From Burkhard: 28mm WWII British Tankers and Achilles Tank Destroyer (44 points)

From Burkhard:

First of all let me start with what I did not enter for this round. I had initially planned to enter a bunch of Sherman tanks for the vehicle theme round. When I started on these I decided that these would depict two troops from the Irish Guards in Market Garden livery. Unfortunately I had to find that while the inventory in my head said that I had the appropriate decals, I had not. Well one trip to Doms Decals and most of my problems had been solved except for the fact that the Guards painted the centre of their tactical markings (that is those diamonds, triangles, circles, and squares) in black and that no one did these in 1:48th or 1:56th scale. So I began looking for someone who would do me some custom decals, which I eventually did. They were shipped last week and while I was wainting for them, I started work on some Bauhaus Hussars for Warzone Resurrection. When the decals arrived on Monday these were done except for the weapons, gloves and basing. Seeing that time was a premium, I decided to do the tanks and if there was to be time finish them, too. Which I think proved to be a bad call. Tonight with just some 7 hours to on the Challenge (which is around midnight local) and after a day of painting, I find my eyes were going sore and I have to call it a day. Now what is missing? Well the tracks and dust on two troops of Shermans and as a result the Hussars, too. I guess I would have needed 3 more hours to finish the tanks and another two for the minis, but that did not happen. So here is the photo of shame:

What did I finish? Well the tankers for the Shermans (and some other tanks and armored cars) were painted in February so here they are (all Warlord Games):

They are still glossy since they were going to be matt varnished after mounting them into the tanks.

What else? Well before my eyes gave out, I at least managed to finish the Achilles Tank Destroyer (incidentally the only tank model I do not have crew figures for yet). It is a Tamiya 1:48th scale kit, that has been heavily converted using aftermarket packages. One to convert the gun breach assembly and the turret counterweights from the standard 3” M10 to the 17pdr.. another one to give me a brass and aluminum barrel for more detail and robustness and then there is the stowage from a third aftermarket kit. 

For those interested… I will finish the Shermans and Hussars over the next couple days. So if you want to see them they will be up on my blog www.dhcwargamesblog.wordpress.com over the next couple of days. And you can also see the further progress of my WWII British in coming weeks. Really hope Curt forgives me this shameless plug!

But alas, now it is time for famous last words. I really enjoyed this, my second Analogue Hobbies Challenge. As before the comrade and quality of entries has been great! While I found the theme rounds took a lot of my time and often put my other painting into disarray until I learned (after four rounds) to just work through all of them and enter them well in advance I loved them, especially since they allowed me to tackle some topics like ACW that I had not touched in ages. Given that I had even less time to paint than last year, I really like the fact that I actually got more points under my belt than last year (and that is without the 195 points group of shame I almost finished) and that I managed to succeed in one of my side challenges (congratulations to Tamsin for pulverizing us on the other one!!! ;-)). As always this has proven a great boost to my winter painting!

But I would like to applaud my fellow Challengers. The quality and sheer amount of minis painted has been impressive. But even more impressive has been the comradie. Thank you all for that and the nice comments you have left me! Really looking forward to the next installment!

But my special thanks goes out to Curt. I am always amazed at what he does here. For three long months he puts up with 60 loonies bombarding him with photos and text of painted minis to allow them to slave through their lead mountains. It takes a lot to keep sane through that! I think we should all appreciate this and give him a huge thanks.  Thanks for having me along!!!

Thank you for the kind words Burkhard - I wouldn't do this if it wasn't a pleasure. 

I think you're in good company as many of us felt the crunch going into these last few weeks. Nonetheless I think you've done marvelous work here. That Achilles TD is absolutely gorgeous. For sure the extra bits are great but it's your paintwork that really makes it sing. Fantastic.

This Tank Destroyer and the dozen tank commanders will give Burkhard 44 points. Well done!

