15mm WW2 (again) - King Tigers from Battlefront

Column of Tiger IIs from Battlefront.

It's total cheese, but here are some 15mm Tiger IIs from Battlefront.  These models are from their King Tiger platoon box set.  You get three tanks, and lots of bits for crew, stowage etc.  The bodies and turrets of the tanks already have a lot of "character" sculpted on to them - spots of Zimmerit knocked off from shooting, different bits of stowage etc.

Commander's tank - both commander and driver popping out for some fresh air.

To try and match the character a bit, I decided the commander's tank would look like it has seen some heavy use. I chopped up some of the side plates and used the damaged versions of the fenders/flats around the tracks.  For the command tank (I think tank "100" would be the commander of the first company, right?), I also popped the commander and driver out of the hatch.  

Fenders and skirts shot away/damaged in action.

More damage on this side - next time I will try to bend the skirts a bit before fixing them on the model.

I find Battlefront to be a bit of a mixed bag on the sculpting/casting side - and this was no exception.  It was very, very hard to fit the fenders/mud flaps, and the treads had a lot of flash and casting flaws.  But I give them credit for the "everything you need in the box" factor.  If you wanted, you could sculpt every single tank with crew popping out of just about every hatch.  You had options for normal or damaged fenders/flaps for each vehicle.  And you get a decent set of decals, with tactical numbers and insignia for the different Scwhere Panzer Abteilung.

It even comes with three sets of tiny rare earth magnets for the turrets! I don't find they are needed, so I didn't use them.

Of course these things were quite rare in the war, and suffered from a number of challenges that few game systems ever acknowledge, such as the tendency to break down etc.  I think Flames of War tries to account for some of the engineering issues around these tanks in their labyrinth of special rules, but in FOW these things still mow down everything in sight. And of course wargamers love to have these things in their collections (or at least I do).

But am I hoping to put a game on at some point where a few of these things take on T-34s and IS-2s until they are out of fuel and ammo? Yes - that would be fun....

These were the last of the vacation-painted vehicles from Sault Ste. Marie. I'm working on a few more WW2 things right now as part of a final gasp in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge - and then it's time to focus on Battle At The Farm...

Rogue Trader Project Update - "Beakie" Test Models

"Bravo One to base - no sign of an Optex photo studio here - over."

Although I have been working on a fair bit of historical stuff recently as part of my vain attempt to crack the top tier of the Analogue Hobbies painting challenge, my sci-fi pile is still there.  In particular, I am working to create the classic detachment of Crimson Fists from "Battle At The Farm" so we can do a little Rogue Trader campaign in honour of RT's 25th Anniversary.

I tried to add to some stowage and bits to the all of the models.

Last month I acquired some classic "beakie" marines, gussied them up with some current aftermarket pewter parts, and I have finished a pair of test models from the group.  The pewter bits are from a Crimson Fist/Imperial Fist upgrade pack available direct from GW.  Getting them mounted on to the beakies took a bit of hacking, but they managed to sit eventually....

Sergeant is on the left, with the extra fancy shoulder pad, scanner/TV remote, and snobby helmet.

This is a very, very fun project. Working on these models brings back a lot of good memories - and also a lot of respect for the current Space Marine models. While I am not wild about the scale creep, and there are certainly some ridiculously stupid models in the current range, the current plastic Space Marine models are nice to work with, and they make you forget just how tricky it could be to get the poor beakie fellows assembled back in "the day". As you will see in later posts, the missile launcher guy I put together doesn't look quite right...but still looks better than the one I worked on when I was a kid painting them with enamel paints from Testors :)

One other super fun thing about these old models - NO SKULLS! Now THAT really takes you back...

More 15mm WW2 Armour - Panzer IV-H and Tiger 1E

Group photo - from left, Tiger 1E, Pazner IV-H, Panzer III-M

Continuing with the 15mm WW2 armoured round-up, here are another couple of models I finished while on vacation - a Panzer IV-H and a Tiger 1E, both from Battlefront.  First up some pictures of the Mark IV, followed by a brief snapping of crayons.

As I ranted over at Analogue Hobbies, the experience assembling the schurzen plates for the Battlefront Mark IV is absolutely awful.  Now I see why there are so many Battlefront Panzer IVs on gaming tables without any schurzen.

The schurzen skirts are hanging on by a thread...

You can see in this photo I had trouble with the tactical number...just couldn't get the decal to sit right...

The schurzen set comes in plastic. The quality of the plastic is just terrible - very hard, but incredibly brittle.  You need to put eight little brackets together, four for each side of the panzer hull, and EACH ONE broke when I made the cut on the sprue, because the plastic is just terrible. TERRIBLE. And this also assumes that Battlefront has sculpted the proper number of spaces on each side of the Mark IV hull to even mount the brackets (assuming they come off in one piece). This compares to the metal schurzen of the late model Mark III, which work PERFECTLY. 

