Some More Battlefront Pzkpfw. IVs

Well there seemed to be little interest on my post about military watches (thanks for the comment though Greg!) so it's back to wargames figures... you guys must be heartily sick of seeing Afrika Korps armour but we're getting towards the end here, I promise. These are the last three tanks to be painted for the DAK as I've got no more bare plastic to assemble.

As you can see there are two "Mark IV Specials" equipped with the long 75mm KwK 40 L/43. This was temporarily designated by the Germans as the "Ausf. F2" and was the scourge of the desert!

The tanks were painted with a basecoat of XV88 overpainted with Tallarn Sand, then washed Agrax Earthshade and re-highlighted with Tallarn. Decals were then applied and some chipping done with German Camo Black Brown.

I might paint some armoured cars or halftracks and trucks for the DAK, but that's it for tanks, I promise.

Heia Safari!

Battlefront Afrika Korps 88mm AT Guns

Well if you're creating an Afrika Korps force for battles in the Western Desert, there's kind of one thing that you HAVE to have, and that's Flak 36 88mm anti-aircraft/anti-tank guns, full stop. The 88 is so synonymous with the DAK it would be odd to have a game without them. So as a quick couple-day project I decided to paint a couple for the game this week.

 

These are excellent plastic models from Battlefront. The crew models are that kind of soft-ish resin models you get on sprues from BF, not injection molded hard plastic.

A couple of the crew figures were standing at a crazy angle on their bases but a hot water/cold water dip and plunge straightened them out. The crew are really characterful and detailed.

 

The sprue also contained some extra bits like ammo cases and shell casings which look cool on the bases.

I painted the guns with a base of XV-88 and painted them over with a mix of Tallarn Sand blended with Deck Tan just to lighten it up a bit. I then washed with Agrax and chipped with German Camo Black Brown.

The crews were painted in my standard German way - base Khaki, wash Agrax, then tune up some random jackets and pants with lighter tones.

These should do some damage in the game on Thursday, so anyway...

Heia Safari!
 

Forged in Battle Afrika Korps Rifle Company for Flames of War

It's all very well and good painting tanks, but in my opinion, if you want a proper WW2 game, you need infantry. Such it is with Flames of War. A couple weeks ago I finished the 8th Army infantry company for my upcoming birthday game, so now it's the turn of the Afrika Korps models to go under the brushes.

The models are mostly from Forged in Battle with a few from Peter Pig in the command stands. Above are the two company command stands. The models on the right-hand stand are Piggies, I might've swapped a head on the pointing Major.

The rest of the FiB models are quite good - albeit after a complaint about the ones I initially received being terribly miscast and horrible. But to their credit FiB sent me a new pack from "new moulds" and they were pretty nice models.

Unlike the 8th Army dudes there's quite a bit of contrasting detail to paint on these models. The uniforms are Vallejo Khaki washed Agrax, the helmets are AK Light Earth likewise, webbing and straps are Light Earth, wool covers on the canteens are AK Dark Brown or New Wood, rifles are Leadbelcher, Dark Brown and New Wood, slings are Doombull Brown, shovel handles and boots are New Wood. On the officers and some of the men I randomly lightened the DAK caps, tunics or trousers just for a bit of variety.

 

In the FoW list each infantry platoon can have an MG34 machinegun base, so I painted one for each platoon (partly to compensate for the lack of the 2.8cm sPzB41 squeeze-bore antitank rifle that FiB doesn't make). As for the sPzB41... honestly I don't really understand why BF made one an organic part of each DAK infantry platoon. I didn't think they were that widely used (fewer than 2,800 were manufactured during the entire war) and one rarely comes across a mention of it in histories of the desert war... but I stand to be corrected in the comments.

ANYWAY... part of the DAK infantry company list is a platoon of 5cm PAK38 antitank guns. These are from FiB and come two in a pack with crews. The model itself is only two pieces (the barrel is separate) and the trails have the same "wide stance" as the 8th Army 6-pounders, which requires custom-made bases. But they are pretty good models nevertheless, although I think I had to replace the head on one of the crewmen as the original model came wearing a pith helmet (!). The Peter Pig pack of German heads has come in very handy in this project.

 

All in all a very nice set of DAK infantry from FiB. Anyway with the DAK infantry from Battlefront being AWOL these are recommended. The other great thing about this project is using up the spare Flames of War medium bases I've had in a box for well over 10 years!

Here's the entire German contingent I've painted so far. There's still some to paint - more Pzkpfw IVs and some 88mm Flak 36 AT/AA guns - but the impetus for those is reduced somewhat now that I've gotten the infantry painted. Looking forward to the game next week, on which I will duly report!

