W/WW2 German reinforcements

One of my personal goals for this year's painting challenge was to try and build up my WW2/Weird War collection a bit and bulk out the Commandos and Heer that I've done over the last 2 years.

I picked up one of those pick and mix German army deals from Warlord a while back with some discount vouchers, grabbing some grenadiers and pioneers to mix and match parts for a more ragtag looking late war feel where uniforms wold have been all over the shop.

The pioneer set is a pretty good deal, with lots of plastics as well as a few metal figures and conversion bits. Some of the metal components really don't seem to fit the plastics though, so I'm not entirely sure how they are supposed to work. One of my favourite models in the set is the Goliath. At least the German's remote controlled bomb was better than the Russian bomb-dogs, even if it was significantly slower. There is also an engineer laying down showing off his nice new hedge clippers

The box set also has an anti-tank rifle team for some of those heavy infantry squads that will no doubt appear if I ever get a game in.

We have an MG42 team that can either be put into one of the infantry squads, or take one of the riflemen and turn it into an MMG team for some more static support.

Supporting this is one 10 man squad of basic, rifle toting infantry, with one Panzerfaust for a bit of anti-armour if required. these are a combination of bits from the Grenadier and Pioneer kits. I know this gives a bit of a mish-mash of uniform styles that may cause some people to have sleepless nights, but I'm aiming for weird war here, rather than historical accuracy... so it doesn't really bother me much.

And a super assault-y elite infantry squad with an officer, 1 smg/panzerfaust and 6 assault rifles. By Konflikt rules, this is fine and dandy. I can even add the MG42 team to this to make it even more obscene. For normal BA games, these could be split across multiple squads or used as a very well (if not historically accurate) Volksgrenadier squad. In Achtung! Cthulhu these would either count as Black Sun Elite and remain as-is, or be split into pairs and spread across the Wehrmacht squads for a bit of additional kick.

Last night I got to play my first ever game of Bolt Action against another new player. We'd borrowed two forces from some of the regular players, so Matt ended up with a German force and I ended up with 1000 points of US troops to play with. I lost (as always), but there were some spectacular activations on both sides. My highlights were a tank hunter assault against a Panzer taking it out in very easily and an understrength infantry unit armed with rifles assaulting a building containing a maximum strength Volksgrenadier unit, armed to the teeth with as many assault rifles as is legally allowed in the squad.

This has given me a lot of inspiration to try and flesh out two full BA forces to play with. Unfortunately, it has also made me want to go back and improve them all as I can see a lot of problems with this lot and all the past squads. I also want to rebase everything that was on clear bases to match the ones above, otherwise mixing units is going to look off.

Overdue payments

It is coming to that point in the year when the Analogue Challenge starts up again (hopefully!), so some unfinished bits in the backlog are being finished to make way for new projects to be started. The most recent one of these is a German officer for Konflikt '47. This probably gives you a hint what is coming this year, other than all those space marines.

The Germans are not getting the clear bases as I've got some metal ones that I really can't be bothered to debase. This weekend is Reading's yearly gaming event, Warfare, so I get to stock up on flowers for basing.

With the run-up to AHPC, it was about time I actually sorted out a figure for Curt from last year's challenge. I'm really sorry that it has taken so long Curt, he will be going in the post shortly! He is one of the Kickstarter exclusive characters from Zombicide Black Plague that has a passing resemblance to some historical risk taker from Scotland who was played by someone very definitely not Scottish.  

Winding back to '47 for a bit

In a dramatic change of pace for recent posts, we're now winding back to an alternate 1947 where WW2 is still going strong. These were originally bought to go with my Bolt Action Commandos, but with the release of Konflikt '47 they have changed purpose slightly...

I need to have a proper think about what I want my weird war to be. the Konflikt universe is... ok, but feels like a copy of Dust and SoTR blended together, with some of the more interesting things taken out and (to date) not all that much new added back in other than the automatons for Britain. I've been reading the Dust and Achtung! Cthulhu rpg books recently that make me want to go through and create my own timeline that picks the best bits form all of them to make it more interesting as I want to blend in mythos and magic with technology and super heroes.

Anyway...

