28mm WWII: US Reinforcements

I've been steadily chipping away at the mountain of models I accumulated this summer.  I think I went on some sort of lead-based feeding frenzy.  There's too much to paint for a long time to come.  But I've been serious about my 28mm WWII miniatures.  I've started with Crusader miniatures and have been filling in gaps with both West Wind and Bolt Action minis.  Here's what I've got done.

First up is the command group pack from Warlord's Bolt Action range.  I wanted these for the medic and the grenade launcher.  The radio and officer models will be useful in certain scenarios.  These models are a little more normally proportioned than the Crusader line.  But mixed in with them, the Bolt Action models look fine.

These are West Wind models from the Snipers and Flamethrowers pack.  There are about five snipers and four flame throwers in the package.  I painted up two of each, figuring that I wouldn't need more. But there are obviously still some in reserve if I should need them.  These models fit in almost perfectly with the Crusader line, and I really like them.

These two pictures are of West Wind's US .50 cal HMG team package.  I like what they've done here, giving the HMG team in set-up and broken down poses.  So if you have reason to move them, you've got models to represent that.  I chose to put the set up team all on one large base.  If the team takes casualties, I can use a token to show it.

Finally here is West Wind's M5A1 Stuart tank.  I forgot to take pictures of a model next to it for scale.  But the tank does scale well with the figures.  Stuarts were genuinely small tanks and I don't know how four men got into them.  The West Wind line of vehicles are a real value.  I'm not as concerned with proper scale and making things "just so" as I am with having reasonable representations of the vehicles.  I plan to buy some of the larger tanks to see how these scale.  I think they are 1/56 scale models.

So my American force now has a little more variety than just straight up rifles and LMGs.  Next up for the 28mm WWII project will be my Japanese forces.

As a side note, I've been running a solo campaign with these models.  I've been using Flying Lead rules with Nuts! for the solo rules.  It has been a blast.  I've been keeping a campaign diary, which really helps drive the story.  It's also fun to write and re-read, even if it's just for myself.  I don't put a lot of work into it, as it's just for me.  But I've started to add pictures.  Maybe one day I'll post the write ups when the campaign is over.  Here's a shot of the US forces accepting the surrender of the remnants of a German panzergrenadier squad that tried to infiltrate US lines.  It's one of the US squad's rare victories.