Some swamp terrain pieces

Last weekend I finished some scatter terrain pieces to be used as swamp area. I am building up the last missing terrain pieces for a campaign game set during the Vietnam war, north of the parrots beak area. This area of Vietnam was a large swamp and abandoned rice paddy area near the border to Cambodia. So an infiltration point for the NVA and VC. But back to the terrain pieces. I want to depict the swamp as individual scatter terrain to be able to have different pathways through the swamp. The whole area will hinder movement due to being difficult terrain.

The individual pieces were build from extruded polystyrine, sand, PVA. I cut out 3mm thick pieces of EPS and glued the sand around the boundries of the piece with PVA this gave me a boundry for the swamp area. I then pinted the sand and swamp area with the apropriate colors. the swamp got 2 coats of acrylic gloss varnish to simulate the water. I added individual long grass tufts made from artificial lawn strands, clump foliage and grass fibres to blend it in with my other terrain.

Next up will be some destryed village buildings, as I only have some in good repair. The region my campaign will take place has a few destroyed villages so have to build them . More later.

VC with rocket propelled grenade

13. October 2021 thomasriepe 28mm, 28mm figure, 28mm Miniatures, 28mm Wargaming, Empress miniatures, NVA, Paul Hicks, Viet Cong, Vietnam war, wargaming, wargaming miniatures

Another RPG armed VC or NVA soldier. After a longer brake, due to work constrains, I have started painting again. I also started with a bigger gaming project of a campaign of patroling in the Nam. More on this in the future.

A AA gun in ground support

9. September 2021 thomasriepe 28mm, 28mm figure, 28mm Miniatures, 28mm Wargaming, AA gun, Empress miniatures, North Vietnamese Army, NVA, Paul Hicks, Vietnam war

Today I finished a AA gun team in ground support mode. The team consists of an NCO a gunner and an assistant gunner.

The gunner:

The assistant gunner:

The NCO:

The complete team:

Another RPG

7. September 2021 thomasriepe 28mm, 28mm figure, 28mm Miniatures, 28mm Wargaming, Empress miniatures, NVA, NVA soldier, Paul Hicks, RPG, Vietnam war, wargaming, wargaming miniatures

Here is another RPG armed NVA soldier. I needed a bit more firepower for my NVA force .

A RPG armed VC with a “No’n La” hat

2. September 2021 thomasriepe 28mm, 28mm figure, 28mm Miniatures, 28mm Wargaming, Empress miniatures, Head swap, Paul Hicks, RPG, Viet Cong, Vietnam war

Another head swop done. This figure is armed with a RPG and a AK 47. Figure and new head from Empress Miniatures sculpted by Paul Hicks.

And the original figure on the left next to the kitbashed one.

Another VC with a head swap

31. August 2021 thomasriepe 28mm, 28mm figure, 28mm Miniatures, 28mm Wargaming, Empress miniatures, Head swap, Paul Hicks, Viet Cong, Vietnam war

Here is another Viet Cong soldier with a conversion job done. I changed the head against one with a traditional

“No’n La” headgear.

Here the figure is shown next to the unchanged one:

Recoilless rifle on the move

20. July 202120. July 2021 thomasriepe 28mm, 28mm figure, 28mm Miniatures, 28mm Wargaming, Empress miniatures, North Vietnamese Army, NVA, recoilless rifle, Vietnam war, wargaming, wargaming miniatures

My newest addition to the ranks of my NVA force is a recoilless rifle on the move. This one comes with another one deployed in the same pack. Figures are from Empress Miniatures from their indochine war range. Works for the American war, too.

Below are pictures of the 1st assistant gunner.

And the ammo bearer:

The gunner with the gun:

VC with “No’n La'” headgear

14. July 2021 thomasriepe 28mm, 28mm figure, 28mm Miniatures, 28mm Wargaming, Empress miniatures, Head swap, Paul Hicks, VC, Viet Cong, Vietnam war, wargaming

Here is another VC soldier with the traditional vietnamese “No’n La’ ” headgear. The head is from Empress as is the body of the figure.

As usual I used GW contrast paints

Below is a picture next to the original figure:

The build something contest 2021

7. July 2021 thomasriepe 28mm, 28mm figure, 28mm Wargaming, booby traps, build something contest 2021, difficult terrain, Vietnam, vietnam terrain, Vietnam war, Wargaming terrain

It is that time of the year again . Over on LAF forum the build something contest 2021 runs again like every year. And like every year I droped out already. So I can show you my project from start to finish here now.

The theme this year is difficult terrain and as my ovear all theme at the moment is Vietnam I build some difficult terrain for my Vietnam collection.

So how did I start. The idea was to build a swampy, elefantgrass overgrown, area, wich is infested with booby traps. The concept was to be able to swap traps with harmless terrain features so no one knows in advance what might happen when the troops walk through the area.

I Started by building 6 different terrain pieces with spaces wide enough to fit some MDF bases I had lying arround. On the MDF bases I would build the traps or other features to be able to swap them arround.

The bases:

Above you see the 6 bases I did. You can clearly sea the spaces were the traps would go. The elefant grass is artificial lawn cut in strips and glued to the board. Below are the finished bases without traps:

The last base was done a bit different. I tried to build a punji stake pit, which is not really possible without “sinking” the pit below street level. So I build the pit directly on the board rather then using the way I showed you above.

Now i had to build the traps. I used round MDF bases to base them on. These fit into the ” holes” I left on the boards.

In the picture above you see some of the traps. On the left there is a bent back bamboo with sharpened bamboo sticks affixt to it. If you release the trap the stick will move very quickly hitting everything in its way about knee hight. In the middle you see a C ration box and an abandoned pack. both might be booby traped or not. The third one holds a smoke grenade ( if you loook very closely you can see it. On the right is a stand of bamboo with a piece of ordonance nickt from somewere. Better don’t release the tripwire…..

Above are some more closeups of the traps. Below are the traps on the terrain pieces:

And the boards in action . A US Marine section moving through the area. Figures by Empress.

The start of a M551 Armored reconnaissance Vehicle

16. June 2021 thomasriepe 28mm, 28mm figure, 28mm Miniatures, 28mm Wargaming, 3D printed miniatures, 3d printed model, Empress miniatures, M551 Sheridan, Sheridan, tank

The M551 “Sheridan” AR/AAV (Armored Reconnaissance/Airborne Assault Vehicle) was a light tank developed by the United States and named after General Philip Sheridan, of American Civil War fame. The first combat deployment of the Sheridan was in Vietnam. it had several advantages: it did not get stuck in the mud as often as the 52-ton M48 Patton tank did, nor did it throw its track off as often. This was enough to win the tank crews’ love. The light weight and high mobility proved their worth, and the gun proved an effective anti-personnel weapon when used with either the M657 HE shell or the M625 canister round, which used thousands of flechettes as projectiles. The reliability of the engine system and gun of the tank was, however, not fully up to the task. So that many M551 had to be repaired quit often. A serious setback was the typ of Ammo for the main gun. it used a powder charge in bags so that projectile and charge had to be loaded after each other. This system made the tank very prone to explosions when hit with an RPG.

I got a 3D file of the tank through a kickstarter ( 3D printable US Vehicles of the Vietnam War). This was printed on my Anycubic photon resin printer and i must say the files are really worth every penny I paid!