From AlanD: Romanian Bits and Bobs (65 points)

Giving up any pretence of painting anything else, I've added a couple of unusual vehicles to my Romanians this week. The first is a Renault UE Chenilette from Warlord Games. I was chuffed to discover that Romania bought a number of these from France prior to WWII - they are cool looking vehicles and it was fun painting one.

Also from Warlord is this Polski Fiat Lazik. After the fall of Poland, considerable numbers of Polish troops retreated into Romania with their vehicles, which were promptly used by the Romanian army. Fortunately the Polish crew in the model were wearing greatcoats, but I remodelled them a little to look more Romanian. The BAR carried by one of the men in the back was replaced with a German rifle, and I tried remodelling the helmets a bit, mainly by adding little Romanian crests to the front with greenstuff. They are still unmistakably Polish helmets though, so don't look to closely.

Incidentally, for some trivia, I was reading the memoirs of a Romanian soldier who commented on how much they hated their (originally Dutch) M39 helmets. He recalled trying on a German helmet and appreciating the way that it didn't direct rain straight down the back of his neck. The Romanians also used a large number of French Adrien helmets, and you can see one in the back of the Chenilette.

Dux paints some Romanians? Shocked Pikachu face! Those are fun little vehicles- it is almost a shame you hide them under snow! Your passengers are enjoying the air conditioning, and I won't comment on their headgear. I am looking forward to seeing your whole Romanian force. Your first vehicle is clearly 1.5 vehicles, so have some more points.

Barks

From SimonM: "Catalyst Games Lab" Battletech & "Brigade Models" Land Ironclads (30 Points)

For my ninth post I thought I would work on some more 1:285 scale Battletech models by Catalyst Game Labs which I plan to use to bolster my single French Weird War Two walker, and probably the beginning of a quite large company of French super-soldiers as well. In addition, I’ve started on the beginning of a 1/1200th British force of Land Ironclads by Brigade Models, having found the some flat-looking, diminutive sculpts gathering dust after over a decade in a drawer.

The two plastic models of the 43mm tall Warhawk and 32mm tall Kit Fox are produced by “Catalyst Game Labs” and can be found together in the “BattleTech: Clan Fire Star” along with a Cougar, Fire Moth, and Nova Cat. All the pre-assembled miniatures also come with an assortment of MechWarrior pilot and Alpha Strike cards depicting various colour schemes. But as I plan to use these particular sculpts as a Bloch class and Caudron-Renault class French War Walker for an upcoming Weird War Two campaign, I decided to go with a predominantly pale blue palette.

Both figures were therefore initially given a double undercoat of “Vallejo” Heavy Bluegrey and shaded in “Citadel” Drakenhof Nightshade. They were then dry-brushed using (more) “Vallejo” Heavy Bluegrey with a softly-bristled make-up blusher brush, and had their tiny cockpit windows ‘picked out’ with the odd a dab of “Citadel” Abaddon Black.

In order to add a bit of interest to the rather lightly-coloured models I decided to add a few ‘points of interest’ on them where possible by ‘picking out’ the odd detail using a combination of “Vallejo” German Grey and “Citadel” Nuln Oil. Later I gave these diminutive areas a delicate dry-brush of (more) “Vallejo” German Grey to help highlight their details.

I also applied some “Citadel” Abaddon Black to all their weapons, before pigmenting them with some “Vallejo” Gunmetal and a splash of “Citadel” Nuln Oil. Finally, I applied some French roundels, Tricolore and Croix de Lorraine by “Decal Details” to any parts of the figures I thought appropriate.

The twelve Elemental battle-armoured infantry are all 6mm in height, and were painted using the self-same colours as the Warhawk and Kit Fox. 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.

The twenty-four Mk.I Armoured Gun Carriers are approximately 4mm x 9mm in size, and had previously been super-glued in fours upon a 30mm x 40mm plastic rectangle (presumably so they could be used in Land Ironclads – whose rulebook I’ve currently misplaced). All the tiny tanks were primed with a couple of layers of “Vallejo” Earth and shaded using a combination of “Citadel” Agrax Earthshade and "The Army Painter" Strong Tone Quickshade.

I then carefully dry-brushed them all with (more) “Vallejo” Earth, before patiently picking out all their side-mounted guns with a combination of Gunmetal and “Citadel” Nuln Oil. To be honest, the hardest part in painting these little guys was subsequently tidying up the grit surrounding the vehicles so I could later dry-brush their bases and get them tabletop ready.

