Home Forums WWII 3mm WWII Brits and Germans for Operation Jupiter

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  • #56093
    Avatar photoJust Jack
    Participant

    All,

    The boy and I have been playing and having a great time with Operation Jupiter, specifically, Ben Lacy’s amazing scenario book of the same name. We’ve already played eight fights (one in 15mm, seven in 10mm), and were having a lot of fun. But we’re crunched for time due to all the other gaming we’re doing (a great problem to have), and I like 3mm, so I picked some stuff up from Pico Armor (those guys are fantastic!) so we could play on a small board with very little set-up/cleanup time. I ordered, had them in my hands two days later; then I cleaned them and put them on sticks, painted, based, and flocked, all in about 3 1/2 hours. Here’s a look at them.


    The entire force, based on pennies, with British on the right and Germans on the left. I used a dark green for the Brit vehicles and olive drab for the men, dunkelgelb for the German vehicles and gray for the men. I don’t ten to do camo on 3mm, I’m just not very good at it. I’ve seen guys on the ‘net that have done it very well, but I always end up screwing it up, so I stick with basic colors and throw a wash on them.


    Four Achilles tank destroyers. To see a bunch more pics of the group, please check the blog at:
    http://blackhawkhet.blogspot.com/2017/01/3mm-wwii-brits-and-germans-for.html

    That does it for now, but wanted to show off the stuff, which we plan on putting to use in the near future. Hope you like them, and if you’ve got any questions, just let me know.

    V/R,
    Jack

    #56175
    Avatar photoRod Robertson
    Participant

    Jack:

    Man, those pico-tanks are tiny! They and especially the infantry blur the distinction between miniatures and painted Braille! At some point it just seems more sensible to use cardboard wargame counters rather than teeny tiny minis. Having said that, you have done a fine job of painting and presenting the 3mm minis, so bravo to you Jack. A job well done!

    Cheers and good gaming.

    Rod Robertson.

     

    #56179
    Avatar photoJust Jack
    Participant

    Rod, you are killing me!  Are you really telling me you can’t tell the picture above is M-10/Achilles tank destroyers?  Or even that you can’t make out the pic above?  Braille???  The detail is incredible, and if you play on a 2′ x 2′, sitting down, it’s more easily recognizable than playing on a larger table in 6mm.

    #56186
    Avatar photoThaddeus Blanchette
    Participant

    Rod, if you can’t tell the difference between those and cointers, you need to get your eyes checked. Seriously. 🙂

     

     

    We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

    #56188
    Avatar photoRod Robertson
    Participant

    Thaddeus:

    Yes, the eyesight is not what it used to be but that is not my point. The attraction of miniature wargaming to me is seeing and enjoying the painted minis in action. 3mm or there abouts is fine for naval or even some aerial wargames but to me it seems too small to appreciate an infantry soldier or a Universal Carrier. Thus, why bother painting them up and just use cardboard counters a la Squad Leader to play a game? I can’t quite remember what scale your Sci Fi mega-armour is but the minis seemed large enough to show some very good paint jobs by you and very attractive colour schemes. But at 3mm WWII or modern vehicles look bland even when painted with skill and their distorted proportions make them seem like poor caricatures of the real vehicles. It’s just my personal bias but I like to savour minis and to enjoy a visual feast while gaming. PS. I like the term cointers which you used there. Never thought of that name but it’s excellent for describing what 3mm minis look like to me. A good bon mot!

    Cheers and good gaming.

    Rod Robertson.

    #56189
    Avatar photoRod Robertson
    Participant

    Rod, you are killing me!

    Jack:

    Excellent! My plans are unfolding according to my scheme. Soon the boy will replace you and rule the world! (or at least a 2’x2′ piece of it!)

    Cheers and good gaming while it lasts.

    The Evil Ultra-mind.

    #56190
    Avatar photokyoteblue
    Participant

    I sadly agree with Rod, at 3 mm a cardboard counter has as much detail.  My eyes need thick glass at that point.

    #56201
    Avatar photoThaddeus Blanchette
    Participant

    Sorry. You folks are wrong and I can prove it.

    Here are some photos of modern 3mm troops, rice (which is another thing 3mm gets compared to) and counters:

    Now look, Games Workshop it aint. But I have been playing counter wargames for forty years: these aren’t counters and the experience you get playing a game isn’t the same as a paper wargame. Not by a long shot.

    Now, OK, this scale is not a scale anyone would probably do exclusively. But the beauty of it is that you don’t have to. It’s really a “freebie” scale. You get 15 vehicles for less than five bucks. That force up there? Probably cost less than twenty five dollars, all told, and with plenty of castings left over. Plus, you can play really BIG games or your normal-sized games on a coffee table. And that is a major plus for gamers who don’t have much space.

    Finally, because these figures are so small, so cheap and the lines are so complete, you can use 3mm to do whacky, one off projects.

    Want to do the Chaco War? Eminently doable in 3mm for less than the price of a board wargame. Hey, how about dipping your toes in Napoleonics, like I wanted to do a few years back? Well, for less than a hundred dollars, you can  build two immense Austrian and French armies and do a big Black Powder game on a 3×4 table.

