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...