Fifth Painting Challenge Entry - More 20mm WW2 Russians

Russian tanks and tank riders in 20mm - models from PSC, figures from PSC and Elhiem

Christmas vacation was lovely this year, and I was fortunate to be able to bring some painting along for the trip. Here are the results - a whole pile of 20mm WW2 Russians to assist in the liberation of the Rodina. There is a platoon of T-34/76s, a platoon of SMG-toting tank riders to accompany them, a squad of assault engineers and a squad of scouts. 

The 1/72 scale tank kits from PSC are marvellous

Tank commander visible in the hatch to mark the platoon commander

A T-34/76 ready for action on the table

The T-34s are 1/72 scale models from the Plastic Soldier Company. These are excellent model kits, with a three-tank platoon per box.  They are easy to assemble and have very nice details.  Of course, those who know me will laugh (rightly) at my continuous inability to properly assemble tracks - it's not easy to see in the photos but I really managed to screw up one of these tanks, but thankfully from arm's length it looks OK. 

SMG-toting Lieutenant on a hexagonal base

Of course, a fumbler like me prefers one-piece track assemblies, but the fact is these are tremendous models that any normal person (i.e. any of you, anyone reading this, not me) could put these lovely PSC kits together with no trouble at all.

A squad of tank riders - one NCO (on square base), LMG team and four troops

The SMG platoon consist of figures from two manufacturers - the 1/72 scale infantry figures from their Russians WW2 plastic line (just have to say again what a great value that box is!) and a group of metal figures from Elhiem Figures.Elhiem is a 20mm figure maker I have heard a lot about, and I wanted to try some of their figures for myself so I ordered some packs to round out the platoon.

The Elhiem and PSC figures mix very well together

The platoon is organised along the lines given in the Chain of Command rules - a lieutenant (on a hex base) and three squads each with an NCO, a two-man LMG team and four regulars, all armed with the ubiquitous PPSH sub machine guns, for a total of 21 troops.  These troops would have accompanied the T-34s to battle, hitching a ride on the hulls as they advanced into battle.

I like the PSC pose of the fellow ready to toss the grenade

Two spare SMG-armed troops - Elhiem sculpts

I know it would have been cooler to model some of these guys on to the tanks themselves - after all, that is an iconic image of the Soviet army from WW2.  But in a game skirmish game, the amount of time these troops would spend actually on the tanks is very limited - the outside of a tank is a horrible, dangerous place to be when the shells start to come in and the Soviet tank riders would be hopping off in no time once battle was underway.  So I opted for the dismounted platoon.

Russian assault engineers from Elhiem

I was very pleased to note that Elhiem offers many Russian LMG gunners who are not prone - what a pleasure! As a result the LMG teams don't need large, wasteful bases and they fit in much more nicely with the other action-packed poses in the squads.

Another view of the engineers

Up next is a group of Russian combat engineers.  These are also Elhiem sculpts.  These troops carry SMGs, but there is an LMG (not prone either!) and a fellow with a flamethrower too.  They are modelled wearing camouflaged body suit and body armour. They are doing various engineer things (one is digging up a mine) and carrying engineer stuff (one has rope, another is kneeling and ready to set off a detonator).

Flamethrower trooper

Another view - gave him a different-shaped base so he would stand out

Fellow on the left is digging up a mine, while the one on the right is ready to blast something out of the way

Finally is a group of Russian scout troops. Again, they are Elhiem sculpts. They are carrying a mix of SMGs and what I think are semi-automatic rifles, SVTs perhaps?  I'm not familiar with Russian semi-automatic rifles from WW2 - I don't know if many were used or how common they were in the front lines.

Russian WW2 scouts from Elhiem

Some lively colours in the camouflage body suits

The scouts are also wearing camouflage body suits, similar to the engineers, but most of the painting references I found online for these troops had the camouflage suits in very different colours from the engineers.  Where the engineers had olive green suits with brown patches, the scouts seemed to wear either brown or a strange green, one that seems more appropriate for infiltrating a peppermint candy factory or a 70s prom than the German lines of the eastern front. I thought I would give it a try anyway - it certainly looks different!

