Challenge Submission #11 - A Mixed Bag of WW2 Vehicles

I had a hard time focusing during the last week of January, ricocheting around from project to project without seeming to get closer to completion. Eventually things started falling into place, and I ended up with 9 completed vehicles. Some of these have been sitting in my 'IN' box for over a decade, so it felt good to finally get them ready for the gaming table.

First up is a DUKW with a British RASC driver. This was a toy dating from the 1960s that originally belonged to my younger brother. It suffered some 'battle damage' at some point, and my brother was no longer interested in it. I thought I might be able to fix it, and it seemed like the right scale for 28mm gaming. In fact, measuring its length and comparing it to the length of an actual DUKW, it works out to be 1/56. The only 'flaw' is that it only has a single axle in the rear instead of two. I have no idea who manufactured it, but it reads 'NOVELTY' and 'Made in Hong Kong' on the bottom. 

 

The broken pieces near the back and the front right wheel well were filled in using epoxy putty, while the front windshield was fashioned from pieces of clear plastic cut from a CD case. The crates and fuel drums came from a Bandai Maultier kit, and the driver is an old Bolt Action jeep driver that I had in my 'bits box' along with the rolled up tarp. It is now ready to ferry supplies or a squad of commandos across a river or from ship to shore.

 

Next up is a Kübelwagen Type 82/3. This was a mock-up scout car/armoured vehicle with a machine gun-turret atop the cabin. It was apparently built for decoy and training purposes. I bought this from Wargames Foundry decades ago. It came with the Feldgendarm, but I only painted up the 'Kettenhund' as I couldn't decide the colour scheme that would be most appropriate. Eventually I thought Panzer Dunkelgrau would do just as well as any other colour, and now it's finally done.

 

 Third on our list is a Bandai 1/48 SdKfz 3 Maultier that I picked up off Ebay. This was another project where I couldn't decide what colour to paint it, but I finally decided to go with Panzer Dunkelgrau with an Olive Green striped camouflage suitable for the Russian Front. The tarp was painted Tan Earth and given a wash of GW Agrax Earthshade. I then liberally applied Vallejo European Dust wash everywhere. The kit came with a cargo of four petrol drums and two large crates, but since nobody would see them with the tarp in place, I used them for the DUKW.

 

 Next is a 3D printed French Panhard 178 armoured car that was from the same run as the two painted by Fellow Conscript DallasE. I used a different paint scheme that is based on a surviving example in the Musée des Blindés in Saumur, France. I used Vallejo Gunship Green and Chocolate Brown with a sharp black line in between. I left off the fifth wheel, but added a muffler on the right side made from a piece of plastic sucker stick. Sometimes it helps a recce unit to not be heard, as well as not be seen. The decals were all ones that were kicking around in my files, so I didn't have to free hand any roundels. 

 

The fifth item is a group of four M5 Half-tracks to provide some additional armoured lift capability to my 2nd Canadian Division. I am not sure if these were used in any of the infantry divisions, so I may have to mark them up for the 4th Canadian Armoured Division. The models are either Corgi or Solido 1/50 vehicles that all came in different colours and configurations. One was an ambulance version that had a tarp on it, and the back door was cut out. The tarp was tossed in the 'bits box' while the missing door was replaced using thin plastic card. Everything was painted a uniform colour and then 'muddied up'. The verdict is still out on what stars should be added and where, but the vehicles are now ready to take to the field and move a platoon of infantry in relative safety on the battle field.

 

 The last vehicle of this post is a Warlord Games 1/56 resin and metal M10 Achilles mounting a 17 pounder. While this is a newer acquisition compared to some of the other vehicles, it sat on the shelf for a while before being assembled. When it arrived, the tracks were warped and didn't form a clean fit with the chassis. A bath in some boiling water and some careful pressure in the right places straightened things out to an acceptable degree and things proceeded readily from there. Two of the crew in the turret are part of the resin casting while the third crewman is in metal. All came with separate heads which can provide some variety if you want to field more than one. The tarps were added from my 'bits box'. 

