New Vistula Legion, Sci-Fi Mid-Tech Army in 1/600, Part I

A year without a post! I beg the forgiveness of those of you who follow this blog. LAst year was my run up to tenure and from about March to December, I had to dedicate myself 100% to work.

Inspired by 08's 15mm New Vistula Legion (which are THIS CLOSE to getting me to do 15mm FUBAR Skirmish...), I've decided to build the New Vistula Legion in 1/600 scale.

This will be an ongoing project.

In terms of "theme", these figures need to look something like the Colonial Marines in "Aliens". That means a force with equipment that can mostly be repaired or replaced in the Outer Rim of Human Space, but which can also engage with most enemy threats.

The NVL is a division-sized force of six line battalions: three mechanized infantry and three armored. At the division-level, one finds another six battalions in support: two artillery battalions, a walker battalion, a power armor battalion, an aviation battalion, an engineering battalion and a reconaissance battalion. The New Vistula Legion is, of course, a state-sponsored mercenary unit out of the Polish ethnic colony of New Vistula, which gains hard currency and combat-experienced veterans by leasing combined-arms regimental combat teams out to other, less developed colonies.

A combined arms team is generally built around two line battalions with attached companies from each of the support battalions.

For the infantry, I will use O8's Modern Soviet troops: two packs of type one and one pack of type two. This will give me thirty stands of infantry, with anti-tank weapons. Each stand will contain 5 figures with small arms and one with an RPG. They will be carried in the very sci-fi -looking (and conveniently exotic and mostly un recognized) Rosomak wheeled transport vehicle.

Soviet Infantry Pack I (x2)  @ 4.00 USD ea. = 8.00 USD
Soviet Infantry Pack II (x1) @ 4.00 USD ea. = 4.00 USD
KTO Rosomak APC (x1) @ 4.00 USD ea. = 4.00 USD

16 USD thus gives me an infantry battalion. It will be organized in the following fashion:

3 Line Companies, each:
     5 APCs
     6 Infantry w/RPGs
     1 Heavy Anti-Tank Missile Launcher
    1 Heavy Machine Gun [or Auto-Grenade Launcher: I haven't decided yet.]
    2 Command Squads
    1 Recon Drone

One of the APCs is a Command APC and it also has a command team as a dismount (thus the two command units). The Command APC also doubles as the recon drone controler.


I have no idea what I'll use for a recon drone, yet, so any suggestions are welcome. O8 makes a Predator, but that's too recognizable. Perhaps these from Ground Zero Games...? Ideally, I'd like something smaller. I may have to just kitbash something from beads.