MV – Our award-winning Customer Service team aren’t just amazing at their jobs – they’re all passionate hobbyists, to boot. Craig Butler’s been enjoying himself with a Konflikt ’47 project that’s near and dear to his heart. Take it away, Craig!
CB – I have long been fascinated by the “what if” branch of science fiction and alternate history. Authors like Harry Turtledove, Philip K. Dick, and John Birmingham have a permanent place on my bookshelf with their tales of what could have happened if the Confederacy had won the American Civil War, if Germany had triumphed in WWII, or if a modern multinational naval fleet had accidentally travelled back to just before the Battle of Midway. A healthy diet of G.I. Joe (or Action Force, as it was known when I was growing up), Captain America: The First Avenger, and every version of Wolfenstein on PC didn’t hurt, either!
So when I first visited Warlord Games, before I joined the company, my eyes were immediately drawn to Konflikt ’47, with its mechs and monstrous gribblies. A version of WWII where the major powers gain access to otherworldly tech and do the most irresponsible things imaginable with it? Sign me up! That’s the theme behind my still-in-progress German ‘Rift Division’ – a tribute to all those ominous, black-uniformed, comic-book–style villains I’ve always secretly sort of rooted for, even if they never got a break.
To build the core of my army, I used some Waffen-SS metal models that I had no plans to use in Bolt Action, painted black rather than their usual camouflage. Their field uniforms have foliage loops, which I painted red to add visual interest and break up the black – I imagine them acting as arm and back rank or unit markings. Painting them black was a time-saver too: it doubled as both primer and base coat. A quick dry brush with mid-tone grey brought out the detail with minimal effort, followed by red for markings, plus basic equipment and flesh tones for the faces. After finishing half the infantry with the default heads, I realized they just didn’t look sci-fi enough. I fixed that with bit of kit bashing, swapping in gas mask heads and Konflikt ’47 Assault Pioneer heads to nail that ‘faceless goon’ vibe every evil organization needs. Glowing eyes were, of course, mandatory!
With my cannon fodder done, I moved on to characters. I loved the idea of a “boss fight” in the army, so I scoured our webstore for the most outlandish figures I could find. Out for the Count and Wulfen-SS: Sturmbannführer Grauler were too good to pass up, and they’ll lead my (currently unpainted) Nachtjäger and Schreckwulfen squads, respectively.
I’m still undecided on who will command my mech units, but for the Totenkorps, I went dark: an undead controller unit made by grafting an unfortunate ‘volunteer’ into a walker. It’s a kit bash using a Spinne Light Panzermech, a druid from my bits box, and some connecting wires to seal the deal.
After finishing the infantry, I still had the kitbash bug. My eyes drifted to a spare StuG III box sitting on the ‘to-do’ pile – my favourite armoured vehicle of the war – and I thought, “surely the Germans would bolt a railgun onto that!”. With a hopeful grin a I scrounged the cannon from the Panther-X kit from our production team. Then I raided my leftover sprues, scavenging parts from an 88mm gun that I figured would make a for a suitably brutal-looking exhaust port. The cannon was originally comically oversized for the squat little assault gun, so I cut it down to size. Once assembled, I primed the model black and gave it a sci-fi flair with brush highlights in Hydra Turquoise — a rather fittingly named paint for a weird war machine. I christened it the ‘StuK‘, which (in my head) means something cool and menacing in German!
There’s still a long way to go before my Rift Division army is complete, but I’m excited, not just to finish what I’ve started, but to dive into whatever amazing new models our studio comes up with!
I’d say the future is bright… but this is Konflikt ’47.
This isn’t war. This is the end.
And I can’t wait to embrace the darkness.
Has Craig got you inspired to dive into the nightmarish Rift-fuelled battlefields of Konflikt ’47? A brand new edition is on the way, making it a great time to start working on your forces, ready to join the war later this year!
