From AlanD: 15mm WWII Scottish Infantry & German Ferdinand Tank Destroyer (80 points)

From Alan:

Yes! Here's yet another project!

 

As any visitor to my blog know, I'm a huge fan of the Battlegroup series of rules. I've been loving playing Battlegroup: Kursk over the past year or so, and am also very keen on building up some forces for Overlord and (especially) Fall of the Reich.

 

To this end, I present my first platoon of 1944-5 Tommies. This is made up of a HQ base with PIAT, a 2" mortar and three rifle sections. In Battlegroup British rifle sections can choose to detach their Bren groups, so I've put them on separate bases. The platoon is from the 15th (Scottish) Division, with shoulder flashes supposed to suggest the red lion rampant in yellow circle of the Division.  

Figures are from SHQ and Peter Pig.

Here's an intimidating hunk of resin to strike fear into the hearts of Soviets in Battlegroup Kursk.

I was at my local vaguely friendly model shop when I spotted this Ferdinand from Battlefront and decided to add it to my German troops for Kursk. Despite the characteristic Battlefront price causing me to wince slightly($18 AUD), this was quite a satisfying beast to whack together and paint. 

However, given that these objects aren't cheap, I really think Battlefront could make a bit more effort to make the pieces fit better, and in the case of the Ferdinand supply hatch covers (round) that actually fit the hatches (square, in the case of the commander)

. 

Anyway, grumpiness aside I'm quite looking forward to seeing this get pinned by Soviet artillery or run over a mine the first time I try to use it. 

'Vaguely friendly model shop', heh-heh, that made me smile. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big booster of my local hobby shops, but I have to admit that in my travels I have left some establishments wondering under what dank bridge did they manage to recruit the troglodytes 'working' the front desk. This being said it IS nice to see the product in the flesh, as it were.

Both the figures and the Ferdinand are excellent Alan. I'm quite intrigued by the basing of the infantry. Is that something recommended by the rules or a something of your own design?  It reminds me of the countless photos showing troops moving cautiously down the flanks of roadways.  Very evocative stuff. The camo on the Ferdinand is also well done. Shame about the hatch mixup - the beast must have rolled out of an Alsatian factory supplied with Schindler quality parts...

These jocks from the 15th Scottish and the Ferdinand will give Alan 80 points, enough for him to reach his second points target. Great job Alan!

From AlanD: 15mm WWII Soviet Armour (82 points)

From Alan:

Flitting butterfly-like from project to project, I have cleared some 15mm Russian vehicles from the lead mountain this week. These are all destined for Battle Group Kursk (best game ever), with the exception of the T34/85, which suggests that I will soon start painting things for Battlegroup Fall of the Reich.

The models are a real mixed bag. First up, here are a couple of Katyushas from Zvezda. As with all the 15mm Zvezda kits, the models fit together beautifully. As they are intended as gaming pieces some compromises are made with detail, such as only having rockets on the top of the launching rails, but they are nice little kits nevertheless.

At the other end of the model engineering scale, next are is a radio command truck and a couple of Gaz jeeps from QRF. These are very rudimentary metal kits, with the radio van in particular suffering from lots of mould lines and a reluctance from any parts to actually fit properly. The jeep base with the two pointing chaps will act as a forward observer in BGK, the other is a command base for a motorised platoon. The figures are all from Plastic Soldier Company. I like these a lot, but my army is starting to suffer from officers and NCOs all feeling the need to point at things.

Next up, a SU76 and White Scout Car from Command Decision. These are very nice models, and I particularly like all the stowage on the Scout Car. In BGK this will act as a Recce unit, carrying a squad of 6 men. I've modelled them on a separate base, complete with a tree demolished by an artillery shell.

Finally, a resin knocked-out T34/85 from Peter Pig. Despite obvious compromises with detail to mould it in one piece, I really like this model, which will act as an objective marker.

Sadly, the supplier had run out of T34/76s, so this is destined for Fall of the Reich. Being enormously pedantic I probably can't bear to use it in a Kursk game.

Great stuff! I particularly like the ungainly Katyusha trucks, the Gaz jeeps and the grim knocked-out T34. 

Alan, you are a one-man ad campaign for this game! You've done such a great job being a booster that I'm ordering a copy today. Mission accomplished.

This selection of Soviet men and vehicles will provide Alan 82 points to add to his growing tally. Nice!

From FranL: 28mm Fantasy & 15mm Modern (213 points)

From Francis:

28mm Reaper Bones 2 Golem and a present from Anne O'Leary.

Another 28mm Golem I believe from the same pack and outfit also from Anne, quiet big figures!

Foundry Minotaur from when we were at Blog-Con, I've included another picture (top of post) of a 28mm Harpy from Foundry to show the size of the beastie!

