First half of 2025 on the painting desk - Updated 12.5.

Miscellaneous stuff painted 

Finishing the Brotherhood without Banners for Song

Lady Stoneheart

Beric Dondarrion, the Lightning Lord

Thoros

Bolt Action Finnish Nationals and Nationalist Chinese Army

Guomindang takes victory

It had been a long while since I had played in a Bolt Action tournament, even if BA has remained one of my top 5 games through the years and recently I ran a Combined Arms -campaign at the club.

So it was a real joy to have players from all around Finland to come together and mettle their strenght in Bolt Action.

I was fortunate enough to pull a tournament win this time with three straight victoeries in my games.

Tournament was played with 4 allied players vs. 4 axis players and matching players was based on this (aka not pure SWISS)

Combined Arms Campaign

 Winter War

Bought Warlord Games Combined Arms -campaign system / game already last June and eventually last fall we kicked off a campaign with three mates from Nopat & Taktiikka club. Martin joined me as a brother in arms fielding Finnish forces fighting off the onslaught of Soviets steered with iron fist(s) byt Marko and Johannes. We chose to play Winter War (1939-40) themed campaign. Read on to learn about ou experience.

We chose this map to present the border areas of Finland and Soviet Union, including lake Laatokka (Ladoga) and the Gulf of Finland. Grey for Finland and green for CCCP.

Turning 50 and celebrating 35 years in the hobby with a BANG!!!

 Seven tables set for my gaming mates

Yes, I turned 50 this Summer and held several parties to my friends and family.

I also painted my first wargaming miniature some 35 years ago (I think it was a Chaos Dwarf of a Dark Elf that we used playing role playing games), so I wanted to set up a special event to celebrate these milestones with my wargaming mates. So on I went and decided to organize a (demo) games day at our Nopat & Taktiikka club here in Helsinki.

I brought miniatures and some terrain too, to set up 7 different games, recruited fellow gamers to run the demos and invited 20+ mates to come and play. Read on to find out what was on the menu!

First half of 2021 on my painting desk

So much more started

As first half of the year is soon done it's time to share miniatures I've painted so far.

Besides these minis presented here, there's a separate blogpost for all my ASOIAF new paint jobs.  

My current standing is still below 200 finished miniatures, but so many more have already been started...

900 followers on Instagram...

 ...can't all be wrong!

So I guess my content there is interesting. I post pictures of all the miniatures paint (and finish, ok some WIP too) and short stories of games I've played. The odd historical site or some hobby event also finds it's way to my IG. Do follow!

As you can see, latest posts include content for Anno Domini 1666, Marvel Crisis Protocol, Song of Ice and Fire Sharp Practice (Napoleonics) and Bolt Action!

 

Introduction video to Bolt Action

In a starring role!

Our Nopat Taktiikka Club's awesome video team has made an another great video: 

I'm the dude with the machine gun!

BOLT ACTION: New Guinea Campaign pictures

Battle in the Jungle

Couple years back (when this Campaign book was released) we played

couple of scenarios. Here are pictures. Enjoy!

Bolt Action: a bridge too far

First Combat Jump with 101st Airborne

Bought the BA 2nd edition starter set ”Band of Brothers” when 2nd ed. was released, but hadn’t gotten around to play or paint the US Airborne force.

Naturally I had bought some extras too ;-).

So, when Juha, our club’s MC for Bolt Action, called out for players to join in on a Market Garden themed day of Bolt Action, I volunteered.

So then  I just had to paint 1000p. worth of America’s finest.

Luckily they are an elite army.

Bolt Action Campaign started - Ostfront!

Firestorm Bagration 

in new clothes

Many wargamers and readers of wargames magazine readers might now Firestorm Bagration Campaign from Flame of War scene and it has also been played at our club. Jaakko got a great idea to convert the campaign to Bolt Action (not that much to convert really). Soon we had about 10 people joining the campaign, choosing to play either fascist or communists. This week's Wed we had a first game night and generals gathered around the campaign map... 