From BurkhardS: 28mm WWII British M5 Halftracks (65 points)

From Burkhard:

To complete my ever expanding British forces, here are some more rides for my poor bloody infantry. This time something heavier than those Universal Carriers, namely some M5 half-tracks. Now the M5 was created when the usual manufacturers like Autocar, Diamond T and White could not keep up with the demand. Additional models were produced by the International Harvester Company. But since they had different machinery from the others changes had to be made to the design. Most of all a different type of steel was used for the armour, which made the vehicle heavier and made the armour made it slightly less effective against small AP rounds but reduced the chances of shrapnel. This lead to the use of different axles and a strengthened hull. But the only outward difference between the M5 and M3 models were that the rear corners were rounded, while the mudguards had right angeles ends. Anyway, the US government saw these features as shortcomings and as a result the M% became an export (lend-ease) version. Which is why I picked it for my Brits.

The halftrack model itself is by Warlord (it seems now OOP). I had initially thought about using Corgi models for my Brits like I did with my Americans, but decided against it on the grounds, that I wanted M5 for them. Plus the good people at Warlord gave me its dimensions before ordering and I found that it was the same size. Well that is until the models arrived and I found that it actually was smaller. I decided not to care since chances of US and British infantry operating side by side on the tabletop are about the same as finding a snowball in hell. When I finally cleaned the models up this Christmas I regretted that decision, since I spend more than two hours on each of them just cleaning them up.

Now looking at the markings, you will find, that these are not for 3rd (British) Infantry Division like all my infantry and carriers, but for the Guards Armoured Division. Now I had a bit of a problem finding out if 3rd Infantry Division actually had these or not. What I found seemed to indicate their use as ambulances or for HQ´s but I remained constantly unsure if they were used as a troop carrier. On the other hand, they were used as such with the Armoured Divisions so this seemed like a natural choice. Why the Guards? Well as you know I am modeling my infantry on the South Lancs from 3rd Infantry Division. Now on D-Day and in Normandy they were supported by the 27th Armoured Brigade. Unfortunately they were disbanded late summer 1944 and distributed to other units so I would not get much milage from them. And they were using a lot of DD Shermans, but no Fireflys so they would not have fit my needs anyway. So I chose the Irish Guards for my tank formations. In theta sense, I painted the halftracks to fit.

Now the passengers are by Victory Force Miniatures. I only bought enough for one carrier, since these were designed to it into a Corgi halftrack and I wanted to make sure they would fit this one, too. Since they do like a charm, I will have to get myself two more sets of passengers from them in due time, as well as drivers and a passenger for the gunners position.

While we are talking about the gunners position. The M5 was supplied to the British with a full complement of .50cal and .30cal machine guns. Most British formations chose to remove these and did not use them. I chose to do the same here, so these are unarmed.

Well the extra work you put into these models certainly paid off Burkhard because they're the envy of any gamer or collector. I particularly like the photo which details the interior with the seated Tommies and their gear. I'm also very impressed with the subtle weathering on the decals - very deftly done.

These three fine halftracks along with their passengers will give Burkhard 65 points.  Excellent stuff.

From Burkhard: 28mm WWII British Heavy Weapons & Ordinance (175 points)

From Burkhard:

So now it is time to continue with my British Infantry platoon. Or in this case rather some ”very” heavy weapons for them. 

Lets start off with the lightest of them all, a pair of 3” mortars. Medium mortars were a very essential of the lower level (company or handed down to platoons) support weapons, giving the soldiers on the ground limited artillery support without the need to go through higher level commands. I know many people just use one in skirmish gaming, but my previous experience has taught me, that one simply does not make much of an impact on the game, while two do without becoming a game breaker. The minis are old vintage Bolt Action. Unfortunately this means that both crews are exactly the same, but maybe I will get me a Warlord Games team one day to give them more variety one day.

Now if 3” mortars are on the light end of the ”artillery” support a platoon can call upon, here is the heavy end… a 25pdr. artillery gun. I bought this well over half a decade ago, back when none was producing any AT guns with the idea that this could give at least some heavy fire power to the poor bloody infantry. Not sure what I was thinking. I only ever read about the 25pdr. used for direct fire in North Africa and I only intend to war-game Europe. Anyway the whole set is by Artizan and actually quiet nice, even though it comes with their old style of faces, which i do not like too much. The only grief for me was that I found the limber to be missing one of the doors. Now after more than half a decade I did not want to approach the good people at Artizan for a replacement, so I scratch build one from plasticard and wire.