The only two Canadian units that used 17pdr M-10s were the 4th Anti-Tank Regiment RCA of the 5th Canadian Armoured Division; and the 7th Anti-Tank Regiment RCA of the 1st Canadian Corps Artillery. Both Regiments would have had two batteries of towed 17pdrs and two SP batteries with 17pdr M-10s

 

 As I said in the title, it is definitely a mixed bag of vehicles, but they are now all done.Thanks for reading.

 

Painting Challenge Submission 9 - French Zouaves for the Franco-Prussian War

French Zouaves for the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Figures from Wargames Foundry.

Continuing along to submissions to Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. Every edition of the Painting Challenge brings forward some kind of unique, cool sub-theme. Through the hundreds of submissions on such varied subjects and interests, something will always kind of stand out, at least to me, and in this edition, it has been the Zouaves. Challengers have done some really neat Zouaves. There have been Papal Zouaves. And then there have been Beetroot Zouaves (!) How do you top Beetroot Zouaves? Well, I can't...but I can offer my own contribution to the Zouave vibe in the Challenge - here is a unit of French Zouaves for the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. These are 28mm metal figures from Wargames Foundry. 

The figures out front are used to denote skirmishers/mixed order on the table.

I just love the Franco-Prussian War setting. The French uniforms are just glorious! And among the glorious French uniforms, the Zouaves stand supreme! I had been "saving" these figures for years, telling myself that I needed to paint up a suitable amount of "regular" troops and cavalry before "rewarding" my brushes with the chance to paint Zouaves. With those Prussian Dragoons out of the way, I figured the time had come!

You can see some of the nice detail on the packs of the troops in the main formation.

These are based for games of "Black Powder" - 20 figures in the bulk of the unit, and the four individually based figures are used to denote skirmishers, or the unit fighting in a mixed formation. The flag is courtesy of Maverick - the first flags I have found on the market for the French in this period.

The Zouaves bring their deadly Chassepot rifles to bear...

These sculpts (by the Perry brothers) are very nice, although old. But the way Foundry packs these figures is a touch infuriating - the poses are at once consistent and yet too varied. For example, some have packs, others don't. Some have turbans, others don't. Some are wearing the "caban", and others are not, and all of this variance is found in a single eight-figure package. So if you are looking for a certain consistency among the figures you might use to make a unit, you can only use a few of them. This is...very annoying. I'm still irritated that they don't all have turbans...but then to do that I would have needed to buy another five packs of the Zouaves...enough is enough!

These sculpts are older, but wow, they are a treat to paint.

Another odd oversight in this old Wargames Foundry range is the lack of a standard bearer in the Zouave command pack - this was addressed by using a standard bearer from an ACW Zouave command blister, and a spare French Imperial Eagle standard.

The full unit, ready for the table.

Whatever those annoyances, however, these were a great treat to paint - I love Zouaves! And the best part is that you don't need to go fishing around looking for battles where they participated. The Zouave regiments were stuck in from the outset, and fought very hard for the French Empire (and the subsequent Republic!) against the Prussian forces. These fellows will now join the Turcos I painted a few years ago to stand ready in my French collection for 1870.

Thanks for reading - hope to have something more next week!  

Painting Challenge Submission 8 - Prussian Dragoons for 1870

28mm Prussian Dragoons, ready to advance into France in 1870!

One of the great recurring themes of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is tackling overdue projects. Sure - we are constantly distracted by new things, or starting new projects (or maybe just me?) - but those figures you had purchased, set up and primed, but, for whatever reason, just couldn't get under the brush...this Painting Challenge is a prime time to tackle those dormant, stranded projects. In this spirit, I present these 12 Prussian Dragoons for the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. These are 28mm figures from Wargames Foundry.

Red facings on this lot...

