Cold Warriors - BobMack 3D 28mm Marder 1A3s, Plus More Eureka Bundeswehr and Soviets

OK so there's a few more Cold Warriors to post here! I recently ordered some freaky Chaos/Hieronymous Bosch li'l dudes from Eureka, and threw some Bundeswehr and Soviets into the order, just because. They were quick to paint so here they are, along with some extra unpainted models from years ago. 

MG3 machinegunner in NBC gear. A leftover.

Panzerfaust 3 operator and GraMaWa (granatmaschinenwaffe - grenade machinegun) gunner. Whoa!

Bundeswehr sniper with G22 (Accuracy International AWM-F) in .300 Winchester Magnum (7.62x67).

I also picked up a couple more Chemical Commies, a Sagger (AT-3 ATGM) operator, PKM machinegunner, and flamethrower operator.

The Sagger set from Eureka is so cool. So much ATGM goodness.

The flamethrower dude and PKM gunner are great too. The Chemical Commies are painted with Vallejo German Uniform highlighted up with a VGU/white mix. The Bundeswehr flecktarn is Doombull Brown, Castellan Green, and Deathworld Forest.

But check these out - 3D-printed BobMack 3D Marder 1A3s from their Kickstarter, printed for me by Conscript Byron.

These are 1/56 scale models, and replace the North Korea store Marders in my Bundeswehr force. These scale quite well against the Leopard 2s I have already. (For those who are wondering, the NKS Marders were built on the SAME CHASSIS as their Leopard 2s. They were therefore waaaay bigger than scale Marders should be. These ones are much smaller than the Leopards).

I also got decals for these from District Miniatures. On the Marder 1A3 sheet you get decals for four vehicles, including crosses and (importantly) number plates. These are some great decals! The camo is Doombull Brown, Castellan Green/Deathworld Forest, and Vallejo Dark Rubber.

Here's one of the Marders with some BW infantrymen. Can hardly wait to get these out for a game. It will happen this summer I swear. I just have to find/write a Cold War mod for Bolt Action, I think that'd work best for a game.

Seventh Painting Challenge Entry - 20mm Bundeswehr Panzer Grenadiers

1980s West German Panzer Grenadiers from the Bundeswehr; 20mm sculpts from Elhiem and S&S Models

My Analogue-Hobbies-Painting-Challenge-motivated 20mm insanity continues.  My last entry switched from WW2 into the "Cold-War-Goes-Hot" setting, and this entry follows along - a platoon of Bundeswehr Panzer Grenadiers.  There are three eight-man sections, a commanding officer, a MILAN guided anti-tank missile team along with a pair of Marder 1A3 infantry fighting vehicles.

That's my driveway last week - 70km/h wind gusts driving the snow through the streets.  Seriously, winter can go f*ck itself

It is winter in the Canadian Prairies, and though I know I am so fortunate to call Canada home, Winnipeg in January can be a bit of a sh*t bomb as Army Group Winter encloses the city in a vice-like grip. Case in point last week a small snow storm swept through (one that none of the clowns at Enviro-guess Canada managed to warn anyone about, but anyway).  The bright side of this weather is that I can really fire up my internal painting machine, put some hockey games on TV, and get a lot of stuff done - not quite as fast as some of the leading Challenge participants like Tamsin or Millsy, but still a pretty good pace.

NATO's front lines

As with the last submission, the infantry figures are all from Elhiem Figures while the vehicles are from S&S Models.  The painting/modeling experience is consistent with the last entry as well. The Elhiem sculpts have some soft details and a manic resistance to primer, and yet I just love them as their overall appearance is quite pleasing, and their proportions are excellent.  The S&S vehicles are suspiciously undersized and plagued with numerous small casting flaws that significantly lower the overall quality of the model.

Platoon commander on a hex shaped base

I did not have a precise TO&E for a West German Panzer Grenadier platoon, so I suspect the sections are understrength.  Each one has an MG3 gunner and a fellow carrying a modern panzerfaust 44 AT launcher.  The balance are armed with G3 assault rifles.  And obviously with only two Marder IFVs, it will be a little harder for this lot to get around. Spare BMW will have to be "appropriated"!

The MG3 sure looks a lot like the MG42 from WW2

The Marder is a very cool-looking IFV - the turret sports a 20mm cannon that would provide some scary fire support in a firefight.  I like the sci-fi look of the turret.  Later models of the Marder also included a mount for a MILAN missile launcher as well.  It's too bad the S&S quality is poor, but black paint covers a lot of issues, so that's what I tried to do.  Some decals would be great too, but I couldn't find any 20mm scale modern West German decal sheets, and so I did the crosses free-hand.  The results were very poor, but serviceable.

A view of the Marder 1A3s

Much "Cold-War-Goes-Hot" interest here in North America centers (understandably enough) around the US forces and encounters of M1 Abrams tanks and clouds of T-72s and T-80s in the Fulda Gap.  I love tank battles (a lot - my favourite gaming encounter), but am much more interested in gaming the other NATO countries, and the West Germans in particular - I have quite a bit of West German stuff for Modern Spearhead.

MILAN team lurking

A potent anti-tank system; the MILAN crew set from Elhiem is excellent

In the 80's the West Germans would obviously have been at the very forefront of any resistance to a Warsaw Pact attack. While NATO would have tried to trade space for time in the face of the large Warsaw Pact shock armies driving across the North German plain and through the Fulda Gap, I expect these fellows would have resisted ferociously, motivated as only those who fight with their own homes and families at their backs can be.  I see that as a rich context for scenarios, particularly skirmish encounters.

Assortment of helmets - some plain, some with scrim

For example, perhaps they are disobeying orders a little bit, holding out longer than directed outside a small village to allow more time for evacuation behind them - they will have already lost one or two of their IFVs, and the strength of their sections is diminished, but as long as they have the MILAN launcher and missiles to use, they will dig deep to slow the advancing Red Army.  Should make a fitting opponent for the Motor Rifles I completed in my last entry.

The free-hand crosses turned out poorly - I wish I could find some 20mm decals

I still have a fair chunk of 20mm stuff to paint, but I am feeling a bit of an urge to switch over to sci-fi, so we'll see what comes next for the Challenge. In the meantime I hope we can set up a scrap sometime soon with these fellows at the Fawcett Avenue gaming table.