. . . By The Skin Of Me Teeth!

Well, in my last post I said “I’d sort of signed up to the Squad! March! challenge . . . but that’s looking unlikely to happen” and up until yesterday that looked how it was going to be!  All I’d managed to finish in March up to that point was my Mammont heavy tank and that didn’t qualify!

But, I’ve actually managed to finish painting a Paraguayan infantry battalion, although the never-ending UK wind + rain + snow means I’ve no idea when the figures will actually get varnished!

My Paraguayan infantry battalions are represented by 10 figures, but I’d already finished four figures from this battalion at the end of last year (which let me use two seven-man units in red jackets in my test game after Christmas, alongside a unit with blue jackets and shakos).  This left six figures to paint in red jackets to finish the second infantry battalion – these are the six figures in the front row of the photo.

Five of the figures are Newline Designs metal and the others are various plastic figures.  All have had plastic discs and green stuff added to make their kepis into shakos, and some of the metal figures have had their trousers either filed down around the ankles or built up with green stuff (some of the Newline figures wear trousers tucked into socks, which can either be filed smooth to represent bare legs, or built up to represent longer, loose trousers).

The only figure that posed a challenge was the spearman in the front row.  He was originally going to be a battalion colour bearer, but I decided that a flag fitted to that pole would look too small, so I thought I’d just use him as a spearman (as the war dragged on, more Paraguayans did not have firearms until they could pick them up from a fallen enemy or comrade).  Unfortunately, the figure had the extra cross-belt to support the colour when advancing and I couldn’t remove or disguise it, so I added a haversack from plastic scrap and blended it in with green stuff, so at least the strap is supporting something!

Hopefully, I’ll get some better pictures taken, if and when the sun finally comes out!

P.S. at the time of posting this in the UK it was still March 31st so I’ve just completed the challenge in time!  Otherwise, I’d have to get the DeLorean out of the garage and get it up to 88mph on a quiet road somewhere!