E-boats Complete!

It's been almost three months since I started this challenge. Despite the lack of posting I have not been idle. I've definitely not been on track either.

The Cruel Seas miniatures are nice and easy to paint. I had both the e-boats and torpedoes ready within a week of posting the vospers. 

The camouflage pattern is not my favourite, but it helps distinguish the two units when playing a game. I also painted the torpedoes in two different schemes for the same reason. 

Below is a shot of my Cruel Seas starter set completely painted. 

The 15mm half-track and the squad of grenadiers that go with it are on the painting table. However I was not destined to stick to the schedule as I had an opportunity to paint some Warhammer 40k buildings for a local games store. 

These things were quite big. Fortunately, the painting challenge counts the size in the calculation of points. I started off with black followed by grey basecoats using rattlecans. The bases are wood covered in sand and wood glue  the sand did soak in some of the paint and glue this caused some flakes to come off during the painting process.

The tall building was first to hit the table there were so many skulls to do. 

Originally I painted each skull a leather brown, followed by a yellowed bone and then white highlights and a light brown wash. This was quite onerous and I later switched to yellowed bone to start followed by the brown wash and a quick dry brush of bone or pure white.

For the stone I selected a couple of grey paints that formed a gradient and dry brushed over the base. Selective washes were applied to give the effect of burn damage, rust runs, or dirt. Any exposed metal was painted in a bright silverc, which caught the eye even after I washed it in a red brown. Computer and door panel details cannot be seen in these pictures. These were easy enough to paint using GW contrast paints over white or silver.

Dollar store acrylics were used for the base. I was generous with paint since the sand soaked it up.

All in all I thought they turned out ok. 

My progress thus far is as follows. 

Progress: 110/350

40mm

0/1 earth elemental    7
0/1 werewolf    7
25mm
0/4 WWII German grenadiers 20
0/2 Union Generals Mounted 30
0/3 Confederate Generals Mounted 30
0/8 Confederate Cavalry 80
0/1 Union Cannon 4 Crew 10
0/16 Confederate Infantry 80
0/16 Union Infantry 80
15mm
0/1 German half track 8
0/6 German grenadiers 12
Off plan painting
25mm
3/3 Warhammer 40K Buildings 80 (estimate)
10mm
3/3 Vosper MTBs 6
4/4 E-Boats 8
16/16 Torpedoes 8

Clearly I have trouble staying on track with my projects. This trend does continue as the challenge progresses...

Painting Hobbies Challenge

 I wasn’t able to get into the official Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge  this year, but I’m going to give it a go. 

This year my goal will be about 300-400 points following the guidelines given in the link above. 

Here’s my plan:

~350 points target

The initial list of minis:

40mm

1 earth elemental    7

1 werewolf    7

25mm

4 WWII German grenadiers 20

2 Union Generals Mounted 30

3 Confederate Generals Mounted 30

8 Confederate Cavalry 80

1 Union Cannon 4 Crew 10

16 Confederate Infantry 80

16 Union Infantry 80

15mm

1 German half track 8

6 German grenadiers 12

Of course I’ve immediately deviated from the plan. Last week I picked up an inexpensive copy of the  Cruel Seas starter set. It represents the small ship actions that took place in WWII and has an interesting but easy set of rules and just as easy to paint miniatures. 

The set comes with a painting guide for the 6 Royal Navy and 4 Kriegsmarine ships. This is great because it took some of the guesswork out of choosing colours. I didn’t have all the colours indicated in the guide but I used online paint  conversion websites to match colours. I think it worked out pretty well. 

My first entry for the painting challenge are these 3 Vosper II MTBs in 6mm.

I used 3 different grey paints for the hull and superstructure: Citadel (GW) Mechanicum Standard Grey, Army painter (AP) Ash Grey, and AP Uniform Grey. A wash of GW Nuln Oil and a highlight of Ash Grey are necessary to define the boundaries between different parts of each ship. I then picked out the details such as the guns, ropes, and life preservers in whatever AP paints I had to hand. The windows are GW Talasar Blue of GW Corax White. The contrast paint gives it an effect I’ve found difficult to free hand. 

Prior to the 21st I completed the 3 Vosper I MTBs. These ones do not count towards the challenge. Here they are altogether.

6 points for the first day. I’ll need to complete 3 points per day to meet my goal for March 20th, 2023. 

Next in the queue are 4 e-boats and all the torpedo markers from the start set.

