From SamuliS: Aufklärungskompanie transports (112 points)

Back to probably one of my most consistent subjects in the painting challenges that I've taken part in with some Flames of War miniatures. Actually if I remember right my first entry ever was a platoon of Grenadiers for Flames of War.

I had actually planned to start with these and submit them as a Fran's Fjord entry seeing that the requirement was 15mm miniatures. Then on another reading while writing this blog post I noticed that the requirement was a sci-fi or imagination subject in 15mm scale. Oh boy, I guess I need to start my challenge island exploration from somewhere else then :D

Even though Germans were my first Flames of War army they are actually probably my smallest army that I have. I have a large amount of them for battles between 1939-42, but my late war collection is pretty dated as they were painted straight when I got back into the hobby and honestly look pretty horrible and as such hasn't seen the table in 6 years or so. I did build a 1945 spring themed force a couple of years ago, but it's not really suitable for the latest books that are set around Normandy landings so I needed some additions to my forces.

Recon forces and especially mechanized recon has always interested me since serving in a mechanized recon outfit in the army so naturally with the newish German D-Day book heavily featuring Aufklärungs units it was finally the push I needed to get them started. To kick things of there I started with the bare minimum of an Aufklärungskompanie, 2 HQ 250/1's and 6pcs of 250/1's and a 250/10 for the first platoon.

Older Battlefront resin halftracks as I had already planned to do this army sometime during V3 times of Flames of War. Unfortunately the minimum platoon size went up from 4 halftracks to 7 in the latest edition so I had to scrounge up some extra tracks to have all of them the same. Though in hindsight it might have been a good idea to just get the new plastics as they are actually far better looking and have better detail than these. But I already had most of the halftracks ready and I hate to mix different looking sets together.

Paintjob was mostly just done with an airbrush. A simple yellow modulation with some camo patterns on top without any particular example to follow. Then just painted the crew and dirtied up the halftracks with enamel washes and some mud effects.

Photos are bit of a potato quality as I'm taking them with my mobile phone. My camera is having some weird issues and not starting up so I'm stuck to just using the phone camera.

So with 9 halftracks and 20 crew it's got me an extra 92 points.

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Great work here on these transports, the camo looks great even though you say they are just kinda random.  To me that random nature makes them look right, as my understanding is that while there were templates to follow, in the end they ended up getting paint slapped onto them with mops or brooms, or even by hand, just to get them done for the right season.

I hear your pain on shifting unit sizes, but remember the books are just a guide (and one we happily ignore most of the time around here) so you could always just keep to the old unit sizes or make up your own.  Most of the time is seems like FOW has no relevance to reality anyway, so go with what makes you happy, no matter if that is 4, 7, or 10!

Regardless, these are really sharp looking models, and a well earned 112 points (or at least that is what the handy dandy minion points calculator spits out for 9 15mm vehicles and 20 crew)!  Have a great weekend!

- Byron