To "mount" these schurzen plates, I just tried to find enough surface area on the sides of the tank and prayed to the superglue gods.  The plates stuck, for now, and while it's a bit silly in that there is zero separation between the plate and the side of the vehicle, it doesn't look too bad.  We'll see how long it lasts. I want to add more Mark IVs to my 15mm armoured lineup (after all, the tank was a late-war workhorse), but I'm looking into other options, or even tracking down some of the "old" metal schurzen sets for use with future models.

OK - on to the Tiger.  This model had a big-time casting flaw in the turret base - not visible while the turret is on, but was such that the turret had to be glued in place.  I know a lot of gamers out there do this already, for a number of sensible reasons, but the eternal kid in me likes having the turrets on my 15mm tanks move for some reason - so this was a disappointment.

A classic beast - had always wanted to paint one of these in 15mm.

I have now nearly completed the German side for that scenario from "Conflict Of Heroes" (mentioned in this post)- I just need to do up a recovery half-track.  It just arrived in the mail (thank you, Sentry Box!) so I hope to finish that very soon.  Stay tuned for that, and the Soviet side of the scenario! And also coming soon, a change of gears back to Rogue Trader, as the Crimson First "beakies" start to move through the paint shop...

15mm Panzer IIIs

Late model Panzer III platoon ready for action.

Building off of a test model I painted earlier this year, I have worked up a group of Panzer IIIs from Battlefront.  I hope to use these in various 1943-themed (especially Kursk) scenarios. In particular, these models will be part of an effort to adopt the very, very cool WW2 board game "Conflict Of Heroes" for 15mm miniatures.

Always nice to have the odd fellow sticking out of the cupola.

The first three tanks are late-model Panzer IIILs - they had long-barreled 50mm guns and extra armour bolted on to the front of the body and the turret.  I quite like the look of these plucky tanks, maxed out with everything the Mark III chassis could handle in order to face the increasing numbers of T-34s, KVs and other Soviet tanks.

It's hard to see that much in the pictures (boy am I self-conscious now that Dallas has his own little photo studio), but the camouflage is actually a light green.  Once again, the tactical numbers were a bit of a challenge, but using Micro-Sol decal softener I can at least get them to sit snug on the turrets without any silvering.

Even with the heavier armour and bigger gun, the Germans were still not done squeezing the Mark III chassis - there was also a variant that mounted schurzen, the steel side skirts generally synonymous with the late-model Mark IV panzers.  I'm working on a couple of these for this force too - here are some pictures of one I finished last week.

My grasp of the science around how things explode is very poor, and because of this I have never quite understood the purpose of the schurzen plates.  I think they are supposed to make an AT round of a certain type blow up outside the actual armour of the tank....or something.  At any rate, it's a defining look of the German panzers, and the thing certainly appears to lame civilian eyes like mine to be much more armoured than it otherwise would be.

These tanks will be available for duty in Flames of War, but I'm hoping to try other games, like Spearhead, and an adaptation (as mentioned previously in this post) of the game Conflict Of Heroes.  While visiting in Regina, Curt C ran a quick scenario from this game (which, by the way, is just excellent even without any figures as the maps and counters are some of the nicest I have ever seen for a board game). 

The scenario - set during the Kursk campaign - featured an immobilized Tiger 1E which had been left behind as the Germans advanced.  The Germans were trying to recover it by towing it off the table, and sent a small group of lighter panzers (two or three Mark IIIs and a Mark IV) to cover the retrieval.  The Russians, meanwhile, have sent a couple platoons of tanks (T-70s and T-34s) to spoil the party.  It was a great scenario, and I'm hoping to try in 15mm soon...

15mm Panzer Grenadiers and Spearhead Ruminations

Completed platoon of late-war Panzer Grenadiers from Battlefront.

I'm just back from a wonderful vacation in God's Country (aka Lake Superior shore in northern Ontario) where I was able to watch curling, paint, and enjoy amazing home cooking.  I love Sault Ste. Marie!  During this time I have finished some more 15mm WW2 stuff as part of my vain pursuit of some kind of respectable position in Curt C's painting challenge, and here are a few posts with pictures.  Up first: a platoon of late-war Panzer Grenadiers from Battlefront.

Command stand and command half-track.

I know Battlefront doesn't exactly blow the doors off when it comes to sculpting quality (and some of their vehicle casts can be a pain), but I really like the boxed set approach - it gives you everything you "need" - the troops, the vehicles, the bases and the decals, and this plugs very nicely into the wargamer mindset.  The quality is OK, and you get a nice little project out the box.

OK, so it's no the portable photo studio...

The biggest challenge I had with these figures was painting the camouflage on the infantry.  My previous experience painting late-war German infantry has been limited solely to 6mm scale - pretty forgiving in terms of precise details.  On 15mm models, you can see more stuff, so I tried to do some research about the German camo patterns.  I found way, way, way too much information - the "oak leaves" pattern or whatever, the SS had different stuff, blah blah - it was all super confusing.  To avoid "painters' block", I went with the "screw-it-I'll-just-take-my-best-shot" approach.  The results seem OK to me, and will no doubt be wrong to someone well versed in what the Panzer Grenadiers wore in the spring of 1944 blah blah blah....I'll save that for TMP.

