Yankie Ranger Team for "InCountry"

Rangers Lead the Way!

from Army.Mil [click] 

It's hard not to think about the 75th Ranger Regiment when you consider the many operations the US has been involved with.  Along with the Marines, they are often among the first to be used in any operation.  Plus there's movies, books, etc galore out there.  

So no surprise that Enemy Spotted Studios sculpted these for InCountry 1e. and included them in the starter box. Now, INX.2e is in the hands of Echo Dark Studios [Click] and has moved to fictional near-future figs for the starter box.  But the Rangers are still available in resin as Green Beret Advisors [Click]. Regardless of what they're called, they are lovely figures and a pleasure to paint.

When last seen [click], they were primed and ready on the painting bench:

I ran a thinned wash of brown paint over them, just to fill in the cracks the spray primer missed and give them an even base coat since they are metal...

...and looked to my uniform OCP for some inspiration.

I should have gone to the website for inspiration, also, as their OCP paint job is quite well done. The 'effect' is there, altho some closeups and a tutorial would be nice...

...and here is how my first sample came up.  I wanted them to look good from a few feet away, so I darkened the dark brown color of the OCP, and lightened the beige color - this gives the figs a bit more pop to the eye:

[you can see the amazing detail in the gear on these figs!]

Generally, I just used a fine brush to mottle and blob colors on in a more linear pattern than the Flecktarn - which as you can see is what OCP looks like. 

- When I don't like a patch, I speckle some opposing or contrasting color on. 

- When it is too busy, I use the base coat brown to neutralize it.  

- The key is lots of little dabs of paint, strung along mostly linear then trailing off with a bit of up or down.  Don't overthink it!  Just get the paint on there.

After you get a couple Figs the way you want, it's not hard to do. And it is definitely a lot easier than I thought it would be! 

I got some feedback from the Discord and Fb, and went on to paint the other five in similar fashion, altho I did modify the sample a bit.  This is how they group foto:

As always, the goal with game miniatures is to get 'the effect' you want from about 2-3' away.  Beyond that, they are just little painted people shapes, anyway.

The Army is a bit less uniform that it has a rep to be, especially from the past [like, when I was in the first time, in the 1980s...]. Most Soldiers have local parameters and guidelines for uniforms [regs by commander, cantonment, operation, theater, etc], but they aren't issued everything they want, nor does gear have to be identical.  With more experienced and elite Soldiers, the variety of gear is often a bit more pronounced as they tend to keep things after the wear-out date, or buy their own once they have a defined preference.  So I see the little differences as what makes them more realistic when painting them up.

There are definitely times when "everyone is issued one" which I have experienced also.  Then, lots of people might have an identical widget. But still, others will keep what they already have installed, and of course some will trade or sell of the item as long as it isn't something that has to be turned-in [usually...]. I wanted to capture that vibe on this team, so using pics from the internet, I have different colors and patterns for some of the gear, helmets, etc.

For the optics, I just caught some pics of the net.  I like the blue, so went with that.

I also like the magenta tone, but didn't want to head that way for these guys - I'll do it in the future on some other Figs to differentiate them.

And below is the final product [unless I realize what a piece of gear should look like and I go back and redo it!] with as much gear figured out and painted as I'm able to at this point.

Next up, I'll be adding more Fire Teams in groups of four Figs, adding to these fellows.  I also have a bunch of Tallies and generic Insurgent types for more bad guys by Empress Miniatures.  They are a bit smaller [28mm] but they will look good since in real life they likely *are* smaller people.

Stay tuned and follow!