From DallasE: 1/48 Saint-Chamond Tank from Trenchworx (20 points)

The push to the finish is on. Here's likely my second-last post of the Challenge: a 1/48 scale Saint-Chamond (early production) from Trenchworx.

I've had this model in its box for a year or two and it was time for it to be built and painted. It was pretty straightforward work with a paint scheme from the Internet. It was a little more difficult to determine the "correct" tactical markings for this vehicle - so I just picked some numerals that looked good and "French".

I like that the model has the FAMH (Compagnie des forges et acieries de la marine et d'Homecourt) logo "cast into" the rear armour. FAMH was the manufacturer of the tank and was based in the commune of Saint-Chamond in France.

The vehicle was heaviest-armed tank of the Great War but was a bit of a disaster... the overhangs front and rear were too long, the weight was biased well to the front, and its ability to traverse trenches and craters was negligible. BUT 75mm GUN!!1!!

This model is an early-production version - you can tell by the early 75mm gun and the observation turrets. Later production variants did away with these and substituted a low-profile square turret for the driver/commander.  

Decal is from, of all things, the GW 40K Adeptus Mechanicus decal sheet :-) Later in the war, the vehicle was marginally more successful as an assault gun. This one will see service with my late-war French, it's good to have it done. 

Points: 28mm vehicle = 20 points

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Cracking addition to your challenge Dallas, always nice to see something a bit different in WW1 armoured vehicles pop up. You've nailed that paint scheme with the bold colours and thick outlines, it looks fabulous (and themese well with your French infantry too). And with the historically inspired GW decal being reused on a historical model, the cycle is now complete :-)

- Paul

From TeemuL: T-70 team (42 points)

Weekend without much special activities and flu is almost gone, so good time to paint some minis. For the second post today, I present a team of T-70 Soviet tanks for Flames of War. Minis itself are from Plastic Soldier Company.

These are meant for Operation Bagration, that's why bright green bases and tanks are plain green, only some identification numbers in the turrets. So far I have understood, that there were no clear system for numbering tanks, I guess it causes some confusion to enemy, when even the own side doesn't know the meaning of all the numbers... In the background you can see some explosions, they came in the Opel Blitz truck set from Warlord Games, which I decided to do now.

I painted the exhaust systems orange to show rusted they are. Tracks are a mixture of browns and greys. And now I realize the mistake I made while quickly finishing these - I didn't apply any brown mud to the hulls... Well, maybe they were just unloaded from train and sent forward...

And the view usually seen by the controlling player. I guess better be quick, because these light tanks tend to blow up rather quickly when encountering German defenders. As you can see, I have based my tanks, this way I can glue a magnetic sheet to the bottom of the base and this helps with transfer and storage. Models itself are rather sturdy, so the bases are not necessary for protecting them, I think.

There are 5 of these 15mm tanks here, so 8 points a piece. Then two half minis on the turrets, giving 2 extra points for total of 42.

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Hi Teemu!

I like the simple green paint job, the orange and blue really 'pop'!

Can you ever have enough explosions? I think not :)

An other 42points to your tally

- Sarah

From SteveA: Grabbing 3 Challenge books and putting them on the book cart! (108 points)

Heya there,   for my post this week I want to take a bite out of my painting backlog shaped by the  very kinds of themed painting challenges that first drew my attention to the AHPC.  Also I want to over come some slack in my points progress as end of the this year's AHPC draws near.  Thus my model count here is few, but each parcel of panting  does ding its own challenge point check box..

I delved into my blues, greens and brown colors to paint up a Troll (akin to the Trolls of children's stories such as The Three Billy Goats Gruff ) to serve as wandering monster in future games of Frost Grave, and to enable me to  pull a  "Children's Book" for Library Challenge.

The female Wizards apprentice I painted up for my FrostGrave Warband - will spin the wheels  of Lady Sarah’s Library Cart  to carry me to a new section in the Library.