 Jaakko and other commanders discussing the campaign dynamics

Ropecon: Finnish Civil War 1918 - UPDATED

Battle of Orivesi

So our D-day had arrived. Since late 2017 we had been discussing playing the Finnish Civil War 1918 with Bolt action and hosting a demo game in the Largest LARP / RPG / Card Gaming / Miniature Gaming / Whatever Gaming - event in Finland, Ropecon. Then we had been searching the web for suitable miniatures and converting and painting them.

See my commitments to this project here.

I had to leave scout camp Kliffa one day earlier to make it to Ropecon for Sunday. In the morning

I dressed up for the occasion. It's been to hot in Finland to use the warm woollen jacket (sarkatakki), that would have suited the theme even better.

Nopat Club’s traditional summer weekend: Bolt action!

Pacific Theatre Campaign Day 

A great tradition of gentlemanly summer weekend with wargaming, good friends, cold drinks, fat cigars and hot sauna has been established at our club. You can find blurry accounts of previous sessions in my blog.

This time we decided to run a kind of team tournament with a Pasific team.

Concept is based on the campaign day event pack  by Downorder.com - thanks for sharing!

Status report from the painting desk

Is this satisfactory?

As I finished 600+ miniatures last year, it seems I'm badly behind this year. Well as always (even if I'm getting better!) I also have some 50+ minis, that have been on my paint desk and are almost finished. In this blogpost you can see what are the minis behind these numbers.  So far this year my gaming has focused on Saga, Bolt Action, Warhammer Fantasy Battle (8th ed.) and then some. Star Wars Legion is on the rise. This obviously shows in my painting as I'm always painting for the next game. Samurai -theme is also showing.

Bolt Action Apocalypse

Allied push in the Pasific

Armies on Parade: Imperial Japanese Army for World War 2.

Banzai - Banzai - Banzai!!!

Mighty Japan!This is my second and largest Bolt Action force and the most triumphant so far: I won Bolt Action tournament with it. Several battles have been fought with them and more is coming with the New Guinea Campaign proceeding. 68 miniatures were finished for this army during 2017!
Note the new approach to basing 3 - 2 -1 to make small dioramas

Armies on Parade: Commonwealth forces in World War 2 - Updated 12.5.2025

British army without so many Brits

Update 12.5.2025

After watching the 2nd season of Rogue Heroes from MAX I just had to kitbash and paint my own too!

WIP

This project started long ago by painting a unit of Gurkhas, but with the release of Australian forces and New Guinea Campaign Book it really kicked of during 2017 and 53 models were either painted from the scratch or finished (more Gurkhas).

So far they've only fought one battle as a force, but more will certainly come this spring as we continue the New Guinea campaign. Read on see more pics of the army.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: Race for finishing 250 , I mean 300 miniatures in 2017

Completing painting projects

On 2nd of January I wrote in my blog:

"I want to make a promise for myself for 2017: I will finalize most of the miniatures I start / have started painting earlier."

So now I'm trying my best to live up to this promise and have a "race" going to finish a total of 250 miniatures this year. As you can see from the picture, there's a lot to finish (ok some of them are really quite finished, but I just want to give them a final check).

I started my race around mid December and at that time my count was 170 finished miniatures. I will update this post daily to track the progress. You can also track it in Instagram, my insta-account is "wanhaherrat".

Finland's 100th Independence Day - Bolt Action!

Battle of Raatteen Tie

I had promised to "re-enact" history in a party organized for celebrating our 100th Independence Day yesterday. So I did...

Commonwealth: Australians & co joining the ranks

Pictures of painted Australians & co. added Commonwealth project page

Throwing the Japs back into the sea!

The Battle of Buna-Gona
Aka - my Aussie Army's Babtism of Fire

REPORT WIP

We had an open house Bolt Action day at the Nopat-club.
We had 4 different games with beautiful tables and teams of players from the club
and visiting from exotic places like Lahti and Toulouse.
I hosted a game from the New Guinea Campaign Book.

Pictures online - report will follow