I love this NCO figure for the scouts - a great sculpt from Elhiem

Interesting assortment of weapons on this group

I liked the proportion of the Elhiem sculpts, but the quality was not the best.  Not the worst, but not the best - some of the hands, for example, or some of the faces, were not that great, not that crisp. But they are still nice, and I look forward to painting more of them.

So in total there are 38 different 20mm-sized infantry troops and three 20mm sized tanks in this submission - however, only one of the tanks counts for the challenge (one had been completed prior to the start of the challenge, and a second had base paint colours applied prior to the challenge). With the scores from this submission I have been able to break through my original (very low) points target for the Challenge, and following a round of goading from Curt, I have increased my target to a new, much higher number - I hope I can meet that target.

Fourth Painting Challenge Entry - 20mm WW2 German Infantry Support Weapons

20mm German support weapons, NCO and radio man

My next entry into Curt's Analogue Hobbies Panting Challenge was more 20mm WWII (a figure size I am totally falling in love with).  These figures are metal castings from Warmodelling Miniatures. I came across these when looking for command models to round out some holes in Plastic Soldier Company's 1/72 German Infantry set (namely, a lack of senior offices) and so I ordered a command group, an MG team and light mortar team.

3-man MG team...I think it is an MG-42...

There is a senior NCO on a hex-shaped base, a radio operator, an MG team (I think it is an MG42, but I'm not sure - more on that further into the post) and a light mortar team. The uniforms are mostly pre-war, although the MG team seems to have gaiters, so perhaps more 1943 than 1941.

An early war touch - light mortar team

I found the Warmodelling stuff to be a mixed bag quality-wise. The sculpts are top notch, but the quality of the casting itself is really hit and miss. The MG mount was a terrible casting, to the point where I cannot even tell what type of MG it is actually supposed to be (I think it is MG42 because the barrel seemed more rectangular than round).  The tripod was also a mess.

NCO with MP-40 and radio operator

These were very nice sculpts

Warmodelling seems to have a wide variety of sculpts, but the experience of the poor casting quality will have me moving along to other figure manufacturers - I'm going to try some stuff from SHQ next.

3 man MG team - the sculpt on the weapon and the tripod was very poor; the rifle on the extra crewman was also mangled

The kit on the backs of the crew castings was much nicer

There are seven 20mm castings and two (very small) crew-served 20mm weapons. These fellows will join the growing pile of 20mm WWII stuff, and I look forward to adding more as the challenge continues! I encourage everyone to go and check out all of the excellent entries in the painting challenge, particularly those by Byron and Kevin - outstanding work gents! Don't hesitate to post those photos here too!

Second Painting Challenge Entry - WW2 20mm German Infantry Platoon

20mm WW2 German Infantry Platoon

My second entry for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is a set of opponents for my first entry - a platoon of WW2 German Infantry.  With one exception, these figures are all from the Plastic Soldier Company's 1/72 Late War German Infantry box sets.  Some of these figures were painted prior to the challenge starting, but I finished most of them after I powered through the Russians.

The fellow in the front is a 20mm casting from Warmodelling - everyone else is plastic from PSC

There are enough figures for a full regular infantry platoon, three squads of 10 men each, each with a two-man LMG team. This PSC set has the same challenge as the Russians, in that the LMG figures are either prone (sigh) or marching merrily (useless).  But it is lacking in a figure that looks like a proper platoon commander/officer, so I ordered a metal one from Warmodelling.

One LMG per squad in this platoon of foot sloggers

The figures are based as the Russians, with NCOs on square bases and senior leaders on hex bases and everyone else on round bases.

Prone LMG gunners - a disappointing sculpt, but better than marching!