I jumped off  of Lady Sarah’s Library  Cart to meet the Maritime challenge with a Star-Spawn of Cthulhu mini that Wizkids Games put out for Pathfinder a few years back.  According to the pathfinderwiki.com, the smallest Star-Spawn stands nearly 30 feet in height, (cited from "Wake of the Watcher," a Pathfinder RPG adventure) Thus, I am assuming this elder thing bursting up from deep waters can be scored as a 54 mm mini and also ding me a check box for the Maritime Library challenge   ( or if not the Maritime Challenge, then I submit this old one mini for consideration under the Romance Novel challenge... after all who  among us does not  harbor a mad dark love within their spoiled hearts for the remorseless cosmic might of Cthulhu and his spawn)

The tank may at first seem a little out of place between an aegis of cosmic horror and a couple figures for frozen fantasy, but for me to meet the challenge for Local History, this Sherman Tank M4 model  (2002, ArmourFast, 1/72 plastic kit,  No 99001)  is very similar to the Sherman M4 Tank War Memorial  that still stands proudly in my old  childhood neighborhood.

I aim to be somewhat brief and concise with my posts, so rather than recount the Local Tank War Memorial's history, I will instead provide link to a site describing the real M4 Tank of my childhood memories.

The Sherman Tank Memorial: https://www.rclwinnipeg100.ca/2010/03/06/80/

Thus with a load of  3 Library Challenge books pulled from shelves and placed upon the Lady Sarah’s Library  Cart, I believe I have made some overdue progress to paint me up some challenge points.

 5 pts  x1 Troll Foot Figure 28mm

20 pts Challenge Library: Children's Books

 5 pts x1 Wizard Apprentice (Female) Foot Figure 28mm

20 pts Lady Sarah’s Book Cart

10 pts x1 Star Born Foot Figure 54mm

20 pts Challenge Library: Maritime

 8 pts x1 Sherman M4  Tank 1/72 Scale, (score as Vehicle 15mm) 

20 pts Challenge Library: Local History

Total = 108 points

TeemuL: No worries, Cthulhu is a well known maritime entity. In fact he could easily be pretty much anything he wants... Iä, Iä! (Yes, I have nice Finnish keyboard, where there actually is a key for "ä"). And like Cthulhu embraces everything in the end, you grab quite a lot of Library locations and thus points. I guess the troll is an old WHFB troll? And your local Sherman looks business, but in the end doesn't have a chance against Cthulhu. Or Wizard... May be a small change against a troll. :)

From ScottR 15mm Australian Vehicles for NAM by Battlefront. 168 Points

 Hi all and here is teh second last of my Australians for the NAM game by Battlefront.  You saw the infantry and in this painting session i managed to get teh vehicles done.  I had them started by basing tehm with a darkish green.  I wasnt very happy with this a sa base so I went back and did them with a black undercoat.

So with the re-undercoating done.  I needed to find a suitable colour.  I did a bit of investigating through teh RAAC Museum in OZ and found that in the 60 the Centurions and M113s which where new to Australia where done in an Olive Drab base.  I wanted one that was a little less brown than a normal Olive drab so i chose the AK Paints version.

I then did the first coat followed by teh first higlight or modulation.  First modulation was the Olive Drab with a bit of sand mixed in.

The second modulation was using AKs Faded Olive Drab.

After the modulaion was complete I then airbrushed the tracks, exhaust pipes and added stowage of jerry cans and baggage etc.  From here the vehicles were taken to the work bench for a bit of touch up and to paint the crew.  Once this was complete.  I sprayed a light mahogany brown around the track areas, sides, front and rear to look like the rtedish dust found in Vietnam from the dark red soil.  I did it fairly light just to add some tone.

Once this was done the vehicles were airbrushed with AKs satin varnish.  This was left to dry so the decals could be added.  The decals were taken from a couple of references.  These included the red and yellow 'Tac' (Tactical plates for the unit and the Green for the !st Australian Task Force or 1ATF.

The next set were a mix of the squadron and troop markings.  The squadron is the yellow circle on the side of the turret.  The troops is the yellow shiled with the red kangaroo.  There is another with a kangaroo holding an umbrella but couldnt find the mpeg to make the decal.

Great work on these pieces of heavy armour, Scott. The various shades on the armour as well as the decals you have applied (those must be pretty difficult to do at this scale), really add a lot of life to the models. 

As for scoring, I count 20 vehicles as well as a few commanders sticking out of various hatches, so I have assigned points for those. 