I started doing the Franco-Prussian War back in...2017, I think? Something like that - the "before times", at any rate. I so love the setting, I do it in different scales! In 28mm, I have been using the Wargames Foundry range for my "Black Powder" efforts in this setting. At the outset, for Prussian cavalry, I wanted a unit of Dragoons, as there was often a Dragoon regiment joined to the Prussian infantry units. I ordered some Dragoons from Wargames Foundry, enough for one unit - 12 figures. 

Painting horses is a drag, but I do love cavalry...

Yet when I finally got round to painting them in the summer of 2018, I saw there had been a mistake (either by me, or by Foundry - both are possible, although the former is more likely). I had two command packs, instead of one. This should not have been any kind of issue, but I have OCD-adjacent hobby quirks...I could not mentally resolve having two command figures within one regiment, even though the odds that anyone would besides me would ever notice were  vanishingly small. I sorted this by painting up two half-regiments...two units of six figures each...and told myself I would just order more regular Dragoon troopers to finish out the units. I noted to myself at the time that I would do this "very soon". 

So...fast-forward to 2021...lots of stuff going on, I was moving house...and as the 2021 Painting Challenge came about, I told myself "I am so damn tired of looking at those half-units of Dragoons on my display shelf downstairs! THIS year, I will get them finished up." I duly ordered the requisite figures from Wargames Foundry...I even built them and primed them...and...well, got distracted by other stuff, insert excuses here, etc. etc.

Dragoons were often attached to Prussian infantry divisions - this is why there were my first selection for 28mm cavalry for my Franco-Prussian War project

In the interim, the Perry brothers released their own new sculpts for the Franco-Prussian War in 28mm. This included brand new - and arguably, much, much nicer - sculpts for Prussian Dragoons. But I was committed to the Foundry range, at least for these figures. Having started with Foundry, I wanted to finish with Foundry (which, of course, are also sculpted by the Perry twins..but anyway)...nonetheless, such useless contemplation on whether to switch over to Perry Dragoons fuelled further procrastination on this specific aspect of this project...

Fast-forward to 2022, the Painting Challenge looming...THIS TIME I MEAN IT, I'M GOING TO FINISH THOSE DRAGOONS, FOR F*CK SAKES! IF I HAVE TO LOOK AT THOSE HALF-UNITS ON THE DISPLAY SHELF EVEN ONE MORE TIME...and I am so pleased to report success! So you see 12 troopers here...six with yellow facings, and six with red facings. They will be joining their previously-painted fellows in my display! I now have two full units of Prussian Dragoons in 28mm! 

While I would expect the newer Perry sculpts would look better, the Foundry ones are still classics - like painting up old friends. Yes, they are monopose...and the molds are getting old. But I just loved painting these up. It was fun! Why did I wait, anyway? Ah, the hobby squirrels in my brain...

I was pleased to be able to pretty-much match the paints and colours after a four-year gap in completing these units. It's not perfect...in this interim, f*cking Liquitex stopped making their "natural sand" product that I used for my basing, so they don't match perfectly, but I applied a liberal dose of grass tufts, and it looks more than good enough for me. 

Finally! Two full, proper units on the display table!! About damn time!!!

The best part is now looking at my shelf, and seeing all of the units in the collection at full strength! About bloody time!

It was lovely to get back to some Franco-Prussian War subjects, following a nice long run of 40k and 30k-themed models. We'll see where the brushes end up next! Thanks for reading.

Great War 28mm Highlander Command

Back at it again after a time away from the brushes... these wee lads had unfortunately languished half-completed for far too long. They are, of course, the 1914 Scottish Command pack (B104) from Great War Miniatures.

I have a load of mono-posed early-war Highlanders from Foundry, but since they never made command figures in Highland rig I had to cast about for some from another manufacturer. This is unfortunately a "tall order" (heh) nowadays, for the Foundry Great War range (advertised in their catalog at the time as "26mm models") are unfashionably undersized by 2021 standards.

So, I decided to take the figures I could find nearest in size and style, and do what I could to shrink them, which is to say, not much. I filed down their metal bases to paper-thinness and based 'em the same as their Foundry comrades, but they're still noticeably bigger. Oh well.

