From MartinN: 15mm Battlegroup American Airborne (213 Points)

Finally the kitchen is completed (well, almost... you know how this works) and I'm back on the brushes. So this week sees me submitting a few American Airborne in winter clothing for use with the Battlegroup set of WW2 rules. I'm planing on using them for the Battle of the Bulge and maybe Hürtgen Forest using the lists from Operation Overlord. Iron Fist are to release a dedicated book (softcover) for Battle of the Bulge sometime soonish but as of now the lists will be taken from Overlord anyway.

The miniatures and tanks are all from Battlefront Miniatures. While some of them are nice or OK sculpts, only suffering from bad casting, others are absolutely awful. The six Sherman M4A4's are from the original 'Open Fire' starter set and some of the worst plastic tanks I had the displeasure to deal with to date. To make them look a little less like ugly toys I added some stowage from Battlefront. The platoon leaders got reinforced armour in form of sandbags to the sides. Unfortunately I didn't have any US markings in 15mm at home so only the mandatory stars (taken from 28mm decal sheets) were added.

First Platoon

Second Platoon

They were painted using the US Armor Camouflage set from Ammo of MIG Jimenez. As I quite liked how they came out I decided to not whitewash them but in hindsight I should have done that little extra step. Originally the tracks were intended to look muddy but as so often with pigments the results were quite different from what I had intended. For some reason the pigments dried out whiteish and I had to go over them with several layers of brown wash. Thus ruining the wet/ muddy look completely.

The crew for the .50 cal AA HMG were probably the worst miniatures ever. Despite having a set of three and taking only the best figures, they were just rubbish. Almost no detail, lots of flash and badly cast. Especially for the price BF are asking for their offerings, it feels like robbery to get such bad castings.

Sniper

60mm light mortar

.30 cal medium machine gun

Bazooka

Overall I really enjoyed painting in a smaller scale than usual and am quite happy with how these came out. I still have to adapt my painting to 15mm but as I'm slowly running out of storage space, and really like how fast one can build a sizable force, I'll probably switch the most part of my painting to this scale.

BAR

Together with miniatures I painted earlier that gives me a well sized starting force of three not fully equipped platoons for Battlegroup. I still have/ want to bolster it out with some more stuff like trucks, halftracks, jeeps and scout vehicles. First though, I'll probably start on the Germans in order to get in a game some time soon.

Airborne Squad

So let me see. 83 foot of which 13 are prone/ sitting, six crew served weapons (one .50 cal HMG, a 60mm light mortar, three .30 cals and a Bazooka) and six tanks. If my math is correct this should give me 213 points. With a total of 233 points so far that's enough to overtake ChristopherS (144 points) in our little side duel... for the moment at least. I'm sure he's right now winging his brushes in order to take the lead again.

Acknowledging some of the bad models, you've still managed to produce absolutely stunning work here Nick. To be honest, when I first looked at the photos, I thought these were 28mm!!

I'm always struck by your skills with the brush Nick and you don't disappoint here. Your weathering on the Shermans is excellent and I like your take on the snow bases. Wonderful stuff.

As a suggestion, you should really try 20mm if you want a happy medium between storage and detail. You get all the benefits from 1/72 scale plastic kits PLUS you can access the lovely AB range, which I think you'd perform magic with. Again, just a thought. :)

This entry will allow you to hop-scotch over Christopher, but as you say, I'm sure he has something in the works to return the favour! :)