5 28mm Harpies also from our time at Blog-Con, no idea why I got them but I remember a scene from the movie "Waiting" and the angry bush!

Next are some 15mm Modern Somali Pirates or African Irregulars from Khurasan Miniatures.....

15mm Modern Us Army Vehicles and armour (10), 3 M1A2 Abrams on the back row, 3 Bradleys in the middle, and 4 Humvees (1 destroyed), they are a mixture of Khurasan, Zvedza and Peter Pig.

15mm Modern US Army Infantry Platoon from Khurasan Miniatures, 37 figures but I believe there should be 38 but I think the fecker is hiding among the US Marines.........

Nearly finished a modern British infantry platoon and have started the bloody bloggers for charity figures plus some 15mm viral zombies.........

Wow, great work Fran! Those golems are very cool, especially the stone one. 

This wide assortment of miniatures will give Francis 213 points, just 13 points shy of his 600 point target and winning the 600 Point Duel. Now, will one of the others pip him at the finish line?

From GregB: 15mm Yom Kippur Israeli M51s & Tiran-5 (26 points)

Greg cracks off another fine entry with this great foursome of Israeli armour from the Yom Kippur War.

From Greg:

This submission includes four 15mm Israeli Defence Force tanks - three M51 Shermans and one Tiran-5. The models are all from Old Glory, with a few additional bits (the crew, the .30cal MGs) from Peter Pig.

The M51 Sherman - "ISherman" - is one of my favourite tanks.  I like up-gunned and up-armoured vehicles - everything from late model Panzer IIIs and IVs to things like the current Russian T-90.  The M51 fits this bill, taking a tank designed for WW2 and somehow stuffing a high-velocity 105mm gun into the turret.  The gun looks so large you would think some "horizontally sensitive" Space Marine came up with it.  The end-of-days-size muzzle brake really caps off the look, making giving a menacing air and cool silhouette to a tank that otherwise had a target-practice vibe to it.

These vehicles served in the 1967 Six-Days War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War.  The Centurion rightfully gets most of the glory when it comes to IDF tanks from those periods, but the role of the M51 cannot be overlooked. On the Golan Heights in 1973 it was IDF reservists in M51s that kicked off the critical Isreali counterattack against the Syrian penetrations across the 'Purple Line'.  They were part of the counter-invasion into Syrian, and played major roles in actions such as the ambush of the Iraqi armoured division which had been sent against the Israeli salient on the road to Damascus.

I have more M51s coming - this time from Battlefront.  I was very, very excited to see Battlefront release a line of Arab-Israeli war figures and models, but one thing I find so damn frustrating with Battlefront is how their concept of the word "released" does not seem to involve the notion of "physically available in stores for purchase" without a one or two month (or more) delay. Stay tuned! 

The Tiran-5 is a captured T-55 put into IDF service.  The IDF came into a large stock of captured Arab gear after their decisive win in 1967, including many T-55 tanks.  The IDF gave them a new gun, and maybe a new engine (although I'm not totally sure about that).  They equipped some reserve armoured formations in the IDF. I haven't come across a lot of information about where/when they served, but I believe they saw action in the Sinai in 1973, and equipped some "allied" formations and militias during Israel's incursion into Lebanon.  This particular Tiran figure was a test model, so it's a little lonely - I will need to add a few more to equip a couple of platoons for some T-55 vs. T-55 games in the Sinai!

Wonderful work Greg! I'm looking forward to seeing these during one of our on-the-road gaming weekends soon. (Something with a hot desert theme might be the perfect antidote for us right now.)

These four tanks will give Greg 26 points including the commanders and nice basework.

It's Cold Out Comrade - 15mm WW2 Russians in Winter by Greg

For the motherland!!

Greetings once again to the good folks at Analogue Hobbies, Greg here.  In his recent post, Curt unveiled his Germans for our latest little project - late WW2 in winter on the eastern front in 15mm.  He asked me to share some progress photos on the Russian side of the project, so here is a Russian rifle platoon and tank platoon decked out in winter gear and basing.

You will see in these photos that a) I do not have a light box (one of these days maybe, but anyway) so sorry about the photos and b) that I have not yet cottoned on to Curt's very sensible basing scheme using different shapes to denote different functions in skirmish gaming (hex for officers etc).

Part of my hobby nuttiness is an undue rigidity in my preferences on basing i.e. if the infantry are round then they are all round dammit! This works well enough for skirmishing with 15mm sci-fi figures, where the function/role of an individual figure can stand out against the ambient table background a little better because of crazy painting, large weapons among other factors.

But for skirmishing at 15mm WW2, it's tricky to see the different weapons sometimes (or maybe all the time for some players).  So I have ordered some new bases! But in the interim, labels will have to do for my fellows until I get them sorted on to new bases....anyway, on to the figures!

