More snow covered vehicles

Well, this little project seems to be humming along nicely. Rubicon supplied a Schwimmwagen and a Sdkfz 251 with my Rubi discounts - very inexpensive, I also dug out a couple of earlier purchases that just needed finishing. Passengers were Warlord plastic from another set of purchases.

In addition, Warlord had another of their discount deals and 20% off the Heer Winter Support Pack, that netted me the HMG plus extra figures for jump off points, medic and additional crew for the HMG team. I also picked up their package with flamethrower, sniper and panzerschreck team. So overall I am pretty happy that virtually everything purchased has been at a substantial discount. 

Everything is there for a German Heer force suitable for Volksgrenadier Divisions from late 1944 - 45.  With one exception, a Panzer IV J. I am so tempted by the Rubicon offering. Will I, won't I ? Oh, and since I have three Hetzers, surely one would be improved by adding Bicarb?

Painting underway...

Nice and polished, well. actually just the gloss varnish to prepare for decals and pinwashing.

Enough dithering, Here are the additional vehicles - finally resplendent in their Bicarbonate of Soda 'snow'.

L-R - 75mm gun mix of Warlord plus 1st Corps crew, Schwimmwagen (Rubicon) with Warlord passengers, and Sdkfz 251 Ausf D (Rubicon), Warlord passengers. At the back is a Warlord Resin UNIC Halftrack, used by 21st Panzer Division. I spotted it was pretty much done other than detail painting and weathering so slippe dit in with this batch.

And here's the UNICs friend from a much earlier post, another converted French vehicle using the Lorraine tractor as a base and with a 150mm mounted on top to make the Lorraine Schlepper. 

So the target is to finish off this platoon this week. And then resist the temptation to add winter US... 

A Day's Work

Fairly productive day today. I finished off the Warbases Russian House, some Haystacks, also from Warbases, some entrenchments from Anyscale Models, and undercoated some jump-off points for my Russians. The jump off points are generic ones from Anyscale, with some added bits and pieces from the Warlord Russian sprue and green-stuff tarpaulins.

I really like the haystacks, nice moulds, all different, from Warbases, done very simply, just undercoated black, then drybrushed with housepaint sample pots, pistachio and magnolia, and once that was dry, a very light wash streaked upward from the base with Agrax Earthshade.

Lorraine Schlepper

Just finished a Lorraine Schlepper, from Warlord Games, a resin kit of one of the many conversions done using French AFV chassis and German weaponry.

The Warlord kit is a nice one with separate tracks and a shovel as well as the gun itself, I think it makes up into a very appealing vehicle, and it comes with two crew. It doesn't come with any decals though, so I have sourced those from the spares box.

I am wondering if I need to do a bit more weathering on the lower chassis for dust and mud? But then, I would have to match that across all my vehicles. Hmmm, perhaps an airbrush session with some lightly dusted on Flat Earth might be an idea.

In game terms for Chain of Command, this is an absolute beast. A big High Explosive gun, perfect for blasting buildings and troops alike. I was going to save it as a nice surprise for Steve, but well, it's only fair.

Signs of Life

It may look very quiet over here, as real life seems to be making lots of demands. But behind the scenes, some painting is happening. There's a whole bnch of armour just waiting to burst out.. even as I eye up the Rubicon site and wish PSC had been able to fulfill my order for a M5 Stuart when their site still said they had some left. Oh well.

I did actually finish some sample figures for the Early War Germans though..  so here they are.

Those close-ups are really unforgiving aren't they?

EW French for CoC in 28mm

I have always fancied doing Early War, when the tanks were less 'big cat', and more 'puny panzer'. The release of the Too Fat Lardies 'Blitzkrieg' book tipped me over the edge; that and a bargain Crusader French Platoon I picked up via Lead Adventure Forum (LAF).

Of course, then I had to add bits and pieces, including some from Warlord, so more to follow, but here's the core platoon plus some supports. I have Early War Germans on order from Black Tree Design, but they still haven't shown up.