Hopefully this latest AHPC entry will provide:

1 x 28mm Mech as per previous Battletech posts = 5 points

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

12 x 6mm Infantry = 6 Points

24 x 2mm (small) Vehicles = 12 Points (based on their size/painting time being similar to 6mm Infantry figures)..?

Total = 30 Points

I really like the utilitarian blue-grey with deep, oily shadows on your mechs. I think 0.5 points per tiny tank is about right.

Barks

From SamuliS: Za Rodinu (202 points)

Back to what has probably been my most common subject for all the challenges I've taken part in with Flames of War miniatures. I almost got there already with all the Team Yankee stuff, but now to the proper era with some WW2 tanks and infantry!

We had our clubs annual Flames of War tournament which also somewhat doubles as the Finnish Nationals and as usual I just couldn't go there with an existing army, but rather used it as an excuse to paint up some missing units to add to my armies. I've generally played tank armies with Soviets so was lacking on some stationary guns and infantry and also wanted to add some missing tank units to my collection. Hence I came up with an infantry list with some heavy armor to support it in the form of IS-85s and some captured Panthers. As usual these were finished just in time for the tournament with the basing done in the final night before the games.

I did all the tanks with the fairly heavy modulation technique that I've liked to use especially on monotone vehicles to make the flat surfaces pop a bit more.  The bright airbrushed surfaces were then toned down quite heavily with several layers of filters and washes and with a final streaking layer to add in extra variety. I also wanted to do all the Panthers in different colours to really make the unit look a bit gobbled together with some recent acquisitions and some that the crews have had time to paint into more suitable Soviet colours.

 

 

 

 

The infantry section needed a few extra stands to allow me to field 3 companies of infantry in the list. I also added a couple of heavy 120mm mortars to add extra firepower as well as 57mm antitank guns to provide stationary firesupport for the infantry and help them buy time for the reinforcements to arrive.

 

This time around there are 55 foot figures, 7 guns and 8 tanks netting me an extra 202 points to add to my tally.

Lovely colour modulation and basing on these, Samuli. I hope your German opponents spluttered indignantly as Panthers were used against them!

How did your freshly-painted troops fare in the tournament?

Barks

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

From Jez Todd: Italian Wars Gendarmes 28mm (50 points)

 Dear All,

Hope you had a great week so far? Returning to the Italian Wars for me with some Redoubt Miniatures 28 mm Gendarmes. I really like these figures and decided to blend them into my existing bases rather than create a single new unit - here am playing Basic Impetus. 

First up is a great super heavy cavalry figure, I really liked the splendid horse barding so wanted to switch this figure in to my main French unit of gendarmes. After all these are supposed to be the best in Europe! 

Redoubt figure - painted pre basing

Added to the French Gendarme base - other figures are mainly Foundry

Next I painted 3 figures up as Italian cavalry and based the colours on the Gonzaga family featuring their sun "impresa"  using the illustration in the new Osprey rival Helion publishing - Retinue to Regiment series, The Italian Wars vol. 1 based around the Battle of Fornovo 1495. 

Finally the last figure I decided to paint up and base as a command figure Francesco Gonzaga - the old commander got relegated to being a mere Gendarme on the above picture. Again followed the colours illustration for Francesco in the Helion publishing book. 

Altogether that is 5 cavalry so simple 50 points - no squirrel this time as this is a continuation of my Italian Wars theme. 

Finally if you are interested in the Helion publishing reference book here is a picture. I also have vol. 2 and just seen that vol. 3 based on Battle of Pavia is also available. Interestingly they have a Wargames series and looks like there will be a book on the Italian Wars by some guy called "The Yarkshire Gamer" ! Definitely one to look out for .....  

 

Cheers Jez

Nice work on these heavy knights, Jez. The group basing looks good. It is great to have a decent reference book to hand.

Barks

Thursday's tasty treats

Only the very finest posts for you today. Our theme is armour:

• Simon has made mechs in the French style
• Samuli has prepared East-West fusion WW2 armour
• Jez has served up crunchy high medieval knights
• Dallas plates up Dieppe-flavoured tanks
• Dux has some frozen Romanian vehicles for dessert

Bon appetit!

Barks