I have been working towards starting my V For Victory force. I was lucky enough to get an early look at the rules and so that meant I was able to start tinkering with the Band Of Brothers Starter Set for Bolt Action and build a full US Paratrooper force for at least the first mission and start work on my Panzergrenadiers for the Germans too.

The aim is to have the miniatures painted quickly for the chance of some wargaming at the end of the month of June. To that end, I have been painting using Contrast which I’m not entirely sure about. BUT, I have bitten the bullet and I think now I have given myself over to the process, the end result is looking pretty good!

V For Victory works using a star system to represent your army rather than traditional points. To that end, this shows a little bit of a preview of how an army is put together. The Command Section above features your leader alongside his squad. The appropriate list gives you the weapons that the soldiers are armed with and the game is very granular in that sense.

The squads are then pretty much mirrors of each other. You get two NCOs armed with SMGs (Thompsons) and then the rest of the squad use regular rifles.

You also get an LMG (BAR) for the unit. Because of the more granular nature of V For Victory (being that it’s a smaller, infantry-focused game) and the fact that it’s more “accurate” means that you don’t just get full squads armed with one weapon but a mix.

A regular US Army force might have a few more infantry but US Paratroopers are so elite that they don’t get quite as many soldiers. With that in mind, I spent a little more just on an MMG to give me some covering fire during missions.

This gives you a good idea of the sort of force you’d have for starting out with V For Victory. It can also be translated over to Bolt Action pretty easily and of course Bolt Action Firefight if you wanted to go smaller and play a more focused skirmish. I am intended to do a bit of everything!

I have also got most of my German Panzergrenadier force done as well. I need a few more miniatures to finish it off but here is a look at the similar Contrast-based scheme for the Germans. Sorry Gerry, no harsh lines on that camo…

Thanks to Andy @brucelea for the extra Panzergrenadier bits as they are helping to get at least one full squad with Assault Rifles done alongside the Command element above and the MMG team. I just need one more Assault Rifle squad and a Sniper Team and these lads are ready to have a crack at the Paratroopers who just landed in their well-defended field!

I am really liking going back to historical wargaming and diving into WW2. I always enjoyed Bolt Action and had a lot of fun playing games of it. I just think it fell by the wayside when other big games (Warmachine) came to the fore in the shop I used to frequent.

I also like that I can use these across multiple games! It has been a bit of a fun learning curve with this force as not only do I get to learn about quickly painting (and being happy) with Contrast painted troops but also diving back into the research side of historical wargaming and the added hobby elements that throws up.

Apparently, my partner’s Dad is also going to give me some armour for these lads to use so that will be fun!