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Photos of Mainforce 6mm Modern Infantry (and some T90s)

Painting 1980's Cammo on 1/300th scale figures

Mainforce is a range of 1:285 figures, mainly in lying down poses and covering WW2 covering British, German, Russian and US and for Moderns, British, West German, Russian, Canadian, Afghan, French, Israeli, Iranian, US and Vietnamese. They are sold in the UK by Magister Militum as a compliment to their GHQ 1:285 ranges.

There is lot's more of this stuff on my Links Page

Lying down infantry are a lot less easy to break than the rather flimsy 1/300th standing figures from H&R or GHQ. Modern infantry probably spend more of their time lying down too

I have already painted a load of these in desert cammo, so now I wanted to paint some for myself to go with my Brits - this is the contents of one bag of figures, plus some GHQ T90's.

Cold War Commander, 1980s Photos of GHQ 1/285th T90 Russian Tank, 1300th

The GHQ figures have their usual ridiculous levels of detail

Cold War Commander, 1980s 1/285th GHQ T90 Russian Tank

Every rivet on the T90 is visible - The T-90 is a Russian third-generation main battle tank that is essentially a modernisation of the T-72B, incorporating many features of the T-80U (it was originally to be called the T-72BU, later renamed to T-90). It is currently the most modern tank in service with the Russian Ground Forces and Naval Infantry. Although a development of the T-72, the T-90 uses a 125mm 2A46 smoothbore tank gun, 1G46 gunner sights, a new engine, and thermal sights

Cold War Commander, Photos of GHQ 1/285th T90 Russian Tank,

The base this is sat on is 20mm x 40mm. It is card and magnabase, topped with a fine sand and then sprayed Matt Dark Earth, and drybrushed with bleached bone and a pale grey.

Cold War Commander, 1980s Photos of GHQ 1/285th T90 Russian Tank

At some point I might add some colour for IR lights or something

Cold War Commander, 1980s Cammo Photos of Mainforce 6mm Modern Infantry painted in 2015, 1300th

Starting off, the infantry were all superglued onto magnetic sheet - this was both to make the bases thicker, and to allow them to be magnabased for transport and storage. Thicker bases are easier to pick up - and the magnabase might even be less damaging if they break loose and start to dent each other

Cold War Commander, 1980s Cammo Photos of Mainforce 6mm Modern Infantry painted in 2015, 1300th

After the base coat had dried, a bit of light drybrishing with bleached bone and then pale grey - to match the tank bases - and then I started by semi-carefully painting each infantryman in a dark sand colour, as the base for the 1980's British DPM cammo

Cold War Commander, 1980s Cammo Photos of Mainforce 6mm Modern Infantry painted in 2015, 1300th

I then "damp-brushed" them with cammo green, then a dark chocolatey brown, then a final set of stripes of the green again (as the brown ended up too obvious, especially on the helmets)

Cold War Commander, 1980s Cammo Photos of Mainforce 6mm Modern Infantry painted in 2015, 1300th

The guns were picked out in black, with the Milan teams and infantry AT weapons in a Dark Green, with some yellow stripes for effect (I know yellow stripes probably mean disarmed training weapons, but you need some highlights on these tiny figures to stop them just being blobs)

Cold War Commander, 1980s Cammo Photos of Mainforce 6mm Modern Infantry painted in 2015, 1300th

The flesh tone was deliberately a very pale Vallejo Pale Flesh - agains I wanted it to stand out to make the figures look more interesting

Cold War Commander, 1980s Cammo Photos of Mainforce 6mm Modern Infantry painted in 2015, 1300th

I almost forgot the boots, and thinking that black might be a bit too strong I ended up doing them all in Miniature Paints Dark Earth.

Cold War Commander, 1980s Cammo Photos of Mainforce 6mm Modern Infantry painted in 2015, 1300th

A few small spots of glue allowed me to add some static grass. This is probably a bit long for the scale (!) but it's what I have, so its what I used.

Cold War Commander, 1980s Cammo Photos of Mainforce 6mm Modern Infantry painted in 2015, 1300th

This shows the depth of the bases with the layer of magnabase added in

Cold War Commander, 1980s Cammo Photos of Mainforce 6mm Modern Infantry painted in 2015, 1300th

You can also see how the light coloured flesh tone makes them look a bit more interesting

Cold War Commander, 1980s Cammo Photos of Mainforce 6mm Modern Infantry painted in 2015, 1300th

They also create their own really neat storage solution, if you keep them on some metalized card

Cold War Commander, 1980s Cammo Photos of Mainforce 6mm Modern Infantry painted in 2015, 1300th

Here's what they look like at way larger than life size

Not bad for half a days work !

The Summary

I think the Mainforce infantry are fantastic - to have unbreakable infantry in this scale is a real boon, and with a bit of extra basing depth they don't even need any extra basing really.

The DPM cammo also seems to have worked out OK - giving an impression of the cammo is all you can aim for in this scale, so a series of drybrush strokes does the job. It will be interesting to see how 6mm stands up when Battlefront (inevitably) release their Modern version of Flames of War sometime in the next couple of years

I've got a whole page listing all of the 6mm / 1/285th / 1/300th listings currently on eBay UK - there might be some Mainforce stuff there too if you are lucky! Otherwise you can get them from Magister Militum


That's the end - so why not go back to the Links Page and browse through some more stuff


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