Vacation Painting - 15mm Late WW2 German Infantry

15mm castings from Battlefront - late WW2 Germans

Every summer I look forward to visiting northern Ontario and the beautiful city of Sault Ste. Marie.  Located on the St. Marys River, between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, the Soo offers some of the most beautiful landscapes you will find in Canada (and some pretty awesome Italian food).  The north shore of Lake Superior is paradise for me, and we are fortunate to have a property on Goulais Bay. In late July we spent two weeks there.  I always bring some painting along on the trips to the Soo, and here is the finished product from the most recent visit - some late WW2 German infantry.

Fun to paint when this is your view! The sun setting over Lake Superior, at our cabin near Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The big lake is at its calmest in the midsummer, barely a ripple when we took this photo.

I have resolved this summer to make a bit of a dent in the pending WW2 lead/plastic pile (it's pretty huge).  Lately I finished a couple of anti-tank guns, and this pile of infantry was up next so they came to the Soo and were (mostly) finished while on vacation.  They are 15mm castings from Battlefront - a "Sturm" platoon (dudes armed with Stg 44 assault rifles with a couple of MG42s mixed in), a Pioneer platoon (mix of small arms but lots of scary engineer stuff like mines, pole charges and two guys with flame throwers), two tripod mounted MG42 teams and two bases of Panzerschrek AT teams.  There is also an extra command stand (I think this was to go with the anti-tank guns), and a two-man artillery spotter team.

In all, a decent pile - 20 stands of infantry! Not too bad. 

Command team leads "sturm" platoon

The "Sturm" platoon (is that even a thing? Not sure I'm using the correct term) sort of confuses me - I only included two MG42 teams, but I don't know if the platoons carrying Stg44 assault rifles had MG42s or not.  I don't know what I was thinking when I put them together...but whatever, they will do fine. My head hurts when I try and sort out the platoon organizations that involved the assault rifles, and it gets more confusing when you figure what the Germans wished and what they actually went with in the field seldom mixed, especially late in the war.  Overall it sure seems to have a frightening amount of firepower.

German troops equipped with Stg44 assault rifles - though there are a couple of MG42 teams in there too - lots of firepower

The Pioneer platoon is meant to represent scary combat engineers.  There are fellows carrying anti-tank mines, pole charges, heavy grenade and other scary bits.  There are also two stands where a flamethrower is present.

Pioneers ready for the battlefield

Lots of panzerfausts, grenades, mines and pole charges - and one fellow (on the left corner of the front right stand) has a flame thrower

Of course everyone is carrying a panzerfaust, and the uniforms are a mix of long coats and reverse camouflage jackets, pants and helmet covers.  The pattern is/was supposed to be "splinter" pattern, but mostly it just looks kind of jumbled - not too bad. Painting the German camo makes me crazy, but I've given up trying to be too precise about it - from about a foot away, they look camouflaged - good enough for me!

I'm particularly pleased to have the pioneers/engineers done - I'm often preparing a game and thinking to myself "hey, messing around with minefields and barbed wire would be a good time", and the engineers add a fun dimension to that sort of game.  Plus - flame throwers! Watch out!

MG42 teams

Panzerschrek teams - mounted two teams per base in "Flames of War" for some reason, I think a reflection of the German tactical approach? Not sure...

The MG42 teams are left-overs from a "platoon" pack, and the Panzerschrek teams came with a Volksgrenadier box set from Battlefront.  Actually, quite a few of these figures came from that box now that I think about it (the balance I have based individually). 

Spotter teams come in handy, but are actually not easy miniatures to track down...they usually come with the mortar platoons and gun battery boxes, stuff that you don't even really need on the table - I wish the spotter teams were easier to get seperately

The grass was done with mostly light and dark brown and yellow colours, with just a few green tufts among them.  I am hoping this overall would look good for fall or spring, not bad in a green summer table, and not terrible on a winter/mostly snow table either.  This is something I have been trying to do more of, especially with infantry bases - a sort of "somewhat universal" groundwork, that compromises enough to not look terrible in most seasonal table presentations.  

These figures will be used in games of "Flames of War", but I also hope to put them to use playing Spearhead in 15mm, as well as Battlegroup and even Crossfire (an oldie that was once pretty popular with the Fawcett gang - maybe we can try it again sometime in the not-too-distant future, I hope!)

I still have a huge pile of WW2 stuff sitting and waiting for the brush - and I want to get to some more of it before the summer ends, but there will be another abrupt switch in the paint shop, as I understand the Warmaster Horus is getting impatient to begin a major assault against the Blood Drinkers, and he needs more stuff finished for that to happen...so back to 30k painting we go!