From AlanD: Yes! More Romanians! (52.5 points)

 

I haven't managed to get too much done this week, although what I have done has been from Romania.

First up, I got hold of a Stoewer field car from Great Escape Games. This little resin and metal ket comes with three Afrika Korps crew, but with some blankets and new or modified headgear fashioned from greenstuff I think it will be a passable little recce vehicle for my army.

The other entry this week needs a bit of explanation. Earlier in the Challenge I painted some Romanian Panzer 35(t)s. I bought these from Great Escape as a platoon deal of 3, but missed the fact that they all had closed turrets, whereas buying them separately would have given me open hatches. I do like adding crew when I can, so I wrote to Stuart from Great Escape, and he very kindly sent me a couple of resin turrets. Unfortunately, we got our wires crossed, and he thought I didn't need the white metal guns that usually come with the turrets. As a result, I spent a good chunk of last Saturday afternoon fashioning some gun barrels out of brass rod and greenstuff, and I'm pretty pleased with the result.

Although the turret numbers are different (which will irk me), I now have spare turrets for two of my tanks. The plan is to use the ones with commanders until the tank gets pinned, and then replace the turrets with the buttoned-up version. This will bring me joy.

Not quite sure how to score these. The Stoewer is worth 20 points, with another 7.5 I suppose for three seated figures? As for the turrets, I suggest calling them crew served weapons for 10 points each, with another 5 for the commanders. As always, I bow before Barks's wisdom and judgement, but if this sounds right, then I should get about 52.5 points.

Great work on your vehicles as usual, Dux. I like your pinned/ unpinned solution- it brings much more joy than a cardboard chit! I'll allow your points solution, swayed by the scratch-built guns and flattery.

Barks

From ChrisK: More Early-War French Vehicles (140pts)

Hullo, All,

I've been a little poorly recently, so I'll be light on the words in this entry, but I did at least manage to get some pics done in the lightbox! Thanks again, Barks, by the way, for your supportive advice.

To cut to the chase, I continue to plough through by pile of 1940 French, and today, I present to you a vertitable melange of efforts - I'll outline them here, and then a few more notes will follow with the pics:

• Panhard 178 Armoured Car;
• Laffly W15 Tank Hunter;
• Renault R40;
• a requisitioned civilian truck, and
• three Renault FT-17s.

Panhard 178: 

This is the Warlord Games model, and - since taking the photos - I have noticed and fixed the surpised look on the commander's face!

Laffly W15 Tank Hunter: 

Armed with the formidable 47mm anti-tank gun, this model is a resin print, courtesy of a friend of mine, from an STL designer who goes by 'Eskice'. 

This came with an accompanying 3D-printed crew, but they needed some... er... corrective surgery, so they're not yet done.

Renault R40: 

This is a combination of an old resin hull with FDM-printed tracks and turret, and I'm pleased to note that it was a wonderfully appropriate gift for my 40th birthday.

Requisitioned Fordson Truck:

This is a die-cast model (always my preference for soft-skin transports), and I used it to practise one of the wackier approaches to vehicular camo practised by the French. Reference pics of such vehicles are somewhat tricky to pin-down, but I did read a couple of times about local units applying their own patterns to suddenly-requisitioned transports, so it struck me that someone might well have wanted to get creative... 

...or maybe it was a little too much requisitioned Absinthe?

Renault FT-17s

Finally, and from the same source as the Laffly tank-hunter, my friend also printed me a trio of baby FT-17s, with both MG and AT turret variants. There's not a huge amount to say about these, other than that they are greener on the lower hull than they might appear in these pics, wherein the drybrushed brown seems to have been picked up far more. 

For seven vehicles at this scale, then, I would like to claim 140 points, please. I felt a little guilty about claiming the full-whack for the FTs, but then I figured they each have an extra turret and the time spent on that wretched truck might hopefully make up for it!

Thanks for swinging by; keep up the great work,

- ChrisK

 

This is a brilliant showcase of early-war Gallic variety- bravo! Of course you may claim each of these as a full 20 point vehicle. For me, the star of the show is the truck canvas. The Laffly is a delightfully odd truck as well.

Barks

From JezT: AVBCW 25mm (55 points)

 Hi All 

Another squirrel point for me as posting some Interwar stuff - here using Bolt Action rules in the mythical A Very British Civil War period - have been building up my stuff over the a few years on the challenge. 

My "go to" manufacturer for vehicles is First Corps and now got another large truck - this is technically a German truck. Have to say you get your money's worth for the vehicle as it is a big imposing truck. With it I have a couple of Pulp figures from the gangster range that I have painted with the Mosely inspired British Union of Fascists BUF armband. 

Able to use truck as "Mortar Lorry" with homegrown mortar - this option is in the Bolt Action Campaign Gigant book 

Also added some reinforcements to my London City militia squad - the "Men in Black and Bowler hats". These are from Empress Miniatures and as they are sold as 19 century German radicals and revolutionaries, I am not sure they are too impressed to be painted up as City bankers - the sub machine gunner is another Pulp gangster figure. 

Altogether 55 points and another squirrel to the tally. 

Cheers Jez

The truck looks great, but I'm not sure how safe those mortars are! Well done on the BUF armbands. I think of Jeeves with your militia, but I think/ hope he'd be above a lot of it.

