I often see posts like “What movies/books inspires you to Wargame” on forums and it is an interesting question and very often the answers leads me to find new and interesting potential projects.  As I have mentioned on a number of occasions I went to the Cinema when I went “home” to Sweden over Christmas last year to see “Unknown Soldier” based on the book by Linna.  It is one of the most famous Finnish books and is set during the Continuation war (you can read more about the book here) 1941 to 1944, between Finland and the Sovietic Union (or Russia if you prefer) – you can find out more about this war here.

One of the scenes in the Unknown Soldier movie shows a Finnish attack using assault boats – I really found this scene inspiring and have been thinking about doing a scenario starting with a reinforced infantry platoon, and a half Machine Gun platoon, in six boats pushing forward during a Finnish Barrage off the opposing side (with unknown effect) and with a chance of individual boats being hit by enemy fire, with some possibility of doing the Russian side some further damage with the Machine Gun or perhaps even Rifle fire. Then the boats would be used as initial Jump-off Points and then the scenario would play as a normal Chain of Command (or Bolt Action or whatever platoon based rule set you prefer), with the possibility of having lost units/men on both side before the actual engagement.

Here is a screenshot of the scene from one of the movie trailers on the net.

I recently did a Finnish Rifle Platoon in 15mm (here is a blog write-up) and have got enough miniatures to do another one, however in doing this I ended up with a pile of Finnish Soldiers I did not need.  I also had a few boats I had made for another project some time ago (do not ask, but it involved making molds and using clear resin).  These boats are not based on the Assault Boat in the pictures and the men, as you will see,  on them are more dynamic and all-over the place than would be the case in reality.  but I felt inspired yesterday so they had to do – and what the lack in historical or procedural accuracy I think they make up in looking cool!

Here are a few pictures on how they ended up, for anyone interested there is a little discussion after this on how they were made and  the painting (more writtten as I guide for myself, if I want to do more).

Here we go…  (all miniatures by Battlefront, from their Finnish range, 15mm scale).  I think they are good enough for a game.

Thanks for hanging on so far, now some notes on how they were made and some notes for me on the painting.

Assault Boat Notes

I had six boats I had made previously lying around and I still have the mold somewhere to do more if I need – I used a clear casting resin I had used for some water effects.  I cut off the bases on the miniatures and bent some legs when required and tried to get a look of some action maybe just as the boat enters the “final destination” and the section are ready to jump off and attack.

I then glued each boat on a plastic base (I used two dvd covers) with the front end slightly elevated. I then added some filler around and tried to give it some irregular shape and waviness!.

Next priming black. let dry  and get on with it.

 

/ that is all for this time, hope it was of some use.