So do you care for some real AT guns? Well here we go. This is a 6pdr. gun. This time by Warlord games. Now you may find that this one (and the 17pdr. in the later pictures) have quite a large crew. Now I bought the para version from Warlord some time ago but it arrived with a regular infantry crew. I got a proper replacement crew, but in the end it meant I had more crew than usual, which is nice. I had originally planned to do a cloud camo on the gun, but decided against it. the 6pdrs were used by the US Army as well and I plan to use the gun for them as well. I know the Americans used it without the muzzle break and the green is wrong, but I  guess most people will not notice. But I think everyone will notice a camo that was not used by the Americans so I did without.

So now something heavier, a 17pdr.. Again the model is by Warlord Games with a little extra crew from their hic up. Not much to say, except that this one got the cloud camo since it was only used by the British. I was a bit afraid how this would come out with the weathering technique used on the British vehicles and guns (as described on the Universal Carrier post), but it really comes out well. I personally believe, that this is due to the fact that I did not use black for the camo, but a very dark slate grey.

So while i was busy painting guns, I decided to tackle some guns for the paras I had around as well. These are a 6pdr. (para version without the enfilade gun shield and collapsable legs) and a pack howitzer. Before anyone asks… the crews for these were painted some 3 ½ years ago and are just there as scenery. Those who have followed my painting adventures will notice that their eyes lack the black outlines I switched for in 2012, but with the the heavier shading of the skin I have used since 2010, so that is a good telltale sign of their age.

So this is it. As indicated before these were weathered the same way as my other British vehicles with a Modelmates weathering  washes and pigments from MIG. The crews all wear shoulder flashes from the 3rd Infantry Div, to make sure they match my other infantry. While painting these, I felt that a little more firepower might be due, especially one capable of taking on some big cats, so in due time these will see the addition of another 6pdr. and another 17pdr.. With this in mind i leave you with a group shot of this entry:

Wow, that is a load of BFGs Burkhard - excellent stuff. I quite like your interpretation of the British camo scheme - using a dark slate grey instead of black was a good call (must remember that). Great pics as well! I particularly like the shot of the 6pdr about to knock on the side door of the Panzer IV.

These guns, mortars and artillerists will give Burkhard 175 points. This in turn will allow him to meet his Challenge target of 1000 points. Great work Burkhard and congratulations!

From BurkhardS: 28mm WWII British Universal Carriers with Crew (110 points)

From Burkhard:

After painting a lot of infantry for my poor bloody infantry, I felt they needed some transports to make sure they would not be so foot sore. So here are some Universal carriers for them. All the models are from Tamiyas 1:48th scale range. The tracks, tanks and flamethrower for the Wasp Carrier are from Gasoline. Now I really like these models. Very nicely detailed, robust (our dog stole one while drying and chewed on it without any damage that could not be repaired within 5 minutes) and completely accurate. And there was a time when you could get these off eBay dead cheap. 

I had some fun weathering them. So far I have mostly worked with just some basic airbrush work on my WWII tanks, but I wanted to go a different route on my Brits. So these were primed with Vallejos Bronze Green primer applied with an airbrush. Up next I slapped decals (these came with the kits), sealed with Solvaset. Again the markings are for the South Lancs to match the Infantry. Afterwards I went for a wash of Dirtbrown by Modelmates. 

This was only to be a test since I had never used them, but I was impressed with the results. Now you do not only apply this wash, but it is meant to be partly removed again in a second step. Hard to explain, but in the end you get a nice color variation in the large areas and shadows in the recesses and near the corners. The next step was a first for me as well, as I did highlight everything with Faded Allied Green pigments from MIG. Never did that before, but it was great. The end result after the wash had been darker than what I wanted, but the pigments took it right where I had hoped for. Marvelous! Up next a coat of varnish, painting of details and another weathering with artists pigments to dirty them up. Crew added and another coat of varnish and they were done.

Now the mini are from Victory Force. James has always believed in his range to be compatible with scale models on the market. So when a couple of customers asked for crews for Tamiya's Universal Carriers he sculpted them. (I can claim some credit, since I donated one of my assembled Carriers so he had the measurements.) And he did a great job, providing minis that really fit the models. 