Heia Safari!

More Afrika Korps Pzkpfw. IIIs and a Matte Varnish Comparo Test!

I painted a bunch more Batttlefront Pzkpfw. IIIs in a variety of configurations for my upcoming Birthday Game, and thought I would spice things up a bit with a comparison test of matte varnish spray.

This is obviously an important issue for those of us who game with our models, as the paintwork needs to be protected from damage while in use. I know that the best way to do this is to varnish first with tougher gloss finish, then hit with matte, but I am lazy and hate wasting time so the models usually get only a matte varnish. HOWEVER when applying decals I usually hit the spots with brush-on gloss before applying the decal to improve adhesion and avoid silvering.

Since I have five pretty much identical models in this post I varnished each one with a different product. You can read about the results below. Test conditions were 20C, moderate humidity, two coats sprayed in my basement.

Testors Dullcote

What can you say about Testors Dullcote. After a brief and inexplicable market absence the champ is back and he's got no worries. The smell is the smell of victory (it IS pretty pungent) but Dullcote is the best, albeit getting on the expensive side...

 

You can see here how it did on the decal, it looks great (that was high gloss finish there before the spray). It took two coats to really eliminate that gloss but the model is uniformly flat.

Krylon UV-Resistant Matt 

Krylon Matte (or as we used to call it, "Fini-Matt") has a new UV-resistant formula which seemed unnecessary but whatever. What I can tell you is that it isn't as flat as the old one, which was great. But maybe I will have egg on my face when all my models have crumbled into dust from UV exposure. Oh wait, most of them are in cupboards or cases in a windowless room in the basement. So never mind.

Pretty good but not dead-flat. You can see the slight gloss on the storage bin behind the turret.

Mr Hobby Matt Water-Based Topcoat

This was kind of the impetus for the post - I saw a guy on Facebook Marketplace selling a can of this stuff for $10 and thought I'd give it a try. Apparently it's popular in the "gunpla" community (that refers to GUNdam PLAstic models, not something sexual) and the seller's models looked good in photos.

"I've used Testors Dullcote and you, sir, are no Testors Dullcote." Having said that it's not bad, a bit more on the satin side than dead flat but worth a try in a pinch.

Winsor & Newton

I tried the W&N product in a fit of desperation when neither Dullcote nor Krylon Clear Matte was available. It's all right but not great, still leaves a pretty satin finish. It's also pretty pungent.

Citadel Colours Purity Seal

OK I guess I have to cut this can a bit of a break because it's likely 20 years old... but I tried it anyway. And it's terrible. Pretty glossy finish and I wouldn't recommend it, even if you could find 20-year-old Purity Seal.

You'll notice one glaring omission in the test, and that's Army Painter Matt "Anti-Shine". Well I have a can of that at home and I recall it being not-great, but I wanted to retry it. When I popped the top the trigger button wasn't there. I guess it must have gotten clogged or something but that put Army Painter out of the test, sorry.

The contenders on test

I really like spray varnish. It's a time saver and if it's Testors Dullcote, it works great. I have a couple bottles of brush on matte varnish I've used, but only occasionally, as I find it a pain. I just ordered two more cans of Dullcote from a vendor here in Canada so hopefully the Dullcote pipeline will stay open in future. 

And since it was new Afrika Korps tanks in the test... Heia Safari!

Zvezda Tigers for the Western Desert and ISU-152 for the Yom Kippur War

More work done on the massive order of Zvezda 1:100/15mm armour kits that arrived last week... This time it's two Tiger I's and an Egyptian ISU-152.

These are early-production Tigers I think and perfect for the Western Desert with their Feifel air-cleaners. Pretty easy kits to assemble with only a few parts - but be careful of the fit of the turret to the top plate of the hull. There's a plastic pin that fits in a hole and on both of my kits they bound up, so when you turned the turret it just twisted the pin right off. No problem, fixed that with magnets but it took a bit of faffing about.

These will be used for Flames of War and I love having a commander poking his head out. Unfortunately the Zvezda kits don't have separate hatches so I had to cut off the cupola, stick on an elevated hatch, and resculpt the cupola with greenstuff. I ended up using a thinly-sliced roadwheel for the open hatch but I don't think it's obvious enough to notice. Looks OK to my wargamer's eye anyway.

  

So that's the two models. As for paint I used Tallarn Sand but lightened somewhat with off-white. Washed Agrax and re-highlighted of course, with sponge chipping and decals from an ancient 1/72 sheet. YES I KNOW that Tiger 141's tac numbers should be white outline only (and I think that 231's should be red/white?) but this is what I had to hand.

