PSC T-34/85's Finally Completed...

Finally!! I got there little monsters to where I want them, and am comfortable putting them on a gaming table.  I'm kind of a nerd about that, and get really self conscious about putting sub-standard lead, or plastic as the case may be, on the table.  This last tournament I entered was a real nightmare for me, as much of the force I fielded was little more than base-coated.  There was little I could do, if I wanted to play at all, and had to swallow my pride.  When my friend Scott MacPhee wasn't able to show, I really wasn't that put-out.  I would have been embarrassed and spent too much time making excuses, etc.


What I have for you today is a unit of Soviet T-34/85's, made by Plastic Soldier Company, painted in generic, oversized markings.  I base-coated the plastic in Krylon "ultra-flat camoflague green" spray primer.  The looked good but came off a bit too "olive" for Soviet equipment, so I applied a tint of Tamiya olive green to bring the base more in the direction of what Soviet armor generally looked like.  Next I applied numerous oil washes with red-brown and black, in separate coats and in combination, to provide shading and weathering effects.  The rear deck, and the vents received the lion's share of this treatment. Next came highlighting using Polly-S Panzer Olive green.  I just didn't feel comfortable going any lighter.

No historical marking schemes seemed to attract my attention, so I decided to do oversize markings and use what I had left over from my IL-2 box set.  I used the wing stars and fuselage numbers, in a single digit scheme, creating a generic Soviet unit, but giving the appearance of some sort of regulation or order. I had to "wing it" a little, as the decal sheet didn't have the "1" or "6" numberals, so a chopped "4" and a frankenstein combination of a "2" and an upside-down "5" did just nicely.  I shied away from the various coats of glosscoat, dullcoat, et al and just stuck with decal set.  What silvering did crop up I painted over with Tamiya Olive Green. Not perfect, but I think I can get some sweet results with more practice. All in all this decal experience was far better that past bunglings.

My overall painting style is what I call "Rabid Monkey" style, where models are liberally highlighted, but not also severely contrasted, and with some modest weathering thrown in.  The rear deck of tanks are a dirty, "diesely", oily area, and I wanted to reflect that.  I also wanted to distress the turret markings somewhat, so they aren't pristine and visually distracting.  I used the sponging technique, and I think I got really lucky!  The numbers, I think, have a great effect, and am happy with the results.

All I need to do now is repeat my luck with the 5 (6 including the Dedov model)  /42 turrets for mid-war units.  I've got 1/72 dry transfers coming soon so I'll keep y'all posted on that progress.

Battelfront and PSC T-34/85 side by side photos...

I'm gearing up for my first Flames of War tournament on the 10th, and am planning to bring a Guards (Red Army) Tankovy Battalion into the fight.  That being said, I needed a lot of T-34's in a hurry, and on a budget.  PSC seemed to be the way to go.  At $25 for a box of 5, vs a blister of 1 tank for $15 or a boxed set of 5 for $60... we all can do the math.

Assembly wasn't bad, but the track can be a bit fiddly, and I tried many different methods of getting that track on without too much trouble or the gaps that everyone seems to be getting.  I think I solved the problem to about 80%, by gluing the tracks on prior to installing them on the running gear.  It takes the patience to allow the glue to fully dry and cure, with a combination of "super" glue, and proper plastic cement.

Painting was easy, the PSC had good clean lines, but had little detail.  BF had less rear-deck detail, but more storage and clutter to catch highlight colors.  Still, I think they both turned out fine.  I used Krylon "Camoflague" green spray paint.  It's a primer, geared for plastics, and is WELL worth the expense.  It sprays very smooth, covers fantastically, and in this case comes out looking most like the US Olive Drab spray paint put out by BF.  I used that as my darker base, and higlighted liberally with Polly-S "Panzer Olive Green".  Two black oil washes for depth, and a brown wash for weathering, and here we are.

I still have some work to do, with one track still needing to finish assembly and basecoat/priming, the rest need attention to the track and tow cables.  I'm debating whether or not to add dust effects, or just keep them clean.

The Dedov model I'm using for my battalion command track, the rest I'm using for the line companies.  Right now, for the tourney I'll have to sub some Shermans, but another box or two of PSC tanks and that problem will be solved.  Wish me luck!

ASL to FoW Conversion Project... Episode 1 "Prelude to Luttich"

I had a wild idea a some time ago about taking Advanced Squad Leader scenarios and converting them to Flames of War.  Historical scenarios with FoW are something, I feel, that can be greatly expanded upon, as a taste of "something different", and a way to better embrace the historical nature of a table-top miniatures wargame.

For starters, I found a campaign of historical scenarios authored by Pete Pollard.  The campaign tackles the foiled German counter-offensive at Mortain.  Several panzer divisions, including SS units, faced off against (primarily) the US 30th Infantry division.