They do look cool though. In the pack you get two rifle-toting sergeants, one officer with a cane, and two with revolvers. The officers wear a mix of kilts and trews with puttees, with Glengarries all round. I painted the kilts and trews in a quasi-Black Watch sett so hopefully the lads will go easy on me if they're ever fielded as a unit that sported a different sett.

Of course their other gear is pretty much standard Imperial/Commonwealth kit so they can fit in most anywhere.

Here they are with the rest of the platoon. I would say this command pack was fun to paint, and they were, but I'm so glad I upgraded my brushes before attempting the tartan. The superfine Kolinsky sables worked a treat.

Well that's it for now, hope everyone's staying safe and getting vaccinated.  

Painting Challenge Submission 2 - General Wolfe and the Louisbourg Grenadiers

New forces for the Quebec 1759 Project - General Wolfe and the Louisbourg Grenadiers.

Happy New Year folks! Last year I unveiled another project - painting forces for the Siege of Quebec and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 28mm. Progress on this project is...let's just say it is moving at a "stately pace", but there has been some painting happening and I'm pleased to share recent results with this second submission to Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. Here is a command base for General James Wolfe, commander of the British forces on that fateful day in September outside Quebec, and the "Louisbourg Grenadiers", another unit for my collection of British forces for the battle. All of the figures are 28mm metal castings from Wargames Foundry, save for the figure of Wolfe himself, which is a 28mm metal figure from Warlord Games.

The Louisbourg Grenadiers

The "Louisbourg Grenadiers" - figures from Wargames Foundry.

The "Louisbourg Grenadiers" were a provisional converged battalion comprising the detached grenadier companies from the 22nd Foot, 40th Foot and 45th Foot regiments of the British army. The name comes from the French fortress of Louisbourg (on Cape Breton in Canada), which the British had captured previous to mounting their campaign against Quebec, and I believe all three of the regiments saw service in that action. 

Beautiful sculpts from Wargames Foundry - note cast details on the mitres - this is a huge help.

The converged unit went on to see heavy action during the Siege of Quebec in the summer/autumn of 1759, and were prominent in the right of the British line during the Battle of the Plains of Abraham outside the city in September. Wolfe counted on the grenadiers to be a reliable strike force for his army.

The left of the grenadier line...also a shot of General Wolfe leading the unit...

To represent this unit on the gaming table, I opted for miniatures from Wargames Foundry's Seven Years War range - not only do they include grenadiers in firing poses, but the Foundry range also offers a number of officer and musician poses for the grenadier units that you cannot find in Warlord's current French and Indian War figure range. The Foundry figures have two other advantages - the details on the mitres are cast on to the figures, giving me at least a fighting chance of creating a consistent - if vague - representation of the insane and intricate symbols the grenadiers wore on their head gear. The second advantage is that Foundry still offers free shipping at a reasonable order level!

View of the rear detail on the figures...those hefty Wargames Foundry figures are crowded on to the bases...

Painting these figures was certainly a bit of a headache, and the finer points of detail are clearly beyond my brush skills. But the excellent quality castings from Foundry allow the opportunity to give a nice, consistent "look" from a couple feet away, which is what I generally aim for with my painting.

Two of the Regiments - the 22nd and the 40th - wore "buff" facings. "Buff" is a colour I struggle to get right, as I'm...not really what sure what colour it is bloody supposed to be - not quite white, not quite tan...who knows...anyways, I muddled around with different combos of flesh-tones and faded khakis from GWs range to get something I was happy with. The 45th, with dark green facings, was a little easier...I opted to paint the musicians in the colours of the 45th, as the green gave a better chance to show off the bonkers details of the reverse uniforms worn by drummers/fifers during that era. Being a provisional unit, I understand (from much smarter people) that there was no colour party for the Louisbourg Grenadiers, so there are only musicians and no flags here with this unit.

The right of the British line takes shape...small but growing collection for this project.

