figure out an equivalent color to use, if you want to follow a similar process.

Here is the full list of steps. Further down I have close up pictures showing the results of applying each step. The order can be changed around on some of the steps, and they are actually in a slightly different order in the pictures. I primed some of the models white and some grey, and it didn't seem to make much difference, so either is fine.

1. Codex Grey - basecoat greatcoats, equipment, M27 caps, bases
2. Adeptus Battlegrey - basecoat black boots and rifle metal
3. Fortress Grey - wet brush greatcoats, M27 caps, and equipment
4. Fortress Grey - highlight boots, rifle metal
5. Skull White - dry brush greatcoats, M27 caps
6. Mechrite Red - paint collar diamond patches and cap patches
7. Nuln Oil - wash coat, cap, rifle metal, black boots, and bases
8. Calthan Brown - basecoat belt, ammo pouches, rifle wood, blanket roll, gloves, entrenching tool handle, brown ankle boots, khaki pants/puttees/helmets, and NCO fleece cap (this is the hardest step, and I actually broke it up into multiple steps when painting up 30 of these guys at a time)
9. Desert Yellow - edge highlight rifle wood, wet brush gloves, blanket roll, brown ankle boots, khaki
10. Bleached Bone - paint rifle straps, dry brush khaki and cap fur
11. Devlan Mud - wash blanket roll, gloves, rifle wood, belts, ammo pouches, and brown ankle boots
12. Sea green (don't know the actual name of this paint) - wet brush backpack, gas mask case and straps, bottle cover, and entrenching tool cover (don't forget the straps around the blanket roll)
13. Athonian Camoshade - wash backpack, gas mask case and straps, bottle cover, entrenching tool cover, and khaki
14. Tallarn Flesh - basecoat faces
15. Elf Flesh - wet brush faces
16. Dwarf Flesh - paint lower lips
17. Chainmail - paint cup, rifle bolts, and belt buckles
18. White - paint eyes
19. Black - dot eyes