Stepping Away from the Grid for a Moment

No, not the power grid, the gridded wargame's table.

If you haven't heard, Warlord released a free "unofficial" squad vs squad modification for Bolt Action . This provided a bit of a kick in the paints (get it? ha!) to get started on my early war French force as some people at the "local" (I always put it in quotes because it's about an hour drive) game store will be playing it and my whole reason for even giving Bolt Action a go is to play some games with other people.

The figures (from Warlord) are quite nice with little flash - these are white metal, not plastic, which can't be said of all of the Warlord figures. The integral bases varied from barely adding any height to adding several millimeters. To avoid the "standing on a mound in the middle of a lawn" look, I decided to break out some green stuff I had laying around (several years old now) to smooth the transition.

This was my first attempt at using green stuff - it's the two strips kind (one yellow, one blue, knead together). It was harder to mix than I imagined but a few minutes searching the internet, followed by a few seconds in the microwave (the green stuff, not me) and a little water helped (again the green stuff, although I could always do with more water, too).

Here they are, still on mounds, but more uniformly so.

Soviet SMG troops look on as the green stuff dries on the French figures.

After the green stuff had fully cured (I let it go overnight), I put some texture on the bases (I don't normally do this, but I'm following a guide). I'm using Vallejo Ground Texture - a white-ish paste with pumice in it from what I understand. It's spreadable, and with a damp brush it can be almost painted where needed. Don't use too much water though or whatever the pumice is in just sort of flows away.

I let that  dry a few hours and then primed the figures with Delta Ceramcoat Hippo Grey.

A dark shadowy mass.

While priming, I found there was some flash between the helmet rim and backpack on a few of the figures, so I'll clear that out with a file and spot prime as needed, before I start in on the great coats.

I still haven't decided if I'll attempt any shading, highlighting, and all that on these figures, or go with the simpler painting style that I tend to prefer.