The Foundry castings are lovely - but I was struck by how beefy and tall these miniatures are...I know grenadiers were supposed to be tall lads, but wow! They barely fit on their 50mm square bases...certainly they would not mix well with Warlord Games figures, but as they are on their own unit, it's not an issue. Not so much when it came to General Wolfe...

General James Wolfe

General Wolfe - figure from Warlord Games. The grenadiers behind him are castings from Wargames Foundry.

In any game it is nice to have small bases to represent command figures for the forces on the table. In the era of the Seven Years War, these bases often host officers wearing the finest 18th century garb - big hats, big cuffs, fancy gloves, beautiful horse furniture, and well-dressed flunkies to carry out commands, pass messages, reassure their boss, recite poetry etc.

But the Siege of Quebec was no such campaign. Not only was the North American theatre of operations particularly merciless in terms of what the weather and terrain would do to such nice clothing - if you could even it get it there - but the snipers and warriors among the enemy would be sure to mark you out and finish any snappily-dressed officers in short order! Along the St. Lawrence in the summer of 1759, less was more...

Add to this the reports of Wolfe's character...as I read accounts of him, he struck me as a spartan man. Brave, disciplined, a "military thinker" for the era, but also not much for politics or the finer things of noble birth and rank. Hardly a revolutionary, but he seemed genuine in his care for the soldiers under his command, and in turn was well-liked by the rank and file troops who served under him. He was not the sort to demand fancy outfits on campaign, least of all during the 1759 campaign in the hearts of what was then still called "New France".

Monument to the battle at Quebec city - the Wolfe-Montcalm monument.

In the book "Death or Glory", which recounts in detail the Siege of Quebec, there are many excerpts from Wolfe's diaries and family memoirs, as well as those of his colleagues from the 1759 campaign. The James Wolfe emerging from those accounts is a bit of...well, he seems like a bit of a brittle, indecisive, mopey, passive agressive tw@t. He couldn't stand the navy (and hey, we've all been there, right?) even though the Royal Navy was critical to the ultimate success of the Quebec campaign. As the siege wore on, there was much friction with his senior officers, and Wolfe himself seemed to despair and waffle, looking for opportunities to approach the city which just were not there. He ordered raids that devastated the colony of New France, burning crops and villages up and down the valley, but the few military assaults attempted against Montcalm's defences around the Beauport shore were abject failures. Cartoons drawn by officers mocking Wolfe as a man obsessed with how to properly dig latrines, but unable to give orders decisively, still survive. As the siege wore on that summer, Wolfe eventually fell ill, and despair in the memoirs seems palpable.

And somehow, out of all of this, he led a daring - I would even say "nutter-adjacent" - against-the-odds assault across the St. Lawrence (with, again, critical assistance from the Royal Navy), one that took the French garrison by surprise and prompted a small European-style field engagement on the Plains of Abraham. The risks to the British in this engagement were huge - the army landed, but was badly exposed in the rear even as it faced the fortified walls of Quebec City and the massing of Montcalm's available forces. Really, this British force should have been badly beaten, even slaughtered.

The Death of General Wolfe - by Benjamin West, painted in 1770.

And yet... whatever issues he had, whatever sickness lingered, whatever the friction with his colleagues, Wolfe overcame the odds. He and his officers led the battle wisely. Wolfe himself led from the front - and paid with his life. Shot several times, he is said to have died on the battlefield just as reports of the French defeat arrived that day. Instantly, he became a military hero of the 18th century. His death commemorated in a portrait (which itself has a whole story, given that the scene in the portrait is not exactly "real"), there are schools and streets and all sorts of things named after him in Canada and elsewhere (or, I should say, there are for now).

The British command base for this hobby project needed to have a General Wolfe, and I opted to use the figure from Warlord Games to represent him. As there were really no "flunkies" in the 18th century sense present on the battlefield that day, I decided to put two grenadiers from the 22nd Foot on the base with him. Wolfe is said to have died in the arms of a grenadier from the 22nd Foot, and he was leading/directing the Louisbourg Grenadiers himself that day, so I thought it would be a way to put a bit more of a "crowd" on to the base of a senior officer and still make sense in the context of the setting. 

