28mm Spectre Task Force in Multicam

28mm Spectre in Multicam

Scary Multicam!

So if your like me the thought of painting multicam is scary. You've got lots of minis with lots of ideas but painting the camo is what's stopping you, especially when it comes to multicam. Lee had painted his 28mm Empress Brits using the brilliant Spectre Miniatures guide, but adjusted it to what paints he had in his collection and did a great job. I wanted to do it but I wasn't confident enough to switch the paints to my collection and experiment on my good minis (I do now have a warlord Napoleonic in multicam trousers).

Biting the bullet

Little did I realise how much this was holding me back, work was busy and I didn't feel like painting or so I thought. I used the excuse of work and family, but actually it wasn't being sure of how to do it that was really stopping me. Once I read and re read the Spectre guide I went out and bought the exact paints, and low and behold I had the enthusiasm to paint, now what to paint!

I have some Task Force and similar first world forces to paint, most are undercoated black and awaiting multicam or a mixture of modern kit warn by modern Special Forces.

Long story short!

Using the Spectre guide I painted my test piece, except it wasn't the Napoleonic! I was so excited I picked a Task Force minimi/saw gunner (I have two the same) and thought let's do it.

Now I was pretty happy with how he turned out and on the table he would be fine but when I applied the wash Athonian camo shade, he ended up a little too dark for my liking. The guide warns of using too much green for a darker look, I decided I would paint my Napoleonic for a comparison. He turned out lighter before the shade and I put this down to the grey basecoat. I'm impatient so decided that it was the basecoat and the shade that made it darker and started the next guy. He would be washed with Agrax Earthshade instead as the figure was already basecoated in black with the hope of him turning out lighter.

The Team

I don't think my phone is good
enough for these pics.

Finally

Four Spectre Task Force operators done. I'm happy that I finally got going on these and got them finished. They were pretty quick to do and I look forward to adding to them soon. 

What I found was for the lighter finish that I wanted I should've primed them grey. The agrax helped, but I could probably do something about that with the next guy, then again I've got a bunch already primed black and I don't think I'm that bothered. Maybe when I try some Brits of my own I'll keep that in mind. 

Another frustration/tip I can offer is concentrate on one figure at a time. I felt trying to batch paint the last 3 that I was starting to copy the patterns and maybe not quite putting the same effort in.

Lee's 28mm Modern Empress British

28mm Insurgents

Spectre Rules battle report

"The Chechen" Spectre battle report

Making Dice Holders

Making Dice Holders

So with most war games you'll have to keep track of some stats or numbers near your figures. This could be anything from suppression and wound status in Spectre, shock in Chain of Command or simply casualties on a multi base as you play a number of rules and don't wish to rebase your figures.

The Problem

Some rules have bespoke counters which is brilliant, but you never seem to have enough so you use small dice for the short fall. Except I have large fingers and constantly knock them over.

My Solution

Make some dice holders, well actually buy some 20mm bases, 5mm dice and trays, and  coarse sand from Minibits.net. Forget about them for 2 years then add some more sand, slate and tufts and mix with pva.

I stuck the frame in the centre, this was a mistake,
it made adding bits hard with the small area to apply the glue.

Add the grit or sand.

Dry brush relevant terrain colour

Apply slate.

Or static grass

Urban theme, milliput with paving slabs carved into it.

Painted dark grey almost black.

Dry brushed a light grey.

These were simple to make and took no time at all, I made twenty in total, half using the coarse grit and half kiln dried sand for a more uniform finish. I painted them all the same but ended up adding tufts to the latter, some of which I had to slice in half because I placed the frames in the centre. The urban themed version was a practice for using milliput on bases for future projects when I get to them.