From FrederickC: Reinforcements for the 4th Indian Division and the 8th Circle of Hell [Fraud] (315 points)

During last year's painting challenge I painted up several units of the 4th Indian Division in North Africa. However I felt that they needed some additional troops. For this week's submission I  have added another six-man section of the 4th Battalion, 16th Punjab Regiment, two Sikh Vickers machine gun teams, two Sikh 3" mortar teams, two Sikh two-man forward observer teams, and four Indian Pattern wheeled armoured carriers, each with a three-man crew inside. The final figure is a bit of a conundrum - an Italian NCO lost somewhere in the desert.

The section of Punjabis are from an 8th Army multipart sprue by Warlord Games. All the Sikhs and the armoured carriers are 3D prints using STL files from MyMiniFactory. Some of those figures were also multipart. While I liked the general animation and sculpting of the 3D prints, the designer got a number of the small details wrong such as buckles were there shouldn't be any, and missing buckles where they should be. Also the Bren guns are a little stubby, and the 'Lee-Enfields' look more like a Mauser than the SMLE used in North Africa. These complaints are just my OCD for historical accuracy kicking in, but most people probably won't notice when the figures are deployed on the tabletop. 

All the single figures were assembled and mounted on 25mm bases, and some fine sand was added using PVA glue. In the case of the support weapons and their crews, and the crews of the carriers, they were glued onto a popsicle stick with a small dab of PVA glue to give me something to handle while priming and painting. In the case of the carriers, only the wheels were separate pieces, and these were glued on after painting, but before any washes were applied.

All the figures and vehicle were primed with Vallejo Desert Tan Surface Primer using an airbrush, expect the wheels which were primed with Vallejo Black Surface Primer. This made painting the tires so much easier than trying to do it with a paintbrush. The soldiers' uniforms were left the base colour of Desert Tan. I then painted the rest primarily with Vallejo acrylics as follows: faces, arms and legs - Cork Brown; webbing - Iraqi Sand; canteen covers and ground sheets - US Field Drab; rifle stocks - Beige Brown; boots, beards, bayonet scabbards, and metal weapons parts - German Grey; socks - Khaki; gas mask bag - Tan Yellow; turbans - Dark Sand; machine gun water jackets and tripods - Camo Olive Green; mortar tubes - Tan Yellow, bayonets - Gungrey. Once completed, everything got the ol' "Army Painter Strong Tone Quick Shade" treatment. When that was dry, the support weapons and crews were glued to their bases using Super Glue. Here's the final result.

Reinforcements for the 4th Indian Division

 

Section of the 4th Battalion, 16th Punjab Regiment

Vickers machine gun teams (front)

Vickers machine gun teams (back)

3" mortar teams (front)

3" mortar teams (back)

Forward Observer teams

One of the more interesting items in this submission are the four Armoured Carrier, Wheeled, Indian Pattern (ACV-IP), known also as the Indian Pattern Carrier or other similar names. It was an armoured car produced in India during the Second World War based on the Canadian Military Pattern truck chassis. It was typically armed with a Boys anti-tank rifle and a Bren light machine gun. Those produced by Tata Locomotives were called "Tatanagars" after the location of the works. A total of 4,655 were produced, and used by Indian units in the Far East and Mediterranean and Middle East theatres, typically in the divisional reconnaissance regiments. My friend who did the printing for me only produced five storage bins for the back of the vehicles, so I filled in the space on three of them with various tarps and fuel cans I had in my bits box. I also had to do some trimming off the back corner of the seats of the driver and anti-tank gunner in order to get them into their slot inside the vehicle without breaking something. These were painted using the Caunter camouflage scheme similar to the vehicles I did last year. The Vallejo colours used, going from lightest to darkest, are Ivory, Stone Grey, and German Field Grey. The vehicles then got a wash consisting of a mixture of 3 parts Citadel Seraphim Sepia, 3 parts Citadel Agrax Earthshade, and 4 parts water. When that was dry, they got a liberal application of Vallejo Wash FX Desert Dust.

IWM photo of an Indian Pattern carrier with Caunter camo dated April 1942

 

The last figure in this submission is one I was gifted by fellow Fawcett Avenue Conscript, DallasE. It is an old Battle Honours mini he acquired two decades ago from either Bartertown or eBay with the purchase of a mixed bag of what was advertised as British 8th Army and German DAK, of which an Italian NCO is neither. You would have to be well into your cups in order to mistake one for either of the other two. If you buy North Africa Brits or Germans, you don't expect to get Italians. A bit of fraud being perpetrated by the seller, if you ask me. So, I am going to claim this figure for the 8th Circle of Hell - Fraud - as it is clearly 'something claimed to be something it is not'. When I got him, he was still shiny metal. He has now been 'redeemed', and will join my North Africa Italians from last year's challenge.

An Italian NCO in North Africa passed off as part of the 8th Army or DAK

'Ciampolo the Barrator Tormented by the Devils - Fraud' by William Blake

The points being claimed are as follows:

 

35 x 28mm foot figure @ 5 points =  175 points

 

4 x 28mm crew served weapons @ 10 points = 40 points 

4 x 28mm vehicles @ 20 points = 80 points

1 x Circle of Hell - Fraud = 20 points 

 

Thanks for stopping by. 