Completed Army

The army has been completed for a long time and honestly I forgot about the blog for a while. Life and other hobbies have largely kept me from painting. I've learned that I really need to be in the mood to paint well and that the correct colours are key to a good looking army. Trying to substitute can turn out very poorly. For a sense of closure here is a picture of the completed army.
The full list is below and is more than one will need for a good size game. It does give you options

• HQ with two PIAT teams
• 2 transport jeeps (these never get used)
• 3 full size Airlanding platoons
• Airlanding Platoon, Royal Engineers with Supply jeep
• Airlanding Recce platoon (which also rarely gets used)
• Airlanding Mortar platoon with four tubes and two observer teams
• Airlanding Anti-Tank platoon with four guns
• Airlanding Light Battery, Royal Artillery with four guns
• Airlanding Armoured Recce platoon of four tetrarchs
• Armoured Platoon with three Shermans and a Firefly (representing the DD Armoured Platoon)

I am hoping to start posting again.  I still have the German Festungskompanie along with some support options.  The goal will be to have an opposing force for the British Airborne completed by D-Day of 2015. Mostly the blog will be used to remind me of the colours I chose or substituted and to remind me of any techniques I found useful. I've picked up new brushes and a bunch of new colours. The fieldgray colour is hard to match with GW paints and mixing really slows down the process. I also got a new desk lamp with a magnifying glass.

This has been quite helpful and I haven't got seasick while working with it like I have in the past. Here's hoping the Festungskompanie posts work out better than the Airborne ones did!

AWOL

Been AWOL for a year. Lots happened.

• Started Renovation


• Lost job


• Vacation


• Found job


• Finished Renovation


• Got a dog (arf!)


• Started Renovation


• Moved contents of upstairs downstairs (including the computer)


• Still Renovating

The good new is that I have moved much farther along in my painting. My original goal was met. I even attended a tournament which used more points/figures than I originally intended to finish. Hopefully I can get my computer back up and running in the next couple of weeks and therefore post pics and after action reports.

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

I don't speak German, but I purchased some minis that represent those who do! My British troops need a foil and what better than the defenders of Pegasus Bridge? With this in mind I have purchased the Festungskompanie, an artillery battery, PaK 40 anti-tank guns and some StuG IV Gs. Turns out the StuG IVs were not present (I bought the wrong version!) but I can still create a decent Grenadierkompanie from what I have. I also enlisted a friend to teach me the basics of airbrushes. This was done quite quickly, with the minis to show for it!
Unfortunately, I don't have any "in-progress" pictures, I was too engrossed in what was being done.

Have a look at the far tank, the commander is emerging from the hatch and my friend was kind enough to add the radio antenna as well.

The German infantry wears a uniform that is not easily reproduced by the paint colours I have so once again I must experiment. Here are the test figures:

I numbered each figure so that I know what colours I used. Unfortunately I have since lost the page amongst my other gaming supplies. I'll post it once I find it.

To make my life easier I bought the Citadel Spray Gun and a can of propellent. After some testing I was able to get the darned thing to work correctly and base coated three platoons. One of the tricks I found was to submerge the can in water to keep the can from getting too cold and losing pressure.

Next post I should have another battle report to present as well as even more German figures and perhaps the remaining Airlanding platoon.

Taking to the Field

So did I hit my deadline? Two answers yes and no. I did play a game with fully painted miniatures on January 7th but there is still much work to do on the second platoon. I have included a "Battle Report" at the bottom of this post. A battle report is basically a play-by-play of the game. The good news is I am getting ahead in my painting, the Airlanding Armoured Recce Platoon is built and on the painting table.
Here is the second airlanding platoon.

I changed my "order of operations" when painting these teams. I added the drywall compound before finishing the figures. The reason I did this was to make cleaning up errant compound easier and to reduce the "touch up" time.I also slightly changed the colours I use as mentioned in my last post. The jacket is now painted using the Citadel Foundation paint "Tausept Ochre" with "Orkhide Shade" and "Calthan Brown" stripes. As a final step to added a brown wash using the Citadel Washes. I tried three different washes but settled on the "Gryphonne Sepia" wash. I find this treatment better mimics the colours I saw at the Juno Beach Centre.

In all cases a touch up of the original jacket colour was needed.

Here are the Tetrarchs, washed with soapy water and assembled in a dry run (no glue).

I originally was going to paint the tanks using the same method as the jeeps and universal carrier, but I just found that they were painted with a black and green camouflage scheme. Some picture research will be required. I am looking for the book "Airborne Armour" by Keith Flint, who is supposed to be the authority on these tanks.

I had some difficulty assembling these little buggers. The resin bits needed to be scraped and sanded. Note that resin dust is toxic, when sanding or scraping the resin, wear a mask and use a fan to blow the resin dust away from you. The mantlets also needed to have the flashing on the inside edge scraped away before they fit nicely on the turrets.

The commander was also fiddly to put together. He barely fits into the turret (the mini is a bit small) and the hatch needs to be notched at the bottom for it to fit on the turret. In the end I used hatch and the commander to prop eachother up (like two drunks!). A better solution would be to build up the turret opening with a bit of plastic card. I did finally get the tanks assembled and primed using Orkhide Shade.

Somewhere in France, August 1944...

British airborne troops attack the German defenses of a small farming town ...