    Look at this and tell me you aren’t taking the piss when you say 3mm is essentially the same thing as counter-based wargaming:

    Better images of those last photos can be seen at my blog, here:

    http://leadnobleed.blogspot.com.br/2014/09/first-austrian-brigade-for-black-powder.html

     

    We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

    #56206
    Avatar photoThaddeus Blanchette
    Participant

    Most of your problems with painting and recognition, Rod, come from using (or seeing people use) incorrect painting techniques.

    Unfortunately, as much as I like Just Jack’s stuff, it seems to me that he’s still feeling his way into painting this scale correctly. You really need to unlearn a lot of old habits to do it right.

    There are two key rules you need to follow:

    1) Base against paint scheme;

    2) Paint bright, highlight brighter. There’s little surface space on these figures, so everything has to be color saturated.

    Jack violates Rule One with the basing for his German Army. He should’ve gone darker. And Rule Two shows up in the Achilles. He highlighted them with white or grey which makes them look too chalky. I think he should’ve tried the base color mixed with yellow as a highlight.

    There’s also a third rule: less is more when it comes to basing. You need to use a really fine flock and not much of it. Flock, at this scale, can induce too much noise into the figure. You might want to base with a Vallejo very fine grit paste — and only a light brushing of it, too — and just do a single base color, followed by a lighter tone drybrush.

    I am still getting basing correct, by the way. The figs shown here are from 2012 and 2014, respectively. But even here, you can see what I mean.

    The tanks and infantry are green, highlighted with brighter (not lighter) green. They are based on papaya-colored bases flocked with a bit of fine yellow flock and really light straw static grass. These bases are probably “too busy” but they are contra-color enough to literally make the figures shine.

    The Austrians were originally based dark green, but that didn’t look good, even though it highlighted the figs. When in doubt in this scale, go light on the bases as the larger amount of light reflecting upwards on the figs, the better. So here the bases are almost certainly too busy, but again, they are very light colored, so they don’t distract the eye too much.

    Here is my tumblr account, dedicated to God’s True Scale (because God plays exclusively in 1/600, with brief forays to 1/300). You can see some excellent examples of counter color basing and bright painting here:

    http://godstruescale.tumblr.com

    And here’s four WWII basing solutions. All are acceptable, but I am sure you will agree that my original ideas — the first two rows, counting up from the bottom — are far too busy and distracting.

    The T-34s are the best of the lot, and I even put some small labels on the back of the bases — as many people do in almost all other scales — to aid in identification. Today, if I were to redo the Germans, I’d add some patches of very light green fine flock.

    So yeah, Rod, I agree. If you try painting 3mm figs like 15mm figs — or even 6mm figs — you won’t be able to recognize the bren gun carriers. Look at the ones in the lower right: just sort of blend into the base, don’t they? But I am sure you can recognize the others at an arm’s distance, even the “busy” stugs. Here’s a better picture of them:

    And that brings up one final point. Because you can play what would normally be a 6×4 foot game on a 3×2 foot table, you re usually looking at these figures at half the distance you’d normally be eyeing them at.

     

    We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

    #56219
    Avatar photoMartinR
    Participant

    LOL, if you think 3mm is too small, then you’d really hate my 2mm stuff…

    As Thaddeus says, you need to paint them differently, in a more impressionistic style (which suits me right down to the ground). And you see them from closer, as tend to sit down a smaller table. Ideal for those of us with bad backs.

    Anyway, Edgehill in 2mm using Neil Thomas ECW rules:

    A Soviet BMP Regiment and Tank Regiment conduct an assault crossing of the Mitelland Canal in 1981. Braunschweig burns in the distance:

     

    Cheers

    Martin

     

     

    "Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

    #56229
    Avatar photoJust Jack
    Participant

    So, I think 3mm works like a champ, and like Martin said, it’s great for those of us that have bad backs, allowing us to sit down and play, at which range the minis look great.  Here is what I aspire to:

    Courtesy of “The Tinpot Revolutionary” blog.

    Anyway, I wouldn’t say my toys are painted/based incorrectly; I think they look great.  I see it more an issue of personal preference, where I prefer the more muted look with basing/flock that matches my table, rather than bright, shiny tanks.  In either case, they can be made out just fine on the table, and, as Thad pointed out, are cheap and quick so you can get into lots of different periods/actions.

    Oh, and I didn’t highlight these, I did what I said I did: I spray painted them a soft green, then put a wash on them and based them.  Looks great to me, and quick 😉

    But the counters deal is silly, and if you can’t see these you probably shouldn’t be driving or allowed to use a butter knife 😉

    V/R,
    Jack

    #56230
    Avatar photokyoteblue
    Participant

    Guys …..I got eye strain now…..

    #56270
    Avatar photoThaddeus Blanchette
    Participant

    Everybody’s got their own tastes for this. I started mine out realistically, ended up making them brighter.

    But seriously, Kyote, this is no more eyestrain, sitting at the kitchen table, than doing 15mm on a 12 x 5 board.

    We get slapped around, but we have a good time!

    #56271
    Avatar photokyoteblue
    Participant

    I guess…but I’ll stick with 15mm.

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