Sylvain: I know I will repeat myself, but your descriptions are top notch. It shows your love for the subject you are painting and it makes your whole posting even more interesting. Your vehicles especially, got my attention with the perfectly lined up camouflage pattern. Another remarkable submission!

From Mike W: 28mm 17th Century Dutch, 15mm 8th Army, 40k Orks and more (320 Points)

This week's output has been hit by work and real life pressures eating away at my hobby time - so I can't present quite the same number of finished models, but I have tried to keep the variety going by doing another Studio visit and a test set of 15mm 8th Army Infantry.

Lady Sarah's Limo Fare - Female Survivor with a shotgun

First up again is a Female Survivor being used as a fare to use Lady Sarah's Limo to transport me to the Casting Coach. This figure carries a double barrelled shotgun and also sports a utility belt and wears a nice brown leather jacket and jeans.

Slightly different view

Sky Blue jeans with a blue ink wash applied for shading,
grey/white t-shirt and brown leather jacket and Stetson.

At the Casting Couch we stumble upon an errant dwarf who has been casting for '50 Shades of Grey' or some other film of a similar dubious nature. The producer has left him somewhat tied-up, awaiting his cinematic debut!

A very naughty Dwarf! Bubonic Brown ropes, barbarian flesh and
orange hair are the main colours used here!

I washed the rope with inks to give definition, then gave the hair a red ink
wash before dry-brushing yellow. Skin area got a Flesh wash.

Moving on to this week's main submission we have Regiment Slangenburg which was an Infantry Regiment of the Dutch line in 1675. The colonel we one Fredrik Johan van Baer, Heer van Slangenburg, the unit appears in a number of sources where it is variously described as having white or grey tunics, with crimson linings. One source describes them wearing red tunics, although this was a common practice or officers and NCOs at the time and another source describes the drummer in a crimson tunic with orange pants and socks.

A completed battalion of the Regiment Slangenburg, there are 28 figures, with Musketeers on 4 x 4 figure bases and the pike & command on 6 x  figure bases. The flags are temporary, sourced from Warflag.com

I have interpreted these sources as shown below - light grey tunics with red cuffs and linings, officers and drummer in crimson and all with orange trimmings. I have given the musketeers a few black hats to break-up the informality and they also have a variety of grey shades for socks.

The unit's right flank, most figures are North Star's 1672 range,
with a couple of others thrown in to make-up numbers and add variety.

I'm planning to use Flags of War's glorious 28mm flags on this unit but an admin 'cock-up' o my part means that the order has been delayed, so I am presenting them here now with temporary flags downloaded from the excellent WarFlag.com site.

The unit's left flank

It's been a while since I dis a unit of Late 17th Century figures for my collection and I'd forgotten how many buttons these little guys have on them, Musketeers averaged 20 buttons each and the Pike & command figures averaged 16 buttons each - in all, by my calculation, 536 buttons on this one unit!

A nice view of the command block and the 'make do' flags from Warflag.com

I have the pike and command figures based on 2 figure bases 20 x 40mm, so that I can create a ring of pikes around the command figures. The command figures are on 2 man bases so that I can swap out command figures and use the unit in a number of scenarios on different sides of the various conflicts of that time.

Another view of the pike block

These last two pictures are of the musketeers, what's nice about this period is that there are literally very few sources for uniform details, so you can quite rightly interpret what little info there is to fit your table-top version of reality!

Musketeer's business end! Note all the buttons....

Dutch troops tended to have larger, floppier hats than other nations, but this was not a hard and fast rule, they were also influenced by French military fashions. In the ranks of these musketeers you can see a mix of the hat and uniform types

The other Musketeer wing.

I have also been doing a mounted officer to go with this unit but time has beaten me this week, hopefully I'll stay focused and finish this guy next week.

Next up are this week's batch of 13 x Orks & 11 x Grechin, all painted in the same basic manner as all the others as I work towards completion of this army.

This week's batch

First up is a boss figure, armed with power Axe and a Hand Blasta, this is a plastic figure sourced as most of the others from eBay.

Warboss

This batch of figures contained some old metal figures, including repurposed Gorka Morka Ork figure armed with a Big Burna, I particularly liked the head with goggles on this figure. With him is a more modern Plastic Guy with a Big Burna and backpack full of tools.

Old metal figure on left, newer plastic figure to right

Quick view of their respective back packs!

As ever, there are a number of basic Boys with Choppas and Hand Blastas, I've added smoke to a few of the Boyz power weapons for extra effect.

Four Boyz

In this batch we have four Boyz with Heavy Blastas

And four more...

The last two Ork figures are both plastic and represent a guy with a Rocket launcher and another with a Heavy Blasta support weapon, for even more Dakka.

Final two Orks

Rear views showing their backpacks with additional Ammo supplies

Then we come on to the Grechin, who run the show in this army. There are three old metal figures plus eight plastic, more modern figures. I have done these without armbands, just to ring the changes, but the cool metal Boss figure has a Red Star back banner and some of the grenades have red stars painted on them.