I find painting German uniforms to be the hardest part of collecting figures for WW2. Even getting the basic green/grey correct is tricky (at least for me), and once you advance past a certain period of the war a wide assortment of camouflage smocks and helmet covers start to appear.  Painting camouflage is tricky at the best of times, and with the Germans and their 700 different versions of camouflage, I go bonkers trying to figure it out.

Different base types visible in this shot

In the case of these figures, they are wearing later war boots/pants/gaiters, and many of them also have some sort of camouflage cover on their helmets.  On most of them I attempted a weak copy of the most "standard" German camouflage that I could find, and on others I imagined that perhaps these covers may have been improvised at times, so I painted them a dark yellow.

Decent modelling of the German kit on these PSC figures

For their overall uniforms I used a few different types of green, grey and green grey to try and vary the appearance a little bit, and washed liberally with GW's Agrax Earthshade, with a few highlights picked up again following the wash.

There are a total of 27 foot figures and three two-man LMG teams.  Of this, eight foot figures and one LMG team were painted prior to the Challenge, leaving a net of 19 foot figures and two LMG teams, which I think works out to 84 points. 

Not sure what I will paint up next - sensible people like Byron have a plan of sorts for the Painting Challenge, but I find that any painting I "plan" never gets done, so I'm just playing it by ear. 

First Painting Challenge Entry - 20mm WW2 Russians

1/72 WW2 Russians from Plastic Soldier Company

Here is my first entry for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge - a completed rifle WW2 Soviet rifle platoon.  The figures are all from Plastic Soldier Company's 1/72 range.  Some of these were painted prior to the Challenge, but the balance were whipped up over the weekend.

Officers on hex-shaped bases

I have painted a lot of WW2 stuff over the years, but 20mm is all new for me and I'm finding I quite enjoy it.  It is, as Curt and others have expressed, a great "compromise" scale between 15mm and 28mm. I don't think these PSC plastics are the best figures out there - some of the poses look a little odd, more "possible" than "natural", if that makes sense - but I was pleasantly surprised by the detail on them, and you get quite a few figures in each box.  I have enough for a rifle platoon, and I still have a bunch of extra fellows with SMGs to finish up. A good value, and a good way to get started painting a new scale.

NCO on a square base with rounded corners

There are enough figures here to represent a rifle platoon - three 10-man squads, each sporting a 2-man LMG team - and a couple of officers.  The basing will be familiar to anyone here who has followed Curt's system - 20mm rounds for the regular fellows, 20mm squares for NCOs and junior leaders, and 25mm hexes for the senior officers/commanders.  Having the different bases makes it a little easier to determine which figures represent leaders at a glance, important in gaming systems like "Chain of Command".

Ready to defend the Motherland!

My only complaint with these figures is the poses chosen for the LMG gunners - prone (and PSC is hardly the only ones doing this - it is very common).  I know lying prone is a very realistic portrayal and something that happened a lot/all the time in real fighting, but in toy soldier fighting, prone figures are lame, particularly at 20mm scale and above. Prone figures require alternate basing, often much large than others and looking out of sorts compared with the rest of the fellows in the unit.  Every time a prone figure is cast in 20mm scale or larger, I'm pretty sure a baby whale gets kicked.  The only prone figures on a table should be snipers!

PSC figures were surprising with the amount of nice detail for plastic figures; much better than their 15mm size figures

Of course, for skirmish gaming, the only worse sculpt than prone is marching - and sadly, the PSC alternative to the prone LMG team is a pair of fellows marching along like they are having a jolly time.  Again, PSC is not the only one that does this. The marching figures look even more out of place on the table, so they went into the spares bin, while the prone figures got the paint.

"Destroy the fascist invaders!"

20mm has been a lot of fun to paint so far, and I'm looking forward to adding more 20mm WW2 stuff during the Challenge and beyond.