The M10 Wolverine has remained unchanged, except for the addition of one of the Carrier crew being added instead of the provided gunners. While this is a really nice tank kit, I wasn't overly keen on the crew that came with it. There was something about the detailing that looked off compared to the rest of the Warlord plastics, so I decided to add one of the passengers from the Universal Carrier kit to the open turret and one of the tarps to the front for a bit of stowage.

One thing that I decided upon was that these tanks should look a little bit more lived in than would normally see service. The allies are also being pushed really hard, so all their older tank designs are rolling straight out of the factories and into the warzone without any markings as no-one has the time or resources to apply them any more. 

With Konflikt, the British forces gain more automated units as Turing turns his hand to robotics and advanced logic systems. An interesting one that is in the rulebook is an automated carrier. Technically these things are supposed to come with twin HMGs, but I decided that a twin bren on a larger hopper/turrety thing (who knows what it actually is) might be better than slapping some Imperial Guard machine guns on it. Besides which, these could feature armour piercing ammo and improved feed mechanisms, which equates to a similar thing. To make it look more like an automated thing, I've covered over the crew compartment and added some lens/light things to the front. I've no idea if it is supposed to retain the passenger section, but it is now.

And to put them in scale/context, here they both are next to two of the soldiers finished last month

Secrit Santas & an actual update!

So, it is that time of year where Chris, Ian and Cath start polling for the secret santas for this year. As always, I'll be in for both as they are the highlight of my year. Who doesn't like getting mystery presents through the post? Go sign up!

Which reminds me... I still owe a model for last year's Analogue painting competition too. Must get back to that one before this year's competition starts!

Speaking of getting back to things, today has been the first time in weeks that I've not been working (I kid you not), so it was nice to unwind a bit with some painting. My Commando force now has some slightly heavier support. The base is still waiting for some flowers to go on it, but nearly done. The white at the front is my impatience... so the glue on the grass was still wet when taking this photo ;)

Step back in time

With the recent release of Clockwork Goblin's Konflikt '47 and the beta version of Modiphius' Achtung! Cthulhu skirmish rules, I've finally managed to find the time between work projects to do a bit of painting and start to piece together some figures to go with the original theme of this blog and bring it back on track.

Here we have two British officers, a medic, comms officer and a body guard type. On the painting table is an Automated Carrier (a bren carrier with an AI driver from Konflikt '47) and an A10 Wolverine to provide some mobile support.  I just need to find some time away from learning to be a Scrum Master to put markings on the tanks and start the weathering process...

WW2 Heer infantry

These have been sat in the box of undercoated figures for the last two years, so it is a relief to have finally got them done. Each year I've been meaning to push them up to the top of the painting queue for the Analogue challenge, but each year I have something else to work on. Last saturday I was waiting for the varnish to dry on the vikings and was looking for something else to try and do for Tuesday's challenge entry. These guys were staring up at me with pitiful stares.

These are all Warlord figures and, with the exception of one figure, they are all the plastics from the old Bolt Action starter set. They aren't intended for use in Bolt Action, so the groupings below are all rough guesses. They will be used for things like 7TV, so the actual unit composition isn't relevant. This may change when the Bolt Action or Achtung! Cthulhu weird War rules come out, but for now... 

We have an officer with his two body guards. The one on the right is the only metal figure in the force. Somewhere there is a gestapo officer and a mad scientist from the same set.

 Next we have a medic, who would probably be shot by the allies if anyone spotted him with that pistol... but he needs to defend himself against the mythos beasts that he is likely to face in the future.

 Then we have a sniper team... not that headshots work on things without heads...

 Fire team 1 has 1 MG and 2 panzerfaust to add a bit of punch to the rifles

 Fire team 2 has 2 MGs and 1 panzerfaust instead. These are more fixed position troops.

In total this is 21 Heer to add to my small WW2 collection. This really needs some additions as they will be easily outclassed by the British Commando and Russian forces already sitting on my shelves

Painting table updates

As I mentioned yesterday, it's been a while since we've had a painting update (or many updates at all come to think of it). Please excuse the rushed photos... I had millimeters left on the battery so had to rush, which has led to some shoddy, slightly out of focus bits, or edges of the backing paper. Oh the shame! When I get some of the terrain done I need to do better photos of everything anyway.