They even fit the cramped passenger compartment. Just not on all my Carriers, since I had been stupid enough to stuff two of them to the rim with ammo crates. so one one of them, the passenger actually has to ride said ammo boxes and is sitting higher. ;-)

Wow, you've done a beautiful job on these carriers Burkhard. I've always been a big fan of using larger 1:50 and 1:48 scale vehicles with  28mm figures. The vehicles just seem to have that much more presence and impact on the tabletop than the 'standard' 1:56 scale offerings. You've also done a brilliant job on the carrier's crew, the little details like their shoulder flashes are a great finishing touch. 

These five Universal Carriers and their crews will give Burkhard 110 points. A wonderful group of models, bravo!

From BurkhardS: 28mm WWII British Infantry & German Armour (250 points)

Burkhard sends us a swath of wonderful WWII miniatures for us to enjoy.

From Burkhard:

Today I finally got around to show what I did between the second and third fortnight goals, the beginnings of my WWII British Rifle company. The Miniatures are a mix of Victory Force Miniatures [VFM], pre-Warlord Games Bolt Action [BA], Warlord Games metal [WG] and Artizan [ART]. These were painted as three batches, but I wanted to varnish and base them in one go, so it took me a while longer to post them to Curt.

Up first are the Officers. Left to right these are BA, WG, VFM and two ART. I feel that usually all lines mix quiet well (if you discount the Warlord Games minis having slimmer faces). In this case the officer is noticeably smaller, but i liked that mini too much not to paint him. All officers are from the infantry, except the one to the far right, who is painted to come from an armoured formation.

Next we have a radio operator [WG] and a NCO [VFM]. I know that one NCO is far too few for a whole rifle company. The other NCOs and three medics were painted in the summer of 2012. So there will be enough of them, they were just not painted as part of this Challenge.

While I will tackle the riflemen in another couple of batches soon, I already did the section firepower, namely the Bren teams. The one to the far right is BA, all the others are VFM. What always irritates me about the old Bolt Action British are their faces. If you look at the other work from Paul Hicks, they are so immensely detailed when it comes to the faces. I could never understand why these are so featureless. Probably part of the reason, why Warlord replaced them with new sculpts (thank god without those cartoonish faces sported by some of their other WWII ranges).

To complete the rifle companies heavy fire power, here are the PIAT teams. The first one is from BA.

Up next the first in firing pose from VFM.

And last another one in firing pose from BA. One of the few sets in the old range that had decent faces. The German Panzer in the photo was not painted as part of the Challenge and is just there for the atmosphere.

Now we have some serious firepower. While not part of the company level assets, a scenario can always require you to have a Vickers or two and looks wise, this has always been one of my favourites of WWII, So I could not do without. The first one is BA. The gunner does not look as nice as he could, but I still had it lying around and if you want two Vickers, more variety looks better on the table. The loader for this one gave me no joy. When I was doing the sand on the bases (always do that after painting and varnish) he slipped my fingers and dropped into the open can with brown paint. I pulled him out before he could go under and put him under running water,  but the damage had been done and I had to paint him once more. :-(

The other Vickers is by WG. All around a lovely set and maybe my favourite from their whole British range.

Now some of you may have spotted some shoulder flashes in the previous photos. All these men are meant to be from the 1st South Lancashires. 3rd (British) Infantry Division was an easy choice for me, since they landed on D-Day and saw action in many of the major operations of the war. So there is a lot of milage in them. The Regiments are distinguished by the bars under the flash (one in case of the 1st South Lancs) so they can easily pass as one of the other regiments on the tabletop. And I can live with patches for the wrong unit in case I want to replay something where troops from a different Division took part. The choice for the 1st South Lancs is actually a little more obscure. There are some things about the D-Day landings I absolutely want to replay and one of them is Sword Beach: Queen White (Brèche d´Hermanville) and this was their landing beach.

Anyway, here is a picture showing the unit flash. These were painted freehand on both the left and right arm of all the minis. Again this gave me some grief, since I managed to paint the colours of the triangle in reverse on both the 2nd and 3rd batch and I had to go back to these.

So to give an idea of them all, here is a group shot. 28 minis in total, unfortunately 6 of them prone.