Officers

I ended up with a surfeit of French officers, I am considering using these as Jump-Off markers!

Terrain

And I did some minefields and barbed wire emplacements.

Rear View

Medium Mortar crew

Three squads Plus supports

Deadly Hotchkiss 25mm AT

Medium Machine gun and Light Mortar

VB Squad

Squads 1 & 2

Progress Shot

The last one shows how they looked immediately after I brushed on Coat d Arms Brown 'goo'.

Pak 38

And here's the Warlord Pak 38. It can be built into a reasonably nice model, but it is not the greatest cast out of the mould. The barrel especially needs to be shaped before assembly. In hindsight I probably should have replaced it using a PSC plastic barrel from the Russian AT kit, and made my own muzzle brake.

Order of build is important. Leave the trails off till just before attaching the lower front shield.
1. Straighten axle assembly, glue on left hand side of mount, make sure the front angle exactly corresponds to the fixed right hand side. If necessary, once glued, use a flat file to get the correct angle.
2. Attach barrel. Check how straight this is on the mount, as the little lip on the underside of the recoil mechanism is not flat out out of the mould.
3. Attach wheels or main shield either will do. If attaching wheels, you may find it easier to make parallel scores in corrugated cardboard or similar as a jig to keep them aligned straight when glued.
4. Attach the bit you didn't do in 3.
5. Bend down slighly the lower part of the pivot assembly on the trails, attach trails (note that the towing eye goes to the inside, as do the handles) and gently squeeze teh pivot hinge back into place. glue from underside.
6 Attach lower shield. You may find (depending on wheel assembly) that you need to file down the edges slightly to make it fit between the wheels. I ran into all sorts of issues and it isn't straight. I am going to file it slightly to make it less obvious.

The result:

And isn't it annoying how in large images you notice stuff you don't with the naked eye? There is flash on the traverse control and a weird bulge in the barrel just forward of the recuperator slide. Ah well. It won't be noticeable when painted. (I hope).

Warlord Pak 36

Over on Lead Adventure Forum, someone was asking about the Warlord Pak 36 model, so here's some pictures of the assembled model. Not very exciting I know.

Workbench

On the workbench, just keeping things ticking over nicely.

French - a mix of Crusader and Warlord, plus some signs, still early days.

There's a Somua in the background there, which was a fun exercise in airbrushing and now just needs weathering to tone down the garish paint. I also see that Warlord has done a spot of national stereotyping there, I got the command figure with Gauloises and wine bottle.

A mix of officers from Crusader, Warlord and A.N. Other, which I sourced from some FFL figures. Anachronistic? Sure, Lt LeBlanc has always been old-fashioned. The mortar team is Warlord and is more of a colour experiment than anything. 

And here's some more ready for the paintshop after their basic colour, a mix of a tan and a green that I wondered about as it came out the colour of Airfix green plastic, but is actually a very close match for Vallejo Brown Violet.

French Platoon plus some supports.

These will get flesh and equipment colours, then a super shader wash before they get highighted.

A Panhard sits in what will eventually be a minefield, some barbed wire, table clutter, fencing etc.

The Panhard is a relatively cheap support option in Chain of Command, and I suspect will see plenty of game time. I'm also building up some basic bits and pieces like stretches of barbed wire, emplacements, minefields and so on.

Annoyingly, I can't find the packet of barbed wire I bought some time back. I am assuming it will turn up and I can just claim it's very fine wire until I either get to a show and replace it, or it shows up in the many and varied boxes I have in the shed.

All the terrain pieces will get a going over with the grouting mix, some sand and white glue, painting with home paint samples, and a light flocking.

You can't beat a good bunker, leastways, not without a flamethrower, or engineers.. 

Finally - two bunkers, guns sourced from sprue and the spare barrels in the PSC 28mm Russian guns pack, which may no longer be available. Bunkers themselves are expanded polystyrene cut with a bread knife, then grouted and painted. They'll do..