20mm WW2 Because Why Not

1/72 WW2 Russians from Plastic Soldier Company

I already collect WW2 figures in 3mm, 6mm and 15mm.  Dallas has an amazing collection of WW2 stuff in 28mm (just one example here).  I love gaming WW2, and I'm really lucky to be able to play many different games and rules sets, everything from a skirmish in rules like "Bolt Action" or "Chain of Command", as well as Dallas' own excellent "Blitzkrieg" rules, all the way up to company-level scraps in games like "Flames of War", to division-level abstract encounters in rules like "Spearhead". With this very fortunate background, it would make no sense to try yet another scale for this period. If we already play 15mm and 28mm, then what is the point of 20mm?

But on the other hand, hey - why not?  Logic has never really driven my hobby decisions...just look at the mess of different stuff on this site.

Platoon officer on hex, NCOs on square bases

Long before I came around the group, the Fawcett Avenue Conscripts played a fair bit of WW2 in 20mm. I believe they played Rapid Fire or Crossfire...or maybe both? I don't know for certain, but I suspect Conscript Kevin H may yet hold a small reserve of 20mm stuff. Conscript Curt (now in Regina) had a reserve of amazing figures from AB. Recently he came across them in his pile and started painting some up - see this great post on his Analogue Hobbies Blog.

LMG team on square base - all that wasteful space required because they are prone (sigh)

Curt's stuff got me wondering again about 20mm in the context of my own preferred area of focus in WW2 - the Eastern Front, particularly from 1943 onwards. I was further spurred to check out 20mm when I purchased a copy of the "Battlegroup" rules set, which is intended for both 15mm and 20mm figures. Taking the plunge, I picked up some figures from the Plastic Soldier Company - not too pricey, so kind of "low risk", plus the tanks (at least in 15mm) are pretty gamer-friendly for plastic models.

Nice figures from PSC - they look great in 20mm

I started with a box of some Russian infantry in summer uniform and a T-34 box from their WW2 Russian 1/72 range.  Here are some test models - about a squad and-a-half of infantry and a single tank.

Another view of the infantry

I am not crazy about PSC's 15mm plastic infantry - I find the details to be soft.  But these 1/72 figures are quite sharp, and it leads me to believe that, at least for infantry, 1/72 is the ideal scale for their models.  You get quite an assortment of troops for a good price, making this kit an ideal one to start with.

Check out the terrible job I did on the track pieces...I'm useless with these two-piece track sets...

I based the models using the same approach as I used in my individually-based 15mm WW2 stuff - round bases for grunts, squares for NCOs and a hex for the senior leaders of a unit (inspired by Curt C). 

Decals from PSC too - including Russian lettering for the turrets - I love that!

Russian WW2 infantry paint up fast - that's how a couple test models quickly turn into 15 guys in a week or so! The box gives enough infantry for a platoon of guys - either a rifle platoon, or an SMG platoon (although not quite both together). This is a very good value.  The only criticism I would have is that the poses of the LMG teams are either prone (blah) or marching (much worse) - they are sculpted well, I just find those two poses to be the worst ones for gaming (personal quirk - everyone else looks ready to fight and the LMG guys are road marching?)

Used oil paints and a old brush to do highlighting and chipping on the hull

The 1/72 scale T-34 from PSC is a fabulous model.  I still screwed up the tracks, of course, but you will not, because anyone out there will be a lot sharper than I am when it comes to modelling skills :)

With PSC T-34s, you can switch between T-34/76s and T-34/85s - very sensible!

A Russian tank from WW2 is a pretty quick paint job, but I experimented on this vehicle using a oil-paint detail wash, basically to pick out the plates, hatches and seams in the amour.  It was quite a striking effect.  The downside is that oil paints take like a billion years to dry, so you need to use Dullcote spray to set the paint and move things along, and I cringe every time I use Dullcote, certain I am about to wreck the model...

Anyway, I will never get to the level of the master tank painters like Piers Brand, but I look forward to messing around a little more with this technique, and I think 1/72 models will be a good means to do that.