From SamuliS - 15mm German anti-air (48 points)

Not much progress painting wise as I've been struck down with a rather nasty flu. That couple with a demanding puppy has kept me from the paint desk more than I would like.

Still I've finished another entry in the familiar theme of Early War Germans. This time with some mobile anti-air in the form of four Sdkfz 10/5 2cm Flak half-tracks. Battlefront offerings as usual and quite a bit higher quality than some of their other products that I've done during this project. They are quite tricky to put together though as there's quite a lot of parts that are not that well supported, like the sides of the truck bed that are held on just by superglue and a resin edge about 1mm wide. Also the gun barrels are very thin and are extremely prone easy to bend and I've had to mend them quite a few times already. I mounted these on large bases to make things easier as they come with trailers and two of the crew are on food in addition to the two that are manning the gun and driving the half-track.

I wasn't too lucky with their delivery either as these were ordered in September and I only got them in the beginning of February and even then they arrived in a cardboard box that was totally wrecked with a hole on the side and the box crushed. Two of the four blisters were split open, but miraculously all of the parts were still there.

Nothing special about the painting with a Dark Panzer Grey bascoat and a drybrush of Green Grey. As this is a Luftwaffe unit I painted the uniforms with a blue grey colour instead of the normal Feldgrau. Not much of a difference, but enough to distinguish between the different arms of service. To add some variety to the bases I added a bit of foliage and a small tree on one of them.

2 more platoons to go still, but I don't think I'll be painting them up during the challenge as these only need to be ready by August and I have some projects that need finishing up before that. Napoleonics especially have been neglected far too much lately.

From Curt:

Great work on these Samuli! I really like that you've used the larger bases to create interesting mini-vignettes incorporating the trailers and crew. I have a quad version of this model and can attest to how fiddly some of the parts were to assemble - nonetheless, as we can see with yours here, they do produce a very nice looking model when completed. 

I look forward to seeing some Napoleonics from you before the Challenge wraps up, but before then, please get well and enjoy your time with your puppy!