BATTLEFRONT Grants and Zvezda Pzkpfw.II for the Western Desert

Escalation continues in the Western Desert! I'd actually finished painting these Grants a couple weeks ago but had run out of decals for them. Sentry Box to the rescue, they had a set of Battlefront Desert Rats decals in stock and I was headed out to Calgary anyway, so when I got back I set to applying them and finishing the weathering.

The models are from Plastic Soldier Company BATTLEFRONT and are typical great quality and easy to build. 

Painting was the standard 8th Army armour formula: AK Light Earth, GW Castellan Green and Deathworld Forest for the camo, washed with Agrax Earthshade and tipped back up with the same paints. 

I didn't load these down with storage as I didn't want to obscure the detail on the rear deck. However each tank does have a tarp attached for shade.

They are pretty great models, I'm happy with how they came out.

Advancing towards the enemy!

While I was in Calgary more reinforcements arrived from Poland - a box full of 1/100 Zvezda models. The first one completed was this Pzkpfw.II. The Flames of War army list allows the Afrika Korps a Panzer II as a forward observer for the 10.5cm gun battery I've painted already. But getting ahold of a single Panzer II wasn't exactly easy.

Battlefront sells these in a box of four, but I only need one. They also used to sell a blister pack of one metal and resin model but nowadays that's a Noble Knight deal and they are $$$. So I looked on eBay for a single seller that had all the Zvezda models I wanted, and got this single tank for about 5 euros. It's tiny!

It did require a bit of conversion as the Zvezda kit (five parts!!) doesn't have an opening hatch. So I had to file the hatch flat and make some "open" hatches out of card. Not difficult. I also used a Battlefront commander with binoculars. He was wearing a steel helmet though so I cut off the head and replaced it with a Peter Pig head sporting the Afrikamutze.

The tank was painted GW Tallarn Sand, washed Agrax, and highlighted again, then chipped with German Camo Black-Brown. Done!

So that's the update... some infantry have arrived from Forged in Battle so I think I'd better get at those next. It's been a bit of a trip with that bunch but I will give all the details next time. Until then, toodles and heia Safari!