Here is the first installment, "Prelude to Luttich"...

"Near LaFantay, France, 6 August, 1944:  In the waning light of an early August day, lead elements of the 2nd Panzer division made contact with the US 30th Infantry division in positions located north of Mortain.  A handful of Panthers, supported by infantry, advanced on the northern units of the 117th Infantry regiment.  The Americans had set up a roadblock north of St. Barthelmy with a few squads and two 57mm AT guns."

Duration:  6 turns

Setup:  US player sets up first, using the following rules  reserves, ambush, kampfgruppe.
           
German player hold units OFF BOARD and enters from east board edge on turn one.

Victory Conditions:  To win, the German player must destroy both AT guns AND exit 9 infantry teams off the west board edge.  The US player wins by avoiding the German VC.

Forces:

US-  Elements of the 117th Infantry rgt, B company set up anywhere within 30inches of western board edge. All infantry and man-packed gun teams begin dug-in and gone to ground.

1 Inf'y command team (CO)
1 Inf'y platoon (3 RFL squads + bazooka team)
1 Inf'y platoon (3 RFL squads + bazooka team)
1 HMG team to be attached as needed
1 Artillery Oberver team (indep)
2 "Roadblock" markers
Off board:

1 Field Artillery Battery 6x 105mm guns (does not enter the board)

In Reserve:

1 Inf'y Platoon (3x RFL squads + bazooka team)
1 HMG team attached ton Inf'y platoon

In Ambush:

1 AT gun platoon (2x 57mm guns + Platoon cmd team)
company 2iC command team


German- Elements of German 2nd Panzer division & 3rd Recon Bn enter board anywhere along eastern edge.  All vehicles are limited to 1/2 movement for turn one.

2 PzGrn Cmd teams (Co and 2iC)
1 PzGrn Platoon (3x MG squads + PzFaust cmd team)
1 PzGrn Platoon (3x MG squads + PzFaust cmd team)
1 Kfz 231 8-rad armored car
1 Pz V "Panther" cmd tank

In Reserve:

1 PzGrn Platoon (3x MG squads + PzFaust cmd team)
2 Pz V "Panther" tanks


Scenario Special Rules:

Reserves-  Both the US and German player can roll for reserves beginning on turn 3.  US player can accumulate reserve dice beginning on turn 1 so, by turn 3, the US player should roll 3 dice for reserves.  US reserves enter from west board edge.  German player begins accumulating reserve dice on turn 2, so by turn 3 German player should roll 2 reserve dice.  German reserves enter from east board edge.

US AT gun platoon enters the game together as 2 seperate "platoons", the original with platoon cmd team and 1 gun, the second "kampfgrupped" with the company 21C and 1 gun. US gun teams begin dug in.

Map:  (3' x 5', click to see full size...)

Fairly simple, dirt roads, wheat fields, trees and bocage.  It is August and nearing the harvest so the wheat fields should be rather tall.  The large brown mass in the NE corner is a hill.

Aftermath:  "The 57mm guns fired 15 rounds at the lead advancing tanks.  Not surprisingly, none of the shells penetrated the Panther's frontal armor.  The lead tank's shot on the roadblock killed two men and destroyed one of the AT guns.  The remaining Americans withdrew, but were quickly re-enforced with more squads and artillery support.  The Germans faded into the woods as darkness enveloped the field of battle."


This one is going to be tough, the Germans outweigh the Americans in points by about 2 to 1 (using FE).  Good luck and enjoy!!

Flames of War "Basecoat in a Can" review...

As I'm slowly plugging along with my 12thSS Panzer Division FoW army, the time has come to add tank support.  What better support can an "HJ" grenadier ask for than from his brothers in 12th SS Panzer Regiment?  The best of these are Panthers...   so I gotta get busy!

I saw that BattleFront has released spraypaint specifically formulated for WW2 tank color schemes based on nationality.  The Germans, for most of the war (or the latter half at least), base-painted their armor using variations of a yellow-ochre, commonly referred to as "Panzer Yellow".  Now, unless you were lucky enough to own an airbrush, along with its accrutrements, along with the space, & skill to use it... you were left, in essence, "slathering" panzer yellow all over your miniature... with various results.

For all those who have done it, brush-basing your armor minis is a time consuming, torturous process.  One must somehow reconcile painting speed and coverage, all the while taking pains not to obliterate the fine detail of your mini.  BattleFront's spray makes the promise to not only improve paint speed and coverage, but also do this in an (argueably) historically accurate color.  This, for me anyway, has been a challenge... so when I became aware of this product, I was very interested in giving it a go.

Here we have what will become Max Wunsche's regimental befehlspanther, based upon the Ernst Barkmann boxed set by BattleFront.  I used a light-gray spray primer (as opposed to dark gray or black) with the idea to get as much "pop" in the yellow basecoat.  It was suggested that I mask the vehicle commander as the basecoat can get a little thick.  It does come out a bit thicker than a primer, and one must understand that these paints are not primers in themselves.  It is very recommended that you do prime your mini before applying the basecoat.