My opponent and I are both new to playing Flames of War and we both used small forces, so the following battle report is a bit simplistic. Later I will upload some diagrams of the battle field each turn. On my side of the battle field was a couple of large hills. The centre was dominated by wheat fields and apple orchards providing ample cover for the infantry, while my opponents half of the table was covered in forests, hiding my objectives from view. My British Airlanding troops were attacking a German Grenadierkompanie in the outlying areas of a farming community from the cover of surrounding hills. Fields and orchards provided cover in the valley. The whole area was lightly forested.

The grenadiers had setup evenly across the board and advanced across a broad front in the first turn. Meanwhile the paratroops deployed in a refused flank (east/right side), with the artillery (howitzers and mortars) behind a hill in the south and advanced in to the cover of the wheat fields. Shooting in the first turn was light, resulting in the loss of a single gun from the howitzer platoon.

On the second turn the heavy machine gun platoon moved to support the grenadiers on the west flank while the second grenadier platoon broke cover and rapidly advanced on the lightly held eastern objective. The paratroops jostled for a better position to assault next turn under cover of a smoke bombardment from the howitzers. The recce and antitank platoons moved to the eastern flank and fired on the advancing grenadiers, destroying the platoon. The airborne mortar platoon was hit by fire from the heavy anti-aircraft gun (one of the dreaded 88s!) on the hill and two German antitank guns firing HE (high explosive).

The grenadiers and heavy machine guns dug foxholes in the beginning of turn three instead of firing through the smoke bombardment. The German anti-tank guns fired and destroyed the remaining mortars. The British Airborne broke through the cover of the wheat fields, both platoons pouring fire on the grenadiers dug in around the tree line, but failing to cause casualties. Since the howitzer's smoke bombardment was off target this turn Airlanding Platoon 1 carried on their assault on the German anti-tank guns instead of the grenadiers, finishing them off quickly and consolidating on the objective.

With the British on the objective the Grenadiers had to assault. The heavy machine gun platoon fired on Airlanding platoon 2 pinning them in the wheat field. Fire from the grenadiers and the Flak 36 was shrugged off by the paratroops on the objective, but the assault was very effective. Airlanding platoon 1 was reduced to two fighting teams. These two teams rallied and fought on, throwing back the counter assault and holding the objective at the start of turn 5, winning the game. We called it a draw, however, because the platoon had only two stands and considering how "green" we were it could have gone either way.

Reinforcements Have Arrived

I haven't posted in quite some time. Quite a lot going in Real Life (tm) which is part of the reason for not posting. The good news is that I have quite a lot to update. I also had the privilege to go to France and see Pegasus Bridge first hand!

I also travelled to the Juno Beach centre and had a look at the actual uniform and gear of an airborne trooper. Turns out my colours are a bit too yellow and not enough brown. I'll keep that in mind for future platoons, but considering the speed that I paint at, and the multiple projects on the go at any given time, repainting my finished platoons is out of the question.

On to the miniatures! I managed to finish and base a number of platoons including the mortar team, the 6 pounders and some elements of the HQ. I followed the same steps as I used previously, laying down a layer of compound and sprinkling sand over top to break up the smooth texture of the compound.

In addition to the compound, the airlanding platoon received some trees. I cut down some of these trees to keep them in scale.

I then used flock and the "special" tree glue to add grass to the bases. I don't know if it is the glue or the fact that I left the bases in the flock for some time, but the grass on these teams look much better.

I also tried a different set of colours for painting the bases. I started with the Citadel Foundation paint "Charadon Granite" mixed 2:1 with "Vomit Brown" (I love these colour names). I then lightened the mix with a touch more "Vomit Brown" and gave the entire base a heavy drybrushing.

This ended up being a little to red coloured for my liking. Having lent my "Bleached Bone" to a friend I had to mix up a similar colour. I used the Citadel Colours "Putrid Green", "Skull White" and the Vallejo paint "Grey Green" to make a muddy white. I may have added the "Charadon Granite"/"Vomit Brown" mix to this as well. I then drybrushed all the bases again, adding more "Putrid Green" or "Skull White" as required. The effect can be see on the front of the 6 pounder's base.

The mortar platoon is looking a little bland. I'll try using a brown citadel wash (these paints are the "bees knees" for shading) to darken the face and clothing and give a bit more definition to the figures.

I now have about half the army finished. I am going to try and force myself to finish another airlanding platoon (or at least the engineer platoon) in the next couple of weeks and go hunting for some games.

I plan to have the following 1000 point British Airlanding Army completed by January

Airlanding HQ - CO and 2iC with 2 Piat Teams

Airlanding Platoon 1 - 2 squads

Airlanding Platoon 2 - 2 squads

Airlanding Mortar Platoon - 1 Squad

Airlanding Anit-Tank Platoon - 1 Squad

Airlanding Recce Platoon

Airlanding Artillery Battery - 2 Squads