Starting Bolt Action - Fall of Singapore

As the next step in preparing for my Bolt Action games, I wanted to create a British force using the Fall of Singapore theatre selector.

My first step was a chat with the helpful staff the Warlord stand at the UKGE this year. The correct look for my forces was probably going to come from using their British Commonwealth Infantry box.

But to help my hobby dollar stretch a bit further they suggested buying the British & Canadian Starter Army alongside the Commonwealth box and mixing the shorts and bare arms from the tropical uniforms with the sprues from the army box, enabling me to make far more than the 30 models I would normally get out of the Commonwealth box alone.

With the models assembled, it was on to painting. Unfortunately for a total beginner at historicals like myself, I was unable to find a definitive painting tutorial online for British troops from the time and place I was looking to recreate, so I had to use a number of resources to pull together a colour scheme myself.

Using illustrations, photos of surviving and reproduction uniforms and painting guides for Mediterranean theatre and North Africa theatre uniforms I came up with the following scheme (note all paints are from the Vallejo Model Color range):

Uniforms, sun hats – Dark Sand

Webbing, anklets, hat bands on pith helmets, backpacks – Iraqi Sand

Skin – Sunny Skin Tone

Wooden gun parts, entrenching tool handle, pick handle, Vicker’s water cannister, wooden storage crates – Green Brown

Socks, officer’s cap – English Uniform

2” mortar, mortar ammo box – Green Grey

Machine gun ammo box – Red Leather

Ground sheets, Vicker’s barrel wrap, pith helmets – Buff (note: I should have gone a shade lighter for the pith helmets, probably Sand Yellow, as I don’t feel there is enough difference between them and the uniforms after quick shade was applied.)

Cigaretttes, Mugs – Ivory

Bayonet frogs and handles, metal (on rifles, SMGs and entrenching tools etc), beanie hats, boots – Black

Bayonet blade – Oily Steel

Glasses lenses, Goggle lenses – SkyGrey

Goggles band – Flat Earth

The details on the officer’s cap were a Vermillion cap band, Gold badge and Black for the chin strap.

I felt the Bren guns and Vicker’s were too flat painted black alone so they received a drybrush of oily steel.

Some of the soldiers had camouflage woven into their helmet covers and so I picked out some vegetation on these helmets with Olive Green.

After base coating everything I went in with Quickshade Soft Tone dip applied with a brush.

Basing was exactly the same as my Japanese forces which is to say an undercoat of US Field Drab and then Geek Gaming Scenics Mediterranean Soil Base Ready Mix.

The models were then sprayed liberally with watered down PVA to seal the base material before a coat of GW’s Munitorum varnish was applied.

While the late war details on the army box models such as variations in bayonets, rifles and trousers would offend many purists, I am happy with the final result I achieved for the money I spent.

This is what I got finished for my 650(ish) point army so far.

Three infantry sections round out the core of the list.

I still have two more items to paint to fill out my full list. The first is a Universal Carrier from the army box and the second is a 25 pounder artillery piece.

This was a real hobby challenge for me and I would appreciate comments and feedback from those more experienced in historical modelling on how I could have improved on my paint scheme and other details to make the army more accurate to British forces of the Malay peninsular and Singapore around 1941.