 

Next up is a relic from the YKW, an Egyptian ISU-152 SP gun. To me these look so cool, I had to have one for my Egyptian force. It was built from the box but I added the pintle MG from a Battlefront sprue for looks-cool-factor and to match one that I saw in the AK Arab-Israeli Wars vehicle book. 

I painted this one Tallarn Sand with camo in Deathworld Forest and a medium brown. Again, to match the vehicle in the AK book.

Lots of stuff painted now for the YKW, I feel like I should put on a game soon!

Heia Safari and youm sa'id!

BATTLEFRONT Grants and Zvezda Pzkpfw.II for the Western Desert

Escalation continues in the Western Desert! I'd actually finished painting these Grants a couple weeks ago but had run out of decals for them. Sentry Box to the rescue, they had a set of Battlefront Desert Rats decals in stock and I was headed out to Calgary anyway, so when I got back I set to applying them and finishing the weathering.

The models are from Plastic Soldier Company BATTLEFRONT and are typical great quality and easy to build. 

Painting was the standard 8th Army armour formula: AK Light Earth, GW Castellan Green and Deathworld Forest for the camo, washed with Agrax Earthshade and tipped back up with the same paints. 

I didn't load these down with storage as I didn't want to obscure the detail on the rear deck. However each tank does have a tarp attached for shade.

They are pretty great models, I'm happy with how they came out.

Advancing towards the enemy!

While I was in Calgary more reinforcements arrived from Poland - a box full of 1/100 Zvezda models. The first one completed was this Pzkpfw.II. The Flames of War army list allows the Afrika Korps a Panzer II as a forward observer for the 10.5cm gun battery I've painted already. But getting ahold of a single Panzer II wasn't exactly easy.

Battlefront sells these in a box of four, but I only need one. They also used to sell a blister pack of one metal and resin model but nowadays that's a Noble Knight deal and they are $$$. So I looked on eBay for a single seller that had all the Zvezda models I wanted, and got this single tank for about 5 euros. It's tiny!

It did require a bit of conversion as the Zvezda kit (five parts!!) doesn't have an opening hatch. So I had to file the hatch flat and make some "open" hatches out of card. Not difficult. I also used a Battlefront commander with binoculars. He was wearing a steel helmet though so I cut off the head and replaced it with a Peter Pig head sporting the Afrikamutze.

The tank was painted GW Tallarn Sand, washed Agrax, and highlighted again, then chipped with German Camo Black-Brown. Done!

So that's the update... some infantry have arrived from Forged in Battle so I think I'd better get at those next. It's been a bit of a trip with that bunch but I will give all the details next time. Until then, toodles and heia Safari!  

Flames of War Afrika Korps leFH 18 10.5cm Artillery Battery

Next models finished in the Flames of War/Western Desert project... this is the last of the "Dietrich's Ghosts" box from Battlefront. I'd already painted the Pzkpfw IIIs and IVs so on to the leFH 18 10.5cm light howitzers.

There were four models in the box and since they're "mid-war" and not North Africa-specific, they came with metal crew in European uniforms. This was a problem! The solution: order some specific Afrika Korps crewmen from Peter Pig.

The Piggies sell their models in packs of 8, there are three crew poses. Since I had four guns to crew, I ordered two packs to give four crew per gun.

The new Battlefront bases have six round depressions to fit the round bases of their figures. Of course the Piggie models have rectangular puddle bases and all of 'em fit well in the holes except the waving dude. The hole in the base needed to be filled in where he went.

I always have a dilemma when painting multi-based models. Do you paint them separately and then stick them on the base? The painting is easier but if you've painted the base already, you have an issue with attaching them. You have to build up the groundwork around the figure bases and paint that separately. Or do you stick the figures to the base before you paint them? Much easier because you're undercoating and painting the whole works at the same time, but it can be an issue getting your brush into all parts of the figures on the base. 

 

I went with the first option - I stuck the figures on popsicle sticks to paint, glued the gun to the base and did the groundwork on the base (leaving space for the figure bases), then painted the figures and gun/base separately. The last step was to glue the painted crew to the base, then carefully fill in and paint groundwork around their bases.

Colours used: gun - base XV-88, overcoat with Tallarn Sand, washed Agrax Earthshade then Tallarn'd again. Groundwork - Steel Legion Drab or a darker tan, then Khaki, drybrushed Rakarth Flesh, Crew - allover Khaki, washed Agrax, then spot highlighted with Khaki, Tallarn, and other random khaki green/olive or lighter colours on jackets and caps.

That's it for the field guns. I still have four 88mm Flak/AT guns to build and paint plus some 50mm PaK 36 AT guns so the Afrika Korps artillery park will be amply filled.

Heia Safari!