From DallasE: Churchill Tanks at Dieppe (LV426) (105 points)

So this is about as close as I get to a "points bomb"... four 28mm (1/50) vehicles combined with one planetary visit. Anyway it's four Churchill MkIII medium tanks, as seen (kind of) on the infamous Dieppe raid of 19 August 1942.

The four vehicles I've done are all Churchills of The Calgary Regiment (Calgary Tanks), aka 14 Canadian Armoured Tank Regiment (14 CATR). I had three of these painted already in a standard British armour green, but for Christmas was given another stock Corgi model by Challenger DaveV, which prompted me to revisit the three I'd already painted...

 

So I got the project underway in earnest, first re-priming all four models with flat black spray, researching the correct colour for the Canadian armour at Dieppe (turns out it was described as "dog sh!t brown" and I used GW Steel Legion Drab to replicate that), and sourcing decals for the tanks. I got these from Peddinghaus, a cottage supplier in Germany that makes a ton of very cool and obscure decals in 1/72 and 1/48 scale.

 

I also figured I may as well do some conversions on the tanks to better replicate their Dieppe configuration (because why not, right?) This involved scratch-building the exhaust pipe extensions that allowed the Churchills to deep-wade without allowing water into the engines. This was characteristic of the Dieppe Churchills and is seen on every photographed example. 

I made the extensions out of thick flexible wire (I think it's maybe soldering wire) bent to shape and superglued to the exhaust pipes of the tank. I then ran thread between the upper ends of the extensions as shown in photographs of the vehicles on the beach. The extensions were then heavily weathered with rust effect wash.

  

Unfortunately none of the Churchills at Dieppe were equipped with track guards for the upper runs, as seen on these Corgi models... sadly I don't think anyone makes appropriate models in 1/48 or 1/50 and taking a grinder to these models to remove the guards wasn't really in the project remit.

I decided to portray the three vehicles of 9 Troop, B Squadron - Bluebell, Blossom, and Buttercup, as well as the troop leader of 6 Troop, Bob (all four were Churchill MkIIIs). The decals from the Peddinghaus set are excellent and have great detail. However they did take a good deal of work to fit, as they are not "pre-cut" and need to be trimmed to size. There's also 15 decals for each vehicle!

I didn't do a ton of weathering on the vehicles as this would be the first time they were in action - just some light water streaking down the vertical panels, and dust along the lower part of the vehicles and suspension.

 

Here's a close-up of the exhaust extensions. Honestly they were a bit of a futz to build but I like the way they turned out - they really give the tanks the "Dieppe look":

I'm actually quite happy with the way these turned out. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Dieppe raid and I am looking forward to setting up a game this summer to mark it. We've played Dieppe games a few times before (but not for years) but I think the new Churchills are really going to add to the vibe.

I'm visiting LV426 with this project as one of the planetary themes is "a really really bad idea." Now if you've read anything about the Dieppe raid, you know that it was pretty much universally considered to be a disaster, notwithstanding some really heroic conduct by some of the combatants, some isolated success by the Commandoes on the flanks, and the ex-post-facto justification (largely by Mountbatten) that Dieppe was vital practice contributing to the success of the Operation Overlord (D-Day). Having said all this - Operation Jubilee was a really really bad idea. Dieppe was essentially a fortress, the beach was almost purpose-designed to break tank tracks, and the plan didn't take into account the extensive German fortifications on the headlands overlooking the beach. A really really bad idea.  

Points:

4x 28mm vehicles:     80 points

LV426 bonus:             20 points

Total:                        100 points 
 

Cheers,

Dallas

I know less about Dieppe than I should. I look forwards to finding out more at the 80th anniversary! I've always found the Churchill to be an unattractive vehicle, but you've done great work on these vehicles. The colour alone is hard to describe! The light weathering is really nice, and your attention to detail with the conversions and decals is worth a few extra points.

Barks

BradS 28mm Vietnam US ACAV [Babylon5 120pts.]

