From AlanD - Inter-War Armoured Cars for Under Construction (120 Points)

I've had a break from painting turnips this week with a group of inter-war armoured cars.

It seems like I only seem to work on my inter-war projects during the Painting Challenge, so I'm claiming these for the Under Construction bonus. I was looking back over past Challenges, and saw that I first started painting things for the German Revolution back in 2016. I added some more bits last year, and here we are again.

This beast, a Garford-Putilov, will join the Freikorps I painted in 2016.

A year or so ago I also painted a bunch of Poles for the Polish-Soviet War of 1920, and the next two armoured cars will give them a bit of punch. The diminutive Ford with its colourful camouflage was a Polish design, hastily thrown together in 1920. The Austin-Putilov is based on a well-known photo of a Red Army vehicle that was captured in May 1920. The Poles retained the original Bolshevik vehicle name, cheekily adding their own with the date of capture.

Finally, here are a couple of vehicles for the Red Army in 1920. I don't have any other figures for that particular army yet, but I'm sure that can be remedied at some point! The hal-track is an Austin Kegresse, and it's joined by a Izhorsky-Fiat. I've deliberately left it without markings so I can use it for a few different armies.

I was trying to remember who made these models. The Polish Ford and Austin-Putilov are from Company B. I think the others are from Brigade Games, but I could well be wrong.  Hope you like them! five vehicles plus the Under Construction bonus should give me 120 points for the week. Thank you Tamsin!

That's a great set of armoured cars, Alan. Good to see you return to your inter-war stuff.

Tamsin

From HerrRobert (Robert H): Street fighting (95 Points)

Next stop, Benito's Brook:

This is probably as close to a point's bonb I will ever get, short of sandbagging. I just can't sit still long enough to paint dozens of figures at a time. This entry has been taking me the entire challenge to put together:

I've been playing a lot of Chain of Command and Bolt Action, and we've done a lot of street fighting. But nothing is really as savage, or as brave, as the street fighting in Stalingrad. From the guidebook:

A figure or vignette related to some brave feat of arms, almost hopeless against impossible odds.

A few ideas: A forlorn hope. A heroes assaulting a bunker, trench or fortified position single handed. A wounded soldier covering the retreat of his brothers-in-arms. The last Spanish Tercio square surrounded at Rocroi. The last stand of the Old Guard at Waterloo.

Most of the figures I've painted for Challenge X have been straight out of the tin, as it were. However, plastics give a lot of scope for conversion work, and figures based for urban conflict demand a certain bit of atmosphere.

All of these were based on Renedra's plastic bases. 25mm for individual figures, 60mm for the PTRD team. I sculpted out of greenstuff paving stones, and filled a Warlord oval base for the one figure with the ammo box.

I then created rubble, cutting down the plastic bases some figures came with, chopping up sprues, and applying copious amounts of railroad ballast to make smaller rubble. Then it all got primed.

First up, from the Plastic Soldier Company, I made a PTRD anti-tank rifle team:

This is my absolute favorite of the lot, though the pictures don't really do them justice today. For the Soviet uniform, I used Army Painter Skeleton Bone for the base, then hit it with Games Workshop's Agaros Dunes contrast paint. While the photos do not do them justice, they look like they're straight out of the Osprey book on the Red Army. The helmets are also a lot more work than they look, Vallejo Dark American Green and Reflective Green, then Army Painter's Military Shade. The rubble has at least four or five grays on it, then washed down.

The two additional figures are planned to flesh out a Warlord 50mm mortar team (very useful in Chain of Command). Both are also Plastic Soldier Company figures. I didn't like them until close to the very end, then I did. Painted the same way as the PTRD team.

These are actually Tamiya figures, from their Russian Infantry set. They're later than Stalingrad (you can tell from the banana magazines on the PPSH), and were frankly absolutely no fun to paint. But they look all right now that they're done.

These are 1st Corps resin casualties. I was converted by some of the incredible games I have played with the Jay's Wargaming Madness crew at Kublacon. His games are always a visual spectacle, and they have lots of casualty figures for atmosphere. Since I do a lot of skirmish games, it seemed appropriate.

Last up is a 76-мм полковая пушка обр. 1927 г., or the 76mm regimental gun M1927. This was the standard Russian regimental gun, and served throughout the war, though it was increasingly superceded by the M1943, which put the 76.2mm gun on the same gun carriage as the Russian 45mm. 

As far as I know, Company B is the only firm that makes the M1927. The gun is a great model, though fiddly to put together and comes with no instructions. The crew I am less thrilled with; the helmets are exaggerated, the faces not that great a sculpt, and overall casting was crude. I had a hard time enjoying the paint job, which may explain why I started the challenge with them, and did not finish them until the last day.

So there we go. Eight standing 28mm figures, for 40 points, six prone 28mm figures for 15, and a gun for another 10.

____________________________

Soviet close-support artillery in Stalingrad? Yup, that sounds pretty grim to me (only to be exceeded by being German close-support artillery in Stalingrad, now that's last stand). Great job on the little vignettes and basework, Robert. Urahhh Stalino!!!

-Curt

From AlanD: Jugoslavian Partisans (70 points)

My current shiny obsession continues to be WWII Jugoslavian Partisans, so much of this week has been spent converting figures.

Tito's Partisans are very interesting to model, partly because their appearance varied so much. In 1941 the first partisans often wore civilian clothing or ex-Jugoslav Army uniforms, along with whatever they captured from the enemy. After the Italian capitulation in 1943, large quantities of Italian uniforms and equipment fell into partisan hands, and from mid-1944 large quantities of British battledress and equipment was being supplied by the allies. Partisans in Bosnia and Croatia often made use of captured Domobran (Croatian army) uniforms, which were themselves originally old Jugoslav Army uniforms, but increasingly supplied by Germany as the war went on. As the Red Army invaded from the east, Soviet uniforms and equipment were issued to some Partisan brigades. As the war went on, Partisan HQ also attempted to standardise uniform as much as possible, which really meant just trying to introduce uniform cap styles and rank insignia.






By 1945 the Partisans also fielded two tank brigades, the 1st, supplied with M3A3 Stuart tanks and AEC armoured cars by the allies, and the 2nd supplied by the Red Army with T34/85s. They also made use of a wide variety of captured vehicles that originated in France, Italy and Germany.

This week I have painted up a lovely model from Company B of an M3A3 from the 1st Tank Brigade, with converted crew in British battledress from the Warlord games plastic box set.





The infantry this week are from Black Tree Design and Warlord British, German and Russian infantry, chopped about and greenstuffed as appropriate. This little lot should give me 20 points for the tank, 40 for the infantry, and say another 8 for the tank crew?



Lovely stuff, Dux! We're all enjoying this little history lesson- what was your day job again?! I like the crew hanging out of the Stuart, it really helps give a sense of scale. The handpainted markings and floral bases are your signature. I'm glad to award a few bonus points for the conversions and markings.

Barks