Thirteen Grechin figures, including three old metal figures and three converted figures,
remainder are all standard plastics.

Three older metal figures. Central is the Grechin Boss withAK47 derivative and a pistol, as a leader the has the red hair of rank. Either site is a standard, metal Gretchin figure.

So I also did a bit of kit-bashing to make up three unique Gretchin figures. First I used an old Grot plastic figure and converted him to carry a looted Imperial Guard Burna. Next I took a plastic Snotling and removed his wooden club and replaced it with a looted Imperial Guard LasRifle, finally I took a classic GW fantasy goblin from the 1980s, replaced his head with a spare modern head, removed his spear and replaced it with a hand blaster, added a grenade and bullets to his belt.

Most of the looted equipment for this Ork army is sourced from my Imperial Guard spares box, giving a consistent look and feel - implying previous battles against the Imperial Guard.

These are all converted figures, looted Burna left,
looted LasRifle centre and a converted vintage goblin on right

Finally this week, we have a small test group of 15mm 8th Army figures, I obviously plan to do a few more of these in the coming weeks, as I eliminate a backlog of several (will maybe 4) Flames of War packs I found in the loft. 

5 test 8th Army infantrymen

Four Riflemen and a guy with an Anti-Tank Rifle. Basically I was experimenting with approaches on how to paint these and in hindsight I should have photographed each option. I undercoated the figures in White, Buff or light yellow before washing with either Agrax Earthshade or Skeleton Horde Contrast Paint.

And another view

Close-up of the guy with the Anti-Tank Rifle

Flesh was then added and details painted in for rifles and webbing etc before washing with a ligh tbrown shade to bring it all together.

Current Position, planning on heading to Fantasy Lot next week

POINTS

Lady Sarah Bonus                                     20 Points

Lady Sarah Fare                                          5 Points

Casting Couch Bonus                                20 Points

Casting Couch Figure                                  5 Points

28 x 28mm Dutch Foot @ 5 Pts ea          140 Points

24 x 40 Orks & Grechin @ 5 Pts ea        120 Points 

5 x 15mm 8th Army Infantry @2 Pts ea   10 Points

TOTAL                                                     320 Points

SIDE DUEL POINTS

+2 Squirrel Points (15mm 8th Army, 28mm 17th Century Dutch)

From TeemuL: Worry not, there is lot of finished miniatures and lots of variety, Mike! :) It seems that you are going strong towards your target, and beyond. Regiment Slangenburg looks great with all their buttons, the dwarf looks great with all his ropes, too. I hope he has a good career and doesn't run into that survivor with nice trousers. Well done again, more orks next week?

From DallasE: Return to the Western Desert! (World Cinema, 70 points)

Back to the Western Desert indeed! In preparation for an El Alamein game I hosted on Thursday, I built and painted this 1/48 Tamiya Matilda (yes I know Matildas weren't really a big deal in '42) and some really nice Perry Miniatures Germans. On with the show! 

The model was pretty straightforward to assemble, as are most Tamiya 1/48 kits. But nowadays rather than having a metal lower hull, the newer Tamiya kits are all plastic - albeit with some solid metal tubes to insert inside the hull to add some nice weight to the model.

I painted the model in a weathered Caunter camo pattern. And if you've ever read anything about Caunter camo, you know it's controversial! Some say blue, some say grey, some green... who knows. But I think this ended up looking OK. The base tan is AK Deck Tan, the blue is Thunderhawk Blue, and the slate grey is Vallejo German Uniform. 

For Christmas I got a box of AK Interactive paints and washes - "Rust and Staining" edition. Pretty good stuff and has come in handy, I used the Dark and Light Rust on the exhaust mufflers.

There was a bottle of German Camo Black-Brown in that box as well and I love that stuff, especially for sponge chipping. I used to mix craft black paint and GW Rhinox Hide but I love the pre-mixed GCBB for this work.

I used some of the kit decals on the kit but not all of the ones that were provided for "Defiance". This was because there was already stowage and junk stuck on the turret where the decals were supposed to go. Anyway it's a nice model and I think it turned out OK. 

The other models for this week are from Perry Miniatures - the German Zug/Platoon Command pack. Really nice models just as you'd expect from the twins. They're painted just like the other Perry Germans I've done thus far. If you're interested you can have a look at some here.
 

You get an MG-34 gunner and assistant...

An officer in some rather casual clothing and a runner...

And an anti-tank rifleman enjoying a drink with an NCO. I made the sign for our recent game, it's from a 1/35 Italeri kit. I used a 0.1mm technical pen for the lettering and skull and crossbones. I love stuff like this as it adds so much to the gaming battlefield.

For this one I'm gonna head over to the World Cinema for 20 bonus points, add that to 20 for the Matilda and 30 for five 28mm infantry, and you get 70 total.

Tally ho and Heia Safari!

Love the Matilda, really great job on that. Impressed with the wafer biscuits named after the good Lady Sarah, hope they are nice or she will be insulted that her name is being applied to shoddy mechandise