Into the Rift: The armies assemble!

April 2026

Joe M (@Recruit_Painting) has been posting an irregular blog for WS&S on his progress with Konflikt 47. His previous blog entry can be found here:

Joe apologizes for the lack of updates in this series of blog posts. He now has seven players involved in his slow grow army builder. They are a few months in now, as each player builds an army for Konflikt 47, and they are really finding their feet! Here's a report on Joe's army and his two friends, Josh and Matt.

Take it away, Joe!

"Here’s a quick recap on the slow grow/escalation project for Konflikt 47 so far: in month one, players were introduced to the Rift war, starting with a small Assault Platoon of 400 points. Then, in month two, we increased the points to 900, with players now being able to introduce the Walker element to their army. It is now month three, and players have reached army totals of 1200 points - with the limitation of no hero units (which is no problem for the British and Japanese players, ha!)."

"We met up at Devil Dog Gaming in Paignton on Saturday, 4th April, and Joe tracked their progress and thoughts for this blog: "

"Since the last update, players have made lots of progress with their armies, and I thought in this blog update and the next, I’d let the guys tell you a little bit about their armies and the choices behind their schemes and any personal lore they may have written."

"First up, we have Josh. Josh is a seasoned wargamer with a large collection of 40K armies including Imperial Guard, Space Marines and Tau. He even has a large mid/late war Wehrmacht army for Bolt Action. For Konflikt ‘47, Josh opted for the British Commonwealth, favouring their range and firepower. Here’s what Josh has to say about his army:"

“For my army, I wanted to make a more veteran force that’s seen a bit more action (for better or for worse). I find that with this, it gives me more room to add a bit of personality and individuality to some of my models, by either painting names/slogans on some of the units, or battle damage in the form of parts replaced in the field, still in the factory primer.”

"Next up, we have Matt, who’s been away from the hobby for around 20 years and Konflikt ‘47 is his first game back in:"

“I choose the Empire of Japan mainly as I really liked the look of the models in the new Empire of Japan starter army box, especially the scorpion tanks and ghost squad. For the vehicles and walker, I’ve kept quite close to the historic late war three colour camo pattern of olive green base with broad brown and tan stripes. With the infantry, I took inspiration from the red and blacks, as seen in a lot of images of samurai in the 1800’s. I've used this for the armour plates on top of a yellow-tan close to that used in the WWII Imperial Japanese Army uniform. I felt this really leaned into the weird World War idea of Konflikt ‘47, with a nod to the historic. This would also allow me to incorporate some Bolt Action units that I could then also use in a Bolt Action Japanese force without looking too out of place.”

"And finally, for this update, here’s my Axis army:"

“For my Axis force, I went with the idea that they were an elite Vanguard unit, operating in front of the frontlines, in order to disrupt enemy movements. I wanted the paint scheme to reflect this, so I used the WW2 German ambush camouflage palette, but experimented with new and different patterns. I tried to vary the patterns for the units to give the impression they are from different regiments within the same division. For my Stahltruppen, you can see how I painted them by checking out my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/NXgXSH9XjGA?si=0gWTZkR03VPa6khG “