From DaveD - 15mm US Tanks - 372 points

Part 2 of the 15mm painting plan seeing the factories of Detroit filling up the ranks of the US army in Normandy and beyond ,

M4 Shermans. - most of these have hedgecutter "Rhino" / Cullin prongs added for some later bocage battles.

75mm armed 

 

76mm armed 

M5 Stuart’s , and tractors

AAA Half’s tracks -

M15 & M16

SP Artillery

M12 GMC's - 155mm big bang stuff!

now some late war stuff. I haven't made my mind up on timeframe for these at the moment so have left tufts off as I am tempted to do a bit more "winter" Bulge stuff - but that way could lie madness

Late war

105mm armed

                           

Easy 8s

                               

the aerials are made form fishing line - it does add something i think 

M36 Jacksons

the tank park!

They are all Battlefront items. they do need a chunk more work on stowage and for some some passengers , but for now thats a job a another time

So it’s:-
38 15mm vehicles - (304 points)
42 15mm vehicle crew (42 points)
13 15mm full figure artillery crew (26 points)

Bit of terrain works next ., and i may visit a challenge island spot or two as i have some things that line up. This lot also puts me nicely ahead of target run rate for my target for challenge end


For Christ's sake Dave! Look lot can look on in awe but I have to play against this bugger. Epic points bomb, although your maths was rubbish

From DaveD - 15 mm Tanks - Hit the Beach 120pts

I am now fully into the swing of the 15mm part of the painting plan. So first up I have new items for my US 1944 ETO. Last year I played a large Utah beach game (Link here)and these items are to further enhance the invasion beach items.

So I have 6 classic Sherman DD’s (taking me to 10 in total now)

More units to add to my 70th Tank Battalion for Utah Beach

Following a conversation with JamesM of this parish we found some 3D print designs for  deep wading kits to add to the tanks. I was going to magnetise these so they could be removed , but in the end with  Battlefronts “Hit the Beach” set  being such good value (I ended up buying one and being given the Sherman's from 2 of them !). I just went with having more tanks!

So I have 4 with deep wading kits , 3 of those are also dozer equipped - they represent units from  70th Tank Battalion that landed on Utah Beach on D Day. There is also an armoured bulldozer to help clear those troublesome obstacles

I really like these , and I don't think I have ever seey any on a gaming table.
Nice to have something unique too.

Then as I had some M10’s spare (as you do - well I do/did...) I added wading kits to them . While they didn’t actually land any TD units on D Day itself , they just looked too coool .. so they will be in my next re run of the Utah beach game this summer.

So it’s 15 vehicles x 8 points = 120 points

The next lot of tanks are already lining the docks ready for departure to a blog post near you!

I played the Utah game, may have been the best game ever. Dave rocks up with a few tanks, there will be millions more, i wonder what the largest US vs German tank battle was as james has more than Dave

KenR : 15mm Kursk Russians (262 Points)

Well I have only just managed to sneak this one in, I popped down the local gaming club to blood the Italian Wars Project and come back only to find Fran has knocked off 500 points in a day and knicked 6th spot !

Sadly my little secret side Project won't be enough to steal it back.

Whilst churning out the fancy Dan Gendarme I needed a palette cleanser on the side for when I got bored of shiny armour and livery emblazoned with family crests. I refuse to do the same period in different scales however I have been known to break down longer conflicts like WWII into different areas. So I have a 28mm Early Desert Collection and a 6mm late war Western Front collection. What I haven't done is the Eastern Front and I fancy a go at Kursk as the forces are fairly even.

I have liked the look of the Plastic Soldier Company models for a while so I have picked up a few boxes to see how I get on with them. Above is a 1:1  platoon of Rifles 36 figures at 2 pts a piece for 72.

A second selection of 27 figures for 54 points.

5 x T 34s for 40 points

5 x T 70s for another 40 points

And finally 2 x 76mm Field Guns and 2 x 57mm Anti Tank Guns. These are 5 crew and 1 piece per base = 14 or 56 points for the lot. Giving a grand total for my final entry of Challenge IX of 262 points.

I'll put together a group shot and final thanks in a couple of days, all the best Ken

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Wow, what a great final closing to your Challenge, Ken and a wonderfully shocking change of tack from your Great Italian Wars project.  I can't say I'm on board with the whole idea of not wanting to do a period in more than one scale (ie. WWII and Naps in four scales, right Greg?!), but do I admire your gymnastics of rationalisation of doing different scales for different theatres. 

With these Soviets serving as your opening volley on this new project, will be be treated to the opposing Germans during the next edition of the Challenge? I hope so as your brushwork and composition is always top drawer stuff. I'm looking forward to it.

- Curt

From AlanD - The Fall of the 15mm Reich (51 points)

Right, I'm not going to bed until I hit my 1500 point target. It;s going to be tough, so excuse the breif descriptions.

Here are some bits and bobs for Battle Group Fall of the Reich. All are intended for some games I have planned for Berlin in 1945. The first is a WWI surplus 150mm howitzer with Volkssturm crew, the the gun from the PSC Great War board game, and crew from PSC and Battle Front. The tow is from Skytrex.

This Tiger II is also from Skytrex, and I didn't enjoy assembling or painting it at all. None of the pieces fit. The idea is that this vehicle was rushed to Berlin from the factory. It was finished in red primer at the factory, with some dunkelgelb added as camouflage. I added some rubble that has fallen on