I believe that the real General Wolfe was a taller fellow for his time...but those Wargames Foundry grenadiers are huge, so I played a bit of silly bugger with the base to hide the difference.

The Warlord Games depiction of Wolfe is a lovely sculpt...complete with the arm band as he mourned the death of his father. But compared to the giant grenadiers from Foundry, the casting is very thin and very short. Thin is OK...poor Wolfe was puking his guts out for a couple weeks prior to the battle anyway.  But the height difference was a bit crazy, and so to compensate a I modeled a small "rise" into the base for Wolfe's figure to stand on - and I used a ton of ground work and grass to obfuscate the difference...

Thanks everyone - I hope you are all getting a chance to relax over the holidays - all the best in 2021!

Foundry 28mm early-WW2 German Infantry Platoon

In preparation for Conscript Frederick's planned "Assault on the Danzig Post Office" game, I've painted some Foundry models that had been sitting in the lead pile here at Conscript Towers for some time.

Foundry had a brief flirtation with WW2 subjects some time ago and I think I've bought and painted the great majority of models they produced... they made British Home Guard (check), Paratroopers (check), Chindits, and Commandos (check) and some French partisans (check), as well as German Fallschirmjaeger (check) and these humble Heer infantrymen. OK, so I don't have any Chindits... sue me.

The sculpts are just excellent, in my opinion. Nothing over-the-top or outlandish, just basic early war troops. The only criticism I have about them is the "interesting" array of field gear... half of these guys aren't carrying breadbags or entrenching tools... some of them don't even have water bottles (!). But all of them are carrying their faithful gas mask canisters at least, with one exception noted near the end of the post.

I guess another small niggle is that the sections don't come with a leader carrying the ubiquitous MP40 - they have to make do with a Kar98k just like the rest of the lads. Fortunately for the upcoming game I can press the third crewman from the Lafette MG34 teams (again, see below) into service to lead the infantry sections.

First, we run this way...

Achtung...

Kehrt um! Everybody run back the way you came...

Lovely detail on the sculpts.

I also had three MG34 on Lafette mounts to paint in this batch. That's a lot of lead headed downrange.

The third crewman is armed with an MP40 and will serve as an infantry section leader where necessary.

I also made up three of these MG34 teams, using Foundry's "Heavy Weapons" pack. These chaps would normally be firing their MG34 from an AA mount but how often do you see one of those on the game table? So I improvised the infamous "future hearing damage" pose so often seen in period photos.

Strangely, although the web strap was sculpted onto the gunner, there was no gas mask canister to accompany it. This bugged me so I ended up sculpting one from scratch. Well, not from scratch exactly... I found an appropriate piece of round sprue scrap, cut it to length, and glued it in place. Then I covered it with a thin layer of greenstuff and sculpted in the corrugations and lid, as well as a strap. Not pretty by any means but gets the job done.

Painting formula for these chaps was Mechanicus Standard Grey for the helmets, gas mask cans and trousers (the latter highlighted heavily with Administratum Grey), Mournfang Brown and Leadbelcher for the rifles, MFB again for e-tool handles and canteen covers, some yellowish tan for the web straps, off-whitish colour for the breadbags (washed with Agrax Earthshade), Vallejo Dark Rubber for black highlights, and Vallejo German Uniform for the tunics. Most of the model was then washed with Nuln Oil and basecoats reapplied as a highlight. Done.

Here's some I did earlier... like maybe 15 years ago or more! This fills out the platoon nicely, together with some officer-types I also had done before. And although these are Heer models, they'll stand in OK for the Waffen-SS (or I guess it was technically "SS-VT" at the time) "SS-Heimwehr Danzig" troops in Frederick's scenario.  

Hope everyone is keeping safe and sane!