Russian infantry advance through the snow

A sniper waits in ambush - the snipers were pretty scary when we tried Chain of Command, so I thought it would be fun to include one

The infantry in this post are from Peter Pig (in my opinion the very best WW2 15mm figures out there, if you can figure out their bloody web site).  The only exception is the sniper - a spare from a Battlefront pack.  The infantry contingent includes three nine-man squads, two officers and a sniper.  Enough for a Bolt Action of Chain of Command-type skirmish game.

Another view of the charging Russian troops - beautiful sculpts from Peter Pig

After experimenting with different sorts of snow-flake type groundwork products, I opted instead for gel.  I used a mix of different gel mediums on the bases, painting the snow a light blue-grey, and then dry-brushing various shades of white, before tossing in some dirt and adding some grass.  The photos make the grass look really yellow but that is a reflection of the lighting issues on the photos - the grass looks much less lively in person.

The officers are front and centre in this shot

I have been wanting to do winter WW2 gaming for years, and talking about doing it for years, but I always hung up on the details before getting started.  I didn't really know how to do snowy terrain.  It seemed pointless to duplicate my existing 15mm stuff. I didn't want to get another set of table terrain.  Lots of reasons (read: excuses) which, oddly, never popped into my head when I thought of doing, say, desert terrain.  So I'm glad Curt finally kicked me into gear on this one.

There are so many compelling campaigns from winters on the Eastern Front - the counter-offensive at Moscow, the counter-offensive around Stalingrad, fighting around Kharkov, the liberation of the Ukraine, Korsun and Cherkassy pockets.  There is something about the winter of the Eastern Front that is extremely mournful...I can't wait to play some winter games.

The NCO is a blurry with the SMG, but you can see the LMG on the right

The tanks are all from the Plastic Soldier Company. Close inspection will reveal I likely put the wheel assemblies on backwards on one of the tanks.  I don't what it is about model tanks, but that is just something I'm prone to doing. Even the relatively straightforward PSC model tanks are a cluster f*ck in my modelling hands...oh well.  I will never turn heads at the IPMS.

T-34/76 from Plastic Soldier Company

A great thing about the PSC tanks is the spare turret - you can upgrade your drive on Kharkov to a drive to the Oder with the quick switch of a turret!

Quick turret switch and you upgrade to a late-war Guards tank regiment with T-34/85s in no time

Many winter vehicle models I have seen online have a very pristine white paint jobs on them. But that never makes sense to me.  I imagine the life of tankers on the Eastern Front. Who had time to take the tanks for a nice, proper paint job at the depot?  The tanks were needed at the front! The pressure was on to continue the advance! Particularly on the Eastern Front, where the Russian army typically launched shattering counter-offensives and offensives in the winter.  The tanks were driven through all manner of rough terrain, in incredibly tough elements, in combat conditions that to my mind would wear away a rapidly applied field paint job.

Ready to roll toward the Baltic and the Oder river

And winter is seldom pristine on vehicles of any colour.  Snow looks pretty and white in post cards (and at Christmas), but I know from growing up here in Winnipeg, snow gets dirty, mushy, and messy in no time at all.  So I tried to reflect that on these tanks - hard-living and hard-fighting T-34s of the Motherland!  Lots of paint chipping, weathering, soot and mud from the hard work of driving the fascist vipers from Mother Russia.

Soot. Exhaust. Mud. Fun!

I'm really glad to have made a start on the winter 15mm stuff.  I look froward to getting these on the table against Curt's fine late-war winter Germans next month.  I am also going to start on some winter 15mm Germans of my own so we can do some winter games here with the group in Winnipeg.  And the neat thing about winter is that once you have winter Germans, then maybe I can go to some winter Americans...and Battle of the Bulge?  One thing at a time...

From RayR: 15mm Scottish Pikemen (546 points)

Well, we've all been waiting for our previous year's Champion to start his dash to the finish. So not to disappoint, here's Ray with his final run-in:

Its a big one!! Like Tamsin I've been busy painting pike units, not Swiss though, but Scots for the Battle of Flodden. 

There are 16 units of 16 figures. 15 represent King James IV's command at the battle and one unit the green flagged unit Lord Home's is from his command.

All the pikemen are from Peter Pig while the front rank troops are from a variety of manufacturers including Essex, Peter Pig, Donnington, Frei Korps, MY, Feudal and  Minifigs.

There are another 30 odd of these pike blocks left to paint, I've stared some, but don't think they'll make the Challenge! Unlike some other stuff waiting in the wings!!!!

Excellent work Ray. I imagine this is only the first sandbag to fall away from you as you dash in? Cheeky git.

These sixteen (!) units with their lovely banners all proudly flappity-flapping will give Ray 546 points. Yep, you read right. 546. That is a shed-load of points in anyone's books! Well done young man!  

Now, the question is: Does Tamsin have the 200+ points to bridge the gap?