WIP Imperial Guard "Spec Ops" conversion

My first steps in sculpting.
Imperial Guard Cadians conversion into more "Special Forces" kind of soldiers using M4 carbine from Warlord Games's Spec Ops of Project-Z, epoxy putty, 1.5mm plastic sheets and some photoetching frames for straps.
I've used mostly these guys (Battalion of assault and obstacle clearing of Russian Armed Forces) as a reference/inspiration:

1-2 Assault trooper in early stage, comparing to Empress Miniatures's USMC trooper:

3-4 Body and hands of assault trooper after some work on shoulder pads and groin protection:

5-6 Body of second trooper with two long smoke pouches on the right and 6 frag pouches + dump on the left side, early stage too

Bolt Action - Tank War, game two

A rematch of previous game:
http://combatoctopus.blogspot.ru/2016/07/bolt-action-tank-war-game-one.html

At this time we decided to make a wide front instead of bottleneck, which (as i thought) could help Germans to get some revenge from first (and bitter) defeat.

During the 1st turn initiative was completely on the side of Germans, leaving Russians only able to react:

Right after the 1st turn, the game fell into two separate battles -
Tiger vs Sherman in the fields and main battlegroups on the edge of the village.
Unlike the first game, Russians decided to push forward at maximum speed, leaving Germans in defence.

At the turn 2, Tiger managed to immobilize the Sherman (Gustav, shoot higher, mein Gott!), however they kept firing at each other without much effect...

During the same time, Soviets were coming closer and closer, enjoying KV-1 being almost invulnerable to German cannons and receiving only concussions (note that "Hit" die on T-34 maks immobilise received from Pz III):

Just like during the first game, turns 5 and 6 decided everything:
In the fields, IS-3 silently came to the Tiger's flank, blowing it apart and heading to Panthers, while main force blowed Pz III and PZ IV without taking much damage:

And againg left Germans completely frustrated.

Summary: 

I can't really explain double loss of Germans other than extremely bad dice roll results, which outweighed any advances in cannons or numbers.

IS-3 got shot only one time (with a miss), basically making his armor useless compared to way cheaper IS-2 (which enjoys the same cannon) and KV-1 one more proved to be the most (surprisingly) resilent unit, taking lots of cannonfire without any dramanic outcomes.

And "cinematic" photo of Soviets advancing aduring the second game:

Bolt Action - Tank War, game one

Had a two games of Bolt Action today.

In anticipation of Konflict'47 we decided to not stick to "historical" compositions and just brought every gun we could.

USSR force:
IS-3 Regular, Commander
IS-2 Regular
KV-1 Regular
T-34-76 Regular
T-34-85 Regular
M4A3 Sherman

German force:
Panther Regular, Commander
Tiger Veteran
Panther Regular
Pz IV Regular
Two Pz III Regulars
StuG III Regular


Both games (basically first clash and rematch) was played using the same terrain, depicting some kind of village:

Combat mission: kill 'em all
Deploying: all units come from 1st wave

During the first game we decided to begin fighting along the main road, basically placing both our forces into bottlenecks, where tanks can't effectively maneuver, which resulted in formations like this during the 1st turn:

As turns passed, the game guickly tuned in long-range firefight betweeen IS tanks and German heavy armor, leaving T-34s, StuG and Pz III no choice other than move to flank and try to outfight each other.

However, "thanks" to incredible number of failed rolls, both Russians and Germans  stuck on one place in the end of turn four:

At the turn 6, as if nothing could be worse, Germans lost Command Panther and StuG III being burned and both Pz III being destroyed by combined firepower of Red Army which left them relying on only three tanks, which did nothing during last 7th turn, resulting in Soviet decisive victory.

After-game observations:
IS-3, thanks to having enormous armor protection, never was target of shooting through entire game unlike KV-1, which was ignited, inmmobilized, stunned several times but kept fighting until the very end.
The tank games once more proved to be super-fast paced comparing to traditional ones, thanks to lack of several dozens of models and hundreds of dices, however the luck of the roll becomes crucial, which results in feeling like "Mein Gott, Gustav, shoot at them, not at buildings around, scheisse"