But as some might have realized… I am still far away from my 1000 point target. Up next I want to paint a Napoleonic unit (this means slower progress still) I felt I needed something to give me some milage. Looking through my closet of unpainted tanks I found some early War German armor and tackled those. The tanks in both Züge are by New Millennium Hobbies (and yes these are 28mm not 15mm). All were repainted and enhanced with dust, rust on the exhaust and consecutive turret numbers. One is a Zug of PzKw 38 (t), the other of PzKW IV Ausführung F. Both should do nicely in any early WWII game from Poland, over France to operation Barbarossa. The good thing is, since they are all cast with closed turret hatches I did not have to worry about commander figures and was able to do these in one evening.

Wow, great work Burkhard and I like the settings you've chosen for your photos.

I quite admire the extra effort you put into the Tommies' faces and their shoulder flashes are fantastic. I also quite like the Warlord Vickers with the detail of the elevation sight, though the face on the BA gunner is wonderful as well.

This group of miniatures will give Burkhard 250 points with a few extra added for the additional attention to detail. Very nice and thanks for sharing!

From BurkhardS: 28mm WWII Soviet Snipers (8 points)

Burkhard debuts with this pair of snipers to provide support for his WWII Soviet collection.

From Burkhard:

These are just two Soviet snipers from Victory Force Miniatures. While I have almost 300 WWII Russians painted up, I only have one scout sniper and always wanted some regular snipers. 

Now when I painted those other Soviets up a few years ago, I forgot the subject and their uniforms were extremely boring, so they simply received the base colors with a homemade brown wash. To make sure these two match, I went he same way. So essentially a very poor paint job, but a fast one, since these were done while I was waiting for the filler on the first fortnight theme to dry. But I promise my other entries for the challenge will look better!

They look great Burkhard, though the prone fellow has been sculpted with a face only his baba would love. ;)

I will follow my standard practice and give half points for the prone fellow (rounded up) so 8 points total for these lads. Welcome back to the Challenge Burkhard!

From BurkhardS: 28mm Napoleonic Prussian Artillery (120 points)

From Burkhard:

So in the nick of time, here is my final entry for this years competition. These models are to represent the Prussian Berittene Batterie Nr. 2 (Horse Artillery Battery No. 2) for my Völkerschlacht project. Not much to tell about these, since they were quiet a straight forward job. It is amazing how little I manage to get done these days. The guns were painted the weekend before the last and the crews this last weekend. This was my best shot at getting the final two points to meet my target together (and to actually surpass it) with a decent entry. The worst thing was getting them based. Not I glue the minis to their base using two part epoxy. So that first step takes about a day to dry. The next step is applying filler to the bases to reduce the pitcher mound look from the integral bases. And there goes another 12 hours drying time. The Rest of the basing is quiet straightforward with sand, tuffs and static grass, but it meant that I was constantly afraid of not being able to finish them in time. Back to the minis themselves. They are from Calpe and easily my favourite range when it comes to Napoleonic Prussians. I wish I had found the time to do a French Infantry unit for this challenge.

Since this will be my final entry I would like to say a few things. First of all I really enjoyed myself. I never entertained any hopes of winning. I am a slow painter, constantly work overtime and most of my entries were Napoleonics (which take me the longest by far of all the eras I paint). But it helped me do just what I wanted... get me motivated to paint a lot of minis so I can hope to have everything painted in time for Crisis in Antwerp this fall, where I am going to host my Völkerschlacht game. My inital goal had been 500 points which I felt were going to be a stretch, but somewhere along the way I was happy to raise that to 700 to get me more motivated. If my math does not fail me I shall have surpassed that goal by more than 100 points. So I am really happy for this challenge for it allowed me to make a big leap on my timetable.

I would also like to apologize to my fellow Ronin. I had far too little time to look at your entries (usually only once every one or two weeks). I was really impressed by the company I had and by the quality of your works. So I wish I would have had more time to comment on your entries, instead of restricting myself to the most recent ones, when I had the time to look. You all would have deserved more attention from my part.

And last I would like to thank Curt for his efforts. Hosting this kind of challenge for nearly 50 people is madness. Still finding the time to help his friends during times of hardship at the same time is more than applaud able. In this sense, like a true Samurai you are one fine example of giri-ninjo. Arigatō, Curt-San!