I have been working hard on this set of M113 ACAV Vehicles for my Vietnam project. The CAV played a major role in the Vietnam War. For my 28mm games I needed a platoon of ACAV vehicles. I printed all of these on a resin 3D printer. The STL files are from the Bobmack3d Vietnam Kickstarter. I think they painted up real nice and I am excited to try them on the table top. For this journey I am heading to Babylon 5 as my destination. I feel that the ACAV in Vietnam is deficiently Operatic and fitting for the planet. 

The .50 cal and two M60s add a lot of firepower to the M113.

I started the process of painting these with a lot of airbrush work. Primed, under-shaded, main coat then highlighting were all done with an air brush. I did all the vehicles at once.

I couldn't resist adding a M113 Flame track to the group. It is not officially in a platoon but I am going to use it in a scenario. Should be a load of fun.

This version is the plain no extra stowage version. I added it to have a M113 that was cleaner than the others.

But I really like the ones that are covered all kinds of boxes, c-ration boxes, tarps and ammo cans. Really adds a realistic look to them. They came this way so I didn't have to add anything extra, just print and paint them up

You might notice that this one is a up-armored version. You can tell by the different looking front. The extra armor was under the driver to protect from mines but a new float trim plane was added to compensate for the extra weight. In photos from the Vietnam War you can see this version mixed in with the other M113 ACAV vehicles, even in the same platoon.

Overall it was a lot of work. These took me two weeks to complete. I like how they turned out and will defiantly be painting up other versions like the M106 Mortar Track or the M163 VADS!

As for points:

28mm Vehicles x5 + 1 Planet = 120 points.

I will be continuing on with my Vietnam project so expect more in the future

- Brad

Super work on these grimy warhorses Brad.  The extra work on detailing and clutter storage really pays off.  I also like the variations with the uncluttered vehicle and the flamer 9this seems to be the day fr the Flamers on Tracks Jeopardy round).  I'll ask the dreaded 1/48 or 1/56 question now and then hide in my bunker while the fireworks ensue.

From PhilH: Obsolete at the Armoury (50 Points)

Rattling through these Chambers now. The Armoury, a miniature that's armoured. Well barely, say I: how's about an obsolete WWI-vintage tank, thrown desperately into the fray in the Spanish Civil War? As I mentioned in my recent entry about the tizano improvised armour, in the inter-war Period, Spain was slow to adapt to new forms of warfare. Cutting investment in the armed forces, at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936, Spain's armoured forces totalled a handful of obsolete tanks, primarily a couple of squadrons of Renault FT and Schneider CA1. Domestic development and production of tanks was sorely lacking. Hence, the most common armoured vehicles of the Civil War were hurriedly provided by larger powers keen to swing the conflict in their favour: German Pz1, Italian tankettes and Soviet T-26.

I wanted to reflect the bonkers variety of armoured vehicles that were used in my collection, so have a fair stash of them to paint. While innovative for 1917, the FT is so delightfully obsolete, dorky and useless, I'll have to get it to the table soon.

I used this sheet from FC Modeltips for the camo pattern. Interestingly, other versions of the pattern working from black and white photos concluded green-on-green, but I much preferred the green/brown. This 1:56 resin model in is from Blitzkrieg miniatures, with nice touches of a vision port that can be open with driver visible and both the cast turret with Hotchkiss MG, and the Berliet design riveted turet, with 37mm gun. Spain's models were MG-armed, though later shipments were recieved from Poland and France, dumping obsolete hardware on the depserate Republic, so plausibly they could have had the 37mm: Steven J Zaloga's Spanish Civil War Tanks by Osprey makes no mention, but Chain of Command Espana has an entry for it.

Then finally for reasons, I had a second MG turret, so I painted that one to be a captured vehicle, with Nationalist Spain flag design around the turret, and St Andrews cross aerial recognition marking on the cupola.

This was varnished with AK interactive ultra matte, so has a suuuper matte finish. I wouldn't use it on infantry, but it seems passable on tanks. Pleased with how the exhaust rusting came out, so have another shot of it:

One 28mm armoured vehicle for 20, plus two spare turrets say 5 points a piece and the Chamber bonus. 50 points please, Wednesday Minion!

I really like the muted WW1 tones on the paint job and the weathering is really great Phil! I'll grant you 2points for each spare turret (they just aren't the equivalent of a whole 28mm figure with basing) for a total of 44 points

Cap'n Wednesday