Christmas 2017 - presents

I've not had much time to update the blog over the festive season but whilst up in the Midlands I have received some lovely presents from Santa, in the form of 1/72 infantry and a surprise present of Darth Vader's TIE fighter! Happy days!

The Zvezda Prussian Grenadiers will finish off my as yet unassembled 1740s armies. Some will be painted up in dual French /Austrian uniforms and the remainder will be in blue coats to represent all manner of armies - Prussian grenadiers foremost but able to depict Hessians for an American War of Independence battle, or for my grander Fontenoy 1745 project, infantry of the United Provinces.

The other Zvezda box is some medieval French infantry - a great assortment of crossbowmen, men at arms and command figures. These will form part of my medieval project, which will consist of armies that can serve as both Agincourt forces or historically inaccurate War of the Roses armies. I already have most of the other sets from Zvezda for this task, including some peasant levies. I want to be able to play with multiple rules - so far One Hour Wargames and Lion Rampant will be on the cards.

The Italeri US infantry from the 90s are a little side project for me to have a break from all the musket armed models I am going to be painting in 2018, and is a sort of safeguard against a total burnout feeling. These figures will be forming part of a Team Yankee-esque coalition force facing off against Soviet units that are already in my collection. I just need to find some M113 APCs to accompany them.

The fourth box was a complete surprise from my girlfriend's parents - in 1/121 scale it will more or less match my Revell X-wing which I made in 2016. The kit itself looks like great fun to assemble and paint, and provides yet another diversion from my main projects... I wish I had more gumption with modelling!

Anyhow back to the seasonal festivities, Happy Christmas to you all!

PSC German Medium trucks

I've now finished two of the three vehicles from my box of Plastic Soldier Company German medium trucks.

I was going to give my late war Opel Blitz some camouflage but in the end I decided against it. The generic dark yellow gives it great versatility for any mid to late war battlefield in Italy, the Eastern Front or Western Europe.

The grey early war truck was loaded with German tank accessories stowage items and a barrel from Renedra (a company from whom I buy all of my wargaming bases, mostly 10cm by 5cm rectangular ones). I went a little overboard with the mud and weathering (a nasty habit) but overall I'm still happy with it. After all, my main wargaming mat in Bristol depicts a muddy field.

Almost straight after finishing the trucks I put together my third early war Panzer III Ausf G. Whilst I will be painting the tank in a standard early war grey colour scheme, I have placed a lot of stowage on the rear and turret to jazz things up a little. I'm also making use of a spare German machine gunner from a Plastic Soldier Company halftrack box on the main turret hatch, again to differentiate it from my other grey Panzers. The whole idea is to represent a Panzer III on the eve of Operation Barbarossa. A separate blog post and photos to follow.

1st King Tiger

This is the first of two King Tiger tank kits sold in a twin pack by Pegasus Hobbies.
The box had been in local storage (in Bristol rather than Kent) and I made one up to give me a little break from the most recent batch of English Civil War infantry.

This is the only quick assembly plastic King Tiger kit available (to my knowledge), and I was very happy to discover this particular box on a market stall in Wells, Somerset. The models are made of a highly resilient plastic which did not agree with my clippers when it came to removing pieces from the sprue. This resulted in unfortunate chips in places, most notably on the bow machine gun port.

However, with liberal application of Liquid Green Stuff and Plastic Soldier Company German tank accessories, my frown soon turned upside down. What I thought would be a pig of a tank to finish actually became an enjoyable side project.

As seen in the photos below, I opted for a classic 1944 ambush palette of Brown, Yellow and Green, applied using a small piece of washing up sponge. I gave the turret a pintle mounted MG42 and added a couple of jerry cans to break up the predominantly brown stowage items.

It's one hell of a fighting machine on paper, combining the Panther's sloped armour aesthetics with an improved version of the Tiger 1's 88mm gun. In reality it was a slow, unreliable, bridge-breaking behemoth that was excellent in static defence until it either broke down or became surrounded by ever increasing numbers of lower quality Allied tanks.

This model will go well with any German force from mid 1944 onwards. At some stage I want to diversify the WW2 rules of One Hour Wargames to properly reflect differences in Allied and German tanks, as the standard rule set makes this beast equivalent to a M4 Sherman or Cromwell, medium tanks that were far outclassed in a one on one confrontation.

WIP German Medium trucks

Here are some photos of two trucks I'm working on at the moment for my World War 2 Germans. They're both from the Plastic Soldier Company German medium trucks box, and went together very easily. The only delay to assembly was painting the driver and passenger before sealing them inside the cab. The grey truck, which has a removable canvas top, will serve as battlefield clutter or an objective for my Early War Germans, whereas the dark yellow Blitz will be given a generic camouflage scheme so it can serve a similar purpose with any of my other Wermacht forces.

I've given them a black ink all over so now it's time for some drybrushing / highlighting, as well as a little weathering. As I'm relatively new to the latter technique I have a tendency to overdo it, but hopefully I'll reign myself in from making these vehicles look like rusted hulks!

Meanwhile, I'm also in the process of finishing my second WW2 British 2-pounder AT gun team. Once that is ready for battle, I will have one last German infantry unit to paint up and base before my 1940 BEF and early Germans can clash on the battlefield, using the One Hour Wargames force compositions.