The half-tracks are the late-war model, with a distinctive straight, sharp angle on the back.  The box set provides for all sorts of extra stowage and several "riding" figures if you want them. Since this was new-ish territory for me, I kept it simple, with riders appearing only in the command track, and only one of the other tracks mounting an MG-34 (or is it 42? I am always confused) gunner.

This track has a gunner mounted for the MG-34

You also get the bits to mount a larger gun (I think this was a 37mm gun?) on the command track.  I put an officer-looking fellow and an NCO into that vehicle as well to give the half-tracks a touch of life. All the vehicles received heavy doses of GW Devlan Mud and dry-brushing, followed by some pigment powders to dirty up the wheels and treads.

Command track - the officer is leaning over the side, giving some direction, I presume.

On the infantry bases I tried out these new "tufts" of grass that I have seen other gamers using.  My application was a bit dodgy, but not bad for a first run.  These things seem expensive, but I abosolutely loved them, and I expect I will be starting to look for tons of these things because I really like how they turn out.

Handy panzerfaust is part of the command group.

I love those grass "tufts"!

Battlefront sculpts are quirky, but they do have some character to them.

All in I think this represents a platoon for the purposes of playing Flames Of War.  One challenge for me, however, is that I don't particularly care for the game Flames Of War. It'll do in a pinch, and because it is so popular, a lot of other gamers will be interested to play it, but I find FOW has many significant negative characteristics  - artillery on the table, too much "close combat", tankers bailing out all over the table, objectives synthesized into counters, 30 different scenarios that essentially create the same gaming experience, a steady stream of re-issued "army books", headache-inducing amounts of small, special rules that serve to haze up the otherwise straightforward game mechanics, and a table clogged with axle-to-axle vehicles (although with 15mm you have more space, so it doesn't look quite as silly as a 2000 point 40k game on a 4'x6' table). I haven't tried the "latest" edition of Flames Of War, so perhaps some of these things are reversed. 

But one idea that popped into my head is to try a game of Spearhead using the 15mm figures.  Although the Spearhead rules envision 6mm models, I'm sure the 15mm ones can be accommodated with a little thought and common sense and without any re-basing.  And I have a theory that playing Spearhead in 15mm could engage the players a little more, for the reason that the infantry units will have a bit more "life" to them, and therefore be more fun to play, because they have a stronger feel and are more clearly represented in the larger scale.

Once I get enough stuff painted, I hope the guys will indulge in an experimental Spearhead game in 15mm sometime soon...

Some more photography - Rogue Trader and Stargrunt

 

This afternoon I thought I'd break out the Optex portable studio again (this time using the white background) and take a few pictures of some recently painted stuff. First up are some Imperial Space Marines from the Rogue Trader era.

I reckon the chap on the left will make a decent force commander for the 30-odd metal Space Marines I've got painted up as Howling Griffons. I just love the character of these old RT Marines - when I look at them I see something quite far from the current fluff of 8-foot tall death machines - I see hard nuts in power armour, but human hard nuts. Someone pointed out that most of the illustrations of Space Marines in the original Rogue Trader book featured them dying horribly, and I think that is so cool. These guys are out there fighting for the Imperium and knowing full well that the odds totally favour them dying in some terrible way. That, my friends, is grim darkness!

Here are some more GZG NAC Royal Marines for the Hammer's Slammers project. These are some heavy weapons troopers with command.

I reckon I'll add an aerial to the comms trooper on the left. This makes six troopers painted and I'm anxious to reinforce them and get the Slammers onto the battlefields of Spacekrieg.

40K Tyranid Tervigon review

Last weekend at the Comic and Toy Show I impulse-bought the new Tyranid Tyrannofex/Tervigon kit as a reinforcement for Hive Fleet Nostromo. The new kit looked really cool and although I'd been jonesing for a Tervigon conversion kit from Chapterhouse for some time, that would've involved buying a Carnifex and then adding $25 plus shipping for the Chapterhouse kit. Although the plastic Tervigon was not cheap, it's a one-stop solution with typical GW plastic kit quality and copious left over bits for the bits god.
    

The Tervigon's assembly instructions were straightforward and the kit went up in a couple hours, if that. One thing I did do, following a top tip from this month's White Dwarf, was to leave off the legs from initial assembly and priming - easier to reach the greasy bits underneath when painting later.

The only conversion to speak of was to grind the spikes off her head and greenstuff in the smoother Giger-Alien head dome to match the rest of the models in the Hive Fleet.

I painted the model last night in the typical Nostromo scheme of Shadow Grey/Space Wolves Grey, Boltgun Metal/Mithril Silver, and Dark Angels Green/Snot Green, with Badab Black washes and 'Ardcoat gloss. I think it turned out fine and will be a good addition to the Hive Fleet - there are 18 more Termagants waiting on the painting table and these will certainly be needed the next time Nostromo rolls out large.