Wow, that is one gorgeous battery of guns Burkhard. I really like that you've dirtied up both the guns and the crew to reflect them being out in the field. Very impressive.

These Prussian guns and their crew will give Burkhard 120 points which will be more than enough for him to meet his Challenge target. Well done and congratulations.

Thanks very much for your kind words Burkhard. It was a great to have you join us in this little cabal of toy soldier madness.

From BurkhardS: 28mm Napoleonic Austrians, Prussians & French (100 points)

From Burkhard:

These minis were painted over the last two weekends. Essentially these are meant to fill some of the gaps I still have for my Völkerschlacht von Leipzig project.

Up first were a couple of Östereichische (Austrian) Jäger. Now while my Allied force for the scenario is Prussian, it also includes four Austrians. These represent a company worth of Jäger that got lost earlier in the day and attached themselves to the Prussians. The minis are Front Rank. They should fit in well with my Calpe Prussians since they are roughly the same size and heft. They are marvelous sculpts to paints. The only slight reservation I had with these was that they were a bit boring in their colour choice with their Hechtgraue uniforms and mainly balck equipment... wish Front Rank had sculpted a few Haversacks on for a little colour!

Up next are a few Prussian officers. In a recent game we played I had to use some British officers as stand-ins which resulted in some jokes that I needed more Prussian officers to prevent the Brits from stealing the glory. One is a pair of artillery officers representing Oberstleutnant Schmidt who commanded von Yorcke´s artillery reserve that day. Both minis and their Horses are from Calpe. I really enjoyed their businesslike simplicity. While it might not show on the photos, I enjoyed painting the reflection of the sky into the telescope lense. I  felt this gave a great counterpoint to that simplicity and serves as a good eyecatcher.

The other one is a Prussian officer (Perry) meant to represent the officer who commanded the second detachment of the avant garde. Unfortunately his name is unknown, but this also gave me the opportunity to choose his facing colours. I went for silesian yellow, since there a lot of units from Silesia in the force and since it gave a nice contrast with the blue of the uniform and the red of the turnbacks. Also on the base are a French artillery casualty and broken gun from Offensive Miniatures. I feel that piece has lots of character and they both serve to distract from one another therefore creating lots of action on the base. The only mood point is that I arranged them in a way that it looks like the Prussian officer is shouting to get that dead Frenchmen moving again.

Up next are the French officers. I also had some gaps there. Not that I do not have enough French command stands, but a lot of those are very high ranked and it looks strange to have Napoleon lead a brigade. ;-)

First is a French colonel from Victrix. And I have to say... for me this is one of the top five Napoleonic minis around if not the best. There is so much character in that minis especially if combined with the prancing horse from the set, you just have to love that mini! It just screams smug aristocratic officer. And I love it. It is meant to represent a French General de Brigade for my Möckern project. Yes, I know this is a colonels uniform, but I simply had to realise I I did not have enough minis with the right uniform around so this will have to do. I also added a Grenadier Porte Fannion (Perry) to the base to make sure he does not look too alone.

The other base is a French General de Division and his aide. His is meant to represent Général de division Count Joseph Lagrange who commanded the French 21st Division at Leipzig. The minis is actually a Marechal painted up to represent a GdD. Both he and his aide are Perry Miniatures.

I really enjoyed painting these Frenchmen. One thing I really love to do is paint NMM gold. Now over the past few months I only painted French Légère and Prussians and while those have a lot of silver in their clothing... no gold. But about no one sports more gold than French officers so this was a great remedy! 

Last up is another French artillery casualty from Offensive Miniatures. I have not really decided ow to use him, But I wanted to paint him in one go while painting his mate so he is here as well!

Up next on the table is a battery of Prussian horse artillery. The four guns are already painted, but I have not started on the crew yet and next weekend is filled with social functions... it will be a a though challenge to get these done before the deadline.

Wow, beautiful work Burkhard! I have to admit have a great soft spot for Napoleonics so I love seeing submissions such as this. I really like your non-metalic metal effect - I've been trying much the same thing lately and am sorely missing the loss of GW's Bubonic Brown as it gave a great base shade. Anyway, again, lovely stuff.

These Austrian, Prussians and French will give Burkhard 100 points (and I see you are just one foot figure short of your target...).