While doing some tidying up a few weeks back I came across yet more plastic Russians... it is amazing how many of these guys you get in a box! There were enough parts for a couple more riflemen, a panzerfaust, a sergeant/smg, sniper team, AT gun and a commissar!

With the Russians finally, finally done I decided to move onto some of the Crooked Dice bits I picked up at Salute this year.  The second figure in the first photo is supposed to be a power pack for a laser (second model in the second photo), but I felt these worked better as a radio operator and an LMG, so that is what they are. I've no idea why the fourth figure in the first photo has forest camo trousers, but he felt more like a commando style guy, rather than the SAS look you get by putting the gas mask heads onto the Department X troops. At some point he will get some 80's style army companions

Facing off against Department X is the dastardly Generalisimo Stanly, named that mostly because he looks a bit like Stan Lee... His minions are still sat in the painting pile and will probably end up looking like extras from the A Team in their green jump suits.

Russian Reinforcements

Last year I managed to get some of my Russian forces painted up for Bolt Action. This year, I finally managed to finish off the remains of that box set. The troops that I finished last year were all very clean and fresh looking, with all of the uniforms being rather... uniform. You can see these on the WW2 projects page.

This time around I thought they needed to loo a bit more worn and random to show they have been fighting for a while. I may go back and tweak some of the other figures to try and provide a middle ground between them all. There is a good uniform resource on the Warlord forum for Russian colours that I just found. I should probably go back and add some of the markings to the uniforms and helmets too.

2 LMGs

8 SMGs

3 riflemen

1 Sniper

and 1 Molotov wielding lunatic

Painting these guys has made me want to do some more ww2/www2 bits. I've now got to try and restrain my purchases until I've finished a few more bits in the backlog though. Looking at these and reading through lots of Bolt Action forums recently has made me also want to go back and rebase everything with scenics. I need to see what they look like when I get a table to play on first though.

T-26 Light Infantry Tank

In the 1930s, the British manufacturer Vickers produced a tank design called the 6-Ton. When the 6-Ton wasn't picked up by the British army, the Russians bought the license and started to produce it under the name T-26. This tank saw action throughout the 30's as one of the leading tank designs. Unfortunately by the time WW2 came around, it had seen better days and was outclassed by anti-tank weapons. That didn't stop it from being widely used in the defense of Russia.With over 11,000 produced across 23 production variants, plus a lot of experimental iterations, it was in use for a long time. Spain and Finland continued to use them well after the war had finished.

Here we have a Russian T-26 displaying Finnish markings. 

SdKfz. 251

Oh geeze. I just found a whole pile of unpublished tank photos from the tank museum while looking for the Hanomag colours for someone! So it looks like I could have been giving you some posts while trying to paint things for the challenge after all! Onwards and upwards!

The SdKfz 251/1 was a dedicated troop transport designed by the Hanomag company, who had previously specialised in trains and construction vehicles. The vehicle was commonly referred to as Hanomags by both German and Allied troops, despite the company producing a number of other vehicles, such as the earlier Sd.Kfz. 11. The vehicle was so widely used that there were over 20 official variants, with a number of field modified versions making an appearance too.

Renault UE Chenillette

Here's another weirdly wonderful little tankette.  Those bubbles to cover the crew's heads must have been very claustrophobic. The Chenillette was designed in the 30s to tow artillery or ammunition, so wasn't armed with anything to defend itself with. All of the Chenillettes that were captured by the German forces were provided with light machineguns or anti-tank weapons to provide mobile infantry support.

M8 Greyhound

Here's another one where I forgot the overall picture. You all know what a Greyhound looks like, right? No?

There. Now we're all on the same page.

The M8 was produced by Ford during the war as a light armoured car; some would say too light. The armour wasn't thick enough to provide decent protection, especially the floor. Most British crews were found to cover the floor of the vehicle with sandbags to provide additional protection from mines. Surprisingly, the M8 is still in service with some third world countries. Here's some detail shots that may be useful to some painters