Immediately you see that its best to use many light, "gentle" passes with the paint to get best coverage, and to not ruin fine details like the zimmerit paste, nuts & bolts, handles, etc.  Overall I feel it did a fine job with the primed mini, the color looks good, and little to no detail has been lost.  Grade A.

Here we have what will be Panther "136" commanded by Scharfuhrer Hohnecker (kia).  This is a different story, as this mini was already primed and basecoated, and had camoflage (red brown and olive green) applied... but it didn't really "pop", so the plan was to strip the mini in PineSol and try again.  However, as we all know, the superglue that tends to hold these minis together also dissolved and one needs to re-apply all the bits and pieces.  Again, time consuming and irritating.  I'm a sucker for stowage, being a former tanker myself, and enjoy seeing the motley character of each vehicle.  Simply, I didn't want to do it again becuase I like how it is now.  I decided to experiment and see if the BattleFront basecoat can re-habilitate this mini.  As we can see, it does a fair job, some detail is lost but then again it is its third coat of paint, but quite acceptable.  The older paint is well covered, and I'm ready to bring this mini back to life.  Grade: B+

Lastly, I was curious as to how this basecoating would look on minis primed in black.  This schwimmwagen was primed and ready to go.  The coverage is decent, and although it wasn't deliberate, there seems to be a consistent "shadowing" in the recessed areas.  I may have been a little more conservative in the application of basecoat, but I do think I can do good work with this mini as it stands.  Grade: A

There you have it, a positive review of BattleFront's "basecoat in a can"... for 'Panzer Yellow' at least.  This is probably the most difficult base-color to work with (as opposed to various greens eh?), but I seem to have gotten good results.  Be gentle and patient, it doesn't work miracles after a heavy hand, but it should do the trick for you.  It had better, the stuff retails for about $12 a can!  So far I can say its worth it, I primed and based a platoon of 5 panthers (these and three others) in less that 20 minutes. 

Stay tuned for the finished products!!

-aus

15MM Peter Pig CSA Officer "Brave Colonel"...

I was planning to present my first completed Confederate regiment based for the Regimental Fire and Fury system.  I was planning it anyway, until my 4 year old son (yes, he who is pictured a few posts back) decided to "help" me by improving the flesh highlight, by painting ALL THIRTY+ FIGURES IN MASS GLOPPY GOBS OF GDW "ELVEN FLESH"!!!  I was devastated, but did recognize the opportunity.  It had been years since I had painted ACW figures, and it took a few tries to bring them "to speed", but now I consider myself "warmed up". 

Needless to say the stands were ruined... but not destroyed, and they now sit in a small vat of Pine Sol, awaiting rehabilitation.  What is a painter to do but start over?  So, here now is my first offering, a "brave Colonel" marker from the Confederate ranks.

The figure is a 15mm Peter Pig, and though some of their WW2 line scares me, I have been most impressed with their ACW offerings.  Being an Old Glory convert, I do wish the poses were more diverse, but the robustness of the castings and the overall quality can not be over stated.  Simply put, there is no "unusable figures, and the flash is at a minimum.

Personally, I enjoy the pose, reflecting the natural aggressivness of the Confederate officer... or at least that as passed forth by myth. 

I look forward to placing this marker on the field against MacPhee's "damned yankees"... and sweeping them from the field.

New Focus, New System, New Product...

Well, the boys at Flashpoint seem to be on vacation, hiatus, or whatever, and the activity there has been minmal.  Rumor has it there has been a major injury to one of the staff, and production problems in some lines they are about to release.  I understand priorities, but you can't make a gamer wait indefinately... which is about what things have devolved to there at FP.

Soooo, I've gone back to the beginning, a noteworthy phrase if you are a fan of "The Princess Bride", back to the American Civil War.  This is the era I began with, and painted my first 15mm miniatures for tabletop wargaming.  I look back I can remember just how bad I sucked back then... real gawd-awful stuff initially.  Yet, as I look back I can remember soaking up everything I learned, everything I saw, everything I heard from those who were established painters and helped me.  I learned and got ideas from those who also were exploring the hobby alongside me.  I remember how each session seemed a little better than the last.  Each stand of figures were just a little bit better than the last... until I finally could field an army I was proud of and perhaps was a little better than those of my peers. 

That was 15 years ago.  I've long sold my 15mm ACW army (2 divisions of Rebels, 1 of Federals, based for Fire and Fury Brigade Series), and I'm finding myself rebuilding my Confederate forces from scratch, one lonely infantryman at a time.  I'm lucky in that I do have some Old Glory 15mm to get things 'moving' again, but I'm finding that the quality of figures just isn't as I remember them.  This could be because I have only the pack-dregs and used all the good castings years ago... or maybe they weren't that good to begin with.

I've always like Old Glory ACW figs, mainly for their diversity, and the dynamicism of their castings.  Units of Old Glory were ALIVE!!, and not all necessarily at 'right-shoulder-shift'.  There was that "curse" though, that 10-15% of figures that were mostly unusable due to casting errors.  Sometimes one could take the figure with the "blobbed" head and making him a walking wounded inf'yman... sometimes the miscasting was just too much to repair.  There ALWAYS seemed to be siginificant wastage, there ALWAYS seemed to be challenging flash and mold issues, and ALWAYS massive amounts of pewter crap to be carved off the bottoms of the bases.  I guess that was the price one paid for reasonably miniatures that appeared on a battlefield instead of the drill field.  This isn't the case anymore.  The days of the 100-man bags are long gone, and 10-15% wastage for 50 men is unacceptable.  Enter Peter Pig.

I know, I know... "my god look at those faces!!!"  Yes sometimes the "Oinker" has some outrageous face sculpts, but I've really only seen the worst examples in his WW2 line.  This always has been a stumbling point with me, I'll admit it, but when the metal meets the meat, I've been impressed.   I've ordered some of his Vietnam line, and have been quite impressed.  The sculpts are crisp, clean, and mostly flash-free.  I haven't seen a "face" issue (where the figure's chin rests on his clavicle), and that prospect really doesn't concern me now.  I am less pleased with the relative lack of variant sculpts (2-3 variants per pose) when compared to the dozen or so sculpts-per-pose with Old Glory, but this is where the painter can make them different with some planning and minimal execution.

With that said I've ordered my first battalion of Confederate Inf'y, and am painting them as fast as I can.  Hopefully within the next week or so I can post some of the results.  I look forward to them pushing 15mm "Billy Yanks" all round the field.

Till next time...

New Mainforce VC, the 2nd platoon...

After a busy summer, meaning too much "real life" to allow much quality painting time, I finally got to my workbench to crank out more MainForce VC to bedevil my friend Ken's tabletop US Marines.

My painting situation is unique, I use my breaks at work to paint... leaving me 15 minutes a pop, 1/2 hour daily to work on my figs.  Not easy, but it helps to refine a painter's organization.  Take only what you need, get started quickly, pack up quickly.  The real challenge is not what and how to paint, but where to find the best light.

What I've done is prepped the figs by pose, and started with the first half  (20 figs or so) and painted them up.  It took about a week, but I think the results are decent enough.  Here we have the command group figs, some squad leaders, and a few riflemen.

My first platoon, in keeping with conventional stereotypes, were black-pajama based, and I've since learned that this was generally not the case.  Most MfVC personnel came more and more from PAVN troops as the war progressed, I wanted to reflect those uniform trends more accurately.

I wanted to "uniform" the figs mostly in the green field uniform, but with a smattering of the older issue khaki PAVN uniforms, and some black PJ's.  (I guess you can't defy convention completely) 

I've recently stepped away from using metalllics for gunmetal, opting instead for grays.  I thing the contrast works better, and isn't quite so gaudy.  I'll save the metallics for the bayonets when I eventually get back to ACW figures and gaming.

I guess the "cartoony" style of painting is becoming all the rage, and I must admit that at the 15mm level it works well... at a distance.  I do love the look from the table, but close up the results are less impressive in my opinon.  What I've decided upon is a less intense "cartoon" style, drybrushing the uniforms, and using higher contrast methods on the skin, weapons, & equipment. 

I gotta redo the face on this Platoon Leader fig... but here you can see the drybrushed uniform style.

Another example with the green fatigue shirt, black slouch hat and pants.  To highlight the black, I've taken to the inspiration of DC comics. I remember as a boy that the Batman always had his cape based black and highlighted in a dark blue. I've used that inspiration and am using a very dark sea gray as the highlight color for the black pajama uniform areas.

Here we see the higher contrast "cartoon" style with the face and weapon.

Imagine "impressionist" art style as presented on a 15mm canvas.  One really only needs to give the impression of figure detail at a normal gaming distance.  From a 3-foot range the high-contrast method can be striking, close in... not so much.  For some reason the words "circus clown" comes to mind.

Here we have a squad/cell leader.  After being a slow convert, I favor this new style for 15mm gaming figures.  The "cartoon" method, I feel, is most effective on figures (not vehicles & such) and yields the greatest amount of depth and visual contrast for the scale at "standard" viewing distances.  That being said, for larger scales, 25mm plus, I doubt that this method would be as effective.  I have my eye on 28mm modern US infantry from Empress Minis... perhaps I'll have to put this theory to the test.

So there you have it, the first batch of the 2nd Platoon.  My intent is to finish the figures and then mass-base in a rice paddy environment.