Bolt Action Japanese 1000pts army

I checked my army list and realised i need a lot of riflemen to finish the project, so i have started to batch paint three or so at a time to speed myself up a touch.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/boltaction/?multi_permalinks=1491767157659886&notif_id=1584982051410357&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic

I had some rules questions about my knee mortars teams and the community rallied around to support. The rules for choosing targets wasn’t under shooting, team weapons or mortars, it was under indirect fire rules and was very clear once it was pointed out to me.

The chat was fun and informative.

I am happy to continue my list as planned.

I will probably drive this 18 miniature unit towards the objective or the center of the battle-line generally. The light mortars don’t have a lot of range so I need to get within rifle long range before it starts to get useful. I will have the rifles fire at one target and my mortars shooting at as many other local targets as I can to share out the potential for pins. Or I may just drop all three dice on one target that poses most threat to me at the time.

If I still have enough men late game I can chance a dice or two on smoke and try to banzai attack in true Japanese style.

If a light mortar or two get sniped I might even forget the mortars and let fly with 15 or 16 rifle shots. Even on 6’s that’s still a ton of dice. The biggest worry for a big unit is HE shells killing lots of tightly packed guys, but I will try to plan and mitigate this as best I can.

Type 96 LMG.

Already have one of these with a guy carrying it on the run and only need one for my list, but always loved LMGs and feel eventually those big teams i have with light mortars etc. will prove too big. Good to have the option to split two big squads into 3 squads down the line.

Change of primer on the gent aiming his rifle.

Have been using Army Painter Desert Yellow, but switched to a Dunkelgelb yellow for two minis.

You can tell the difference, but it’s a nice marginal change that adds variety.

And in the pic below the base with lighter tuft is the one that had the Dunkelgelb primer.

Got this loader built and painted today.
Snipped the magazines off of LMGs on the sprue that i knew i wouldn’t be using.

There’s no need to have a designated loader model, but I just fancied making one.

This multi pose kit is really quite good and gives me lots of options.

I tried to make a radio set. Clipped from sprue and painted up…. And realised it was at least a third too small because their hands are too big for it. ?

Really enjoyed this guy.
Gave him a very different knife / bayonet (strictly against regulations) – points for what war / army it comes from. (or even which sprue.)
Bit of base work with the hatchet buried in a stump.
Happy with the face and general look of this guy. ?

Managed to get an eye painted on this one. A lot of the heads in the box have glasses or squinting and shouting, but when i painted this guy the eye hadn’t accepted the wash very well. So the eye was marginally open and looked glaringly obvious he had no pupil. Had to do it and glad I did.

Got a unit finished!

Plus started using a tool box from Lidl for my army. Even takes the armour easily. Only issue is the MMG team won’t fit. Have to keep flat, but otherwise should be an adequate transport.

Also finished more rifles. ?

Hastily grabbing his slung rifle and bayonet as he tries to catch up.

Also started painting some of the riflemen’s trousers Vallejo Green Brown, for variety and because I have seen someone on Facebook using this paint as the primary colour for their Japanese army and it looked good.

And chipping away at the rifles required for the last squad of infantry. ?

I now have a bugler for each unit. ?

Joined an Isolation Challenge Facebook page. Paint or hobby once a day and post.

Have used this ounce of pressure to keep building and painting the riflemen and it has kept up the momentum. Up to Day 9 without missing any days, so it seems to be working. ?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/212698999957432/

It has become a little tiresome painting the same scheme over and over, but i have tried to vary the poses to keep myself engaged.

I have been told that on some of the expansion list builders you can have multiple snipers in Japanese lists which seems thematic to me.

So with a bonus sprue i unearthed i am looking to make another sniper. This time i have looked on YouTube for inspiration and found out about the type 97 rifle. It was basically the standard Japanese rifle with a detachable side-mounted scope.

As i said before there is no sniper rifle on the sprue so i have turned to one of my British weapons sprues for a scope.

Scrap of metal backed paper made in to a rudimentary sling. Tie up at the back could be better, but fun use of the left arm meant for prone LMG mini options.

Fun pose. Made from the running pose body, but standing on the back foot. Looks like he’s either jumped off of something or he’s stumbling on the charge.

Photo shoot of the army as a whole later.

Already looking at an alternative list with smaller squads to make the army more maneuverable and a Chi-Ha Tank to take away the bespoke FT17 element.

Those huge units in the current list, will be easy to see, easy to hit, probably easy to pin and then a big chunk of my force won’t be effective for turns at a time.

I will play my original list just because the maxed out size of the units seems to be the thematic way that the list builder encourages you to follow and my army will look fairly cool on the table i think. If the light mortars start hitting things and pinning things there’s a chance i can get some fire power onto the enemy and make the big units’ dice count really punishing.

I still have a handful of unmade minis, so i will make some extra bits and pieces to allow me to swap bits in and out.

Took advantage of the recent sale to get a pdf of the Pacific expansion i was interested in.

I also bought a chi-ha tank kit on ebay cheaply.

1000 pts painted.

2nd Lieutenant (Vet.) w/ 2 men – 91 pts

IJA (Reg.) Infantry Squad – NCO & 6 men +8 men (LMG and SMG) – 173 pts

IJA (Reg.) Grenadier Infantry Squad – NCO & 4 men +13 men (SMG, 3 Light Mortars) – 243 pts

IJA (Vet.) Infantry Squad – NCO & 4 men +5 men (LMG and SMG) – 127 pts

MMG Team (Vet.) – 65 pts

Suicide lunge mine (Ireg. x1 Reg. x1) – 1 man units – 34 pts

Sniper (Vet.) w/ spotter – 65 pts

FT17 Tankette (Vet.) – MMG only – One-Man Turret/ Slow / 7+ armour – 42 pts

Type 4 Ho-Ro – Heavy Howitzer – Open-topped/ 7+ armour – 155 pts

10 Dice

995 Points.

Realised that I actually have a picture of me staring down the barrel of an FT17 for comic effect at Bovington Tank Museum.

I think I can afford to go darker on the green of the tank’s paint if i want to. ?

Looked back at my self-propelled gun and realised i didn’t share how i painted it. Wasn’t helpful for me either, because i wanted the armour to look similar in camo etc.

The kit instructions had suggested colours in the back which helped.

Primed in Army Painter Desert Yellow. The guide suggested Vallejo Flat Brown .984, which i own, plus Vallejo Camo Olive Green which I don’t. For the green parts  I chose Luftwafe Camo Green .823 and Olive Yellow .893 instead.

For the commander uniform i used Death Guard Green with Camoshade wash.

I opened the instructions for the build and got excited that i could have the upgunned variant of this tank as well as the standard version. Trouble was they shared key parts even in just the turrets. In reality there were only marginal changes to the Shinhoto tank from the original, Shinhoto basically translated as “new turret”. If I create a cupola for the Shinhoto turret i could probably field it on this chassis and get away with it gaming wise, but I only ever intended to field this as the standard variant. Just trying to stretch my hobby dollar as usual. ?

The decals really helped to lift the final look and i had lots of spare decals, but sadly the guide didn’t explain what any of the markings represented. Just… “stick this one here and that one there and ignore the unused decals.” It would have been a really nice touch but sadly missed.

I used some spare decals to improve the look of the self-propelled gun. The writing on the carriage side were meant to be on the body of the Shinhoto variant hull and I used a spare licence plate and rising sun flag symbol on the rear hatch. I generally love researching this sort of thing for accuracy, but knowing that my list is taking a dramatic departure from reality, with my FT17 etc. I didn’t feel the necessity to dig too deep.