Barks

From SimonM: ACW Confederates & "Catalyst Games Lab" Battletech (59.5 Points)

For my eighth post I thought I would simply knuckle down and work on some more 15mm Epic-scale American Civil War Confederates by Warlord Games, and finally complete the Command stand I need so as to field a sixty-man strong contingent of the 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment. In addition, I had just enough hobby time leftover to provide my ongoing Weird War Two project with some German Heer reinforcements using a few of the marvellous Battletech models currently being sold by Catalyst Game Labs.

These twenty plastic ACW soldiers came free on a sprue accompanying Issue 393 of "Wargames Illustrated" and were actually used as experimental strips to help me determine how best to pigment Warlord Games’ recently released Napoleonic figures. As a result half of the Confederates were primed using a double-coat of "Citadel" Abaddon Black and the other half with “Vallejo” Sombre Grey.

I then carefully started to ‘pick out’ all the strips’ numerous details from the ground up, applying a combination of "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna and "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade to the footwear of approximately half a dozen of the miniatures. I also did something similar with the models’ trousers too, as I didn't just want all of them to be marching in the same colour pants. This caused me to pigment several with "Vallejo" Heavy Bluegrey and "Citadel" Nuln Oil, a few more with Vallejo" Heavy Sienna and "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade, and the remaining Confederates with “Vallejo” Steel Grey and “Citadel” Drakenhof Nightshade.

For the soldiers’ jackets I either went with a mixture of "Vallejo" Sombre Grey and "Citadel" Nuln Oil, "Vallejo" Heavy Blue and "Citadel" Drakenhof Nightshade, or Vallejo" Heavy Sienna and "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade. Such colours might seem a little odd for a Southern unit but the Alabama recruits actually wore "a dark blue frock coat" and "black broad brimmed felt hats at the war's start," so I wanted to capture that uniqueness with my palette choices.

I gave all the Kepi hats a dash of "Vallejo" Sombre Grey and "Citadel" Nuln Oil, their blanket rolls a smidgeon of either "Vallejo" Heavy Sienna, Heavy Red or White with a wash of "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade, and their belt buckles a touch of "Vallejo" Gold and (more) Strong Tone Quickshade by "The Army Painter". Lastly, the models’ hands and faces were layered with "Vallejo" Heavy Skintone, shaded in "Citadel" Reikland Fleshshade, and later highlighted with extra dabs of "Vallejo" Heavy Skintone.

The two flags were bought from GMB Designs, and consist of a 1st (silk) pattern ANV battle flag, and an Alabama state standard. Despite being 15mm scale, they’re just a smidgeon too big for the pole bearers. However, I really like them as they stand out on the tabletop, and, before being coated with “Vallejo” Matt Varnish, were easily manoeuvred into position.

Alongside my infantrymen, I’ve also painted up two of the plastic mounted commanders – one for the Confederates and one for the Union. The Confederate General was painted similar to the basic palette of my soldiers. But for the Union General I went with a much darker blue colour scheme, as I plan for them to initially consist of Iron Brigade regiments.

This 1:285 scale plastic model of an Ebon Jaguar is manufactured by “Catalyst Game Labs” and can be bought together with the Turkina, Kingfisher, Huntsman, and Crossbow in the company’s BattleTech: Clan Heavy Battle Star boxed set. All the pre-assembled miniatures in this “supplement to the BattleTech: A Game of Armoured Combat box” come with an assortment of Alpha Strike cards depicting various colour schemes. However, as I plan to employ this particular sculpt as a (second) German Focke-Achgelis War Walker for an upcoming Weird War Two campaign using some homemade rules, I decided to go with a predominantly grey palette.

The 41mm tall figure was initially undercoated with “Vallejo” German Fieldgrey WWII, shaded in “Citadel” Nuln Oil, and dry-brushed using (more) “Vallejo” German Fieldgrey WWII. I then ‘picked out’ the heavy Clan OmniMech’s three-toed feet using a combination of “Vallejo” Heavy Bluegrey and “Citadel” Nuln Oil. These areas were later carefully dry-brushed with (more) “Vallejo” Heavy bluegrey.

I also brushed a couple of coats of “Vallejo” White to the war walker’s cockpit and nose cone as a base colour. These parts were later layered in “Vallejo” Sun Yellow, shaded in “Citadel” Reikland Fleshshade, and very carefully dry-brushed with (more) “Vallejo” Sun Yellow. Finally, the miniature’s joints, exhaust vents and weaponry were treated to some “Vallejo” Gunmetal and a splash of “Citadel” Nuln Oil.

The Elemental battle-armoured infantry are all 6mm in height, and were painted using the self-same colours as the Ebon Jaguar. I did however, apply some “Vallejo” Sombre Grey to the super-soldiers’ smoke trails, before washing them with “Citadel” Nuln Oil. The jet-streams were then dry-brushed with (more) “Vallejo” Sombre Grey and some White too.

Hopefully this latest AHPC entry will provide:

20 x 15mm ACW Infantry = 40 Points

2 x 15mm ACW Cavalry = 8 Points

1 x 40mm Mechs as per previous Battletech posts = 7 points

9 x 6mm Infantry = 4.5 Points

Total = 59.5 Points

Your Confederates look great, and I think the slightly oversized flag is visually appealing. Your mech colour scheme looks more like something from the Luftwaffe than the Heer. The yellow accents really help it 'pop'.

Barks