As mentioned in my earlier post, I recently got back to finishing up some Italian troops that I had thought were already done (I am getting too old for this sh&% ). The stuff I had was a unit of Libian Askaris and some heavy weapons to give me some options. I had attached these all to bases and pumiced about half of them…
I got started with the rest of the pumicing when I decided I needed to finish off my Italian infantry once and for all. As I knew that Gajo was getting out of the business, I figured I should order a few more figures to do that (all my desert front Italian infantry are from Gajo). I decided to flush out a regular infantry force for the desert (my main force is all Askaris) and add another AT battery.
I already had one platoon of engineers, so I ordered two more to give me the full company. With some base switching, these could also be fielded as desert pattern organization Bersagliari platoons. I also ordered motorcycles to go with the troops (which I ironically finished first).
So, while I was working on the backlog, the new stuff came in and I switched to that to get it into the same shape as the exist stuff (my pumice work knows no bounds..). So, a few more nights of pumicing.
With all that done and dry, I hit the bases with Vallejo dark and light sand dry brushes. Unfortunately for me, I ran out of tufts to finish everything, so these got set aside for a few days until I could bet more tufts from my FLGS. I finally made the trek and got those back home and spent time over the weekend finishing these bases. I then hit the base edges with some tan to wrap up the force, once and for all.
With that, I am pretty much done with the desert Italian infantry… I do have about a dozen extra figures that I will use for something. At some point, I need to get to the vehicles for this force! However, it is Pacific time, so that will be a project for a date a little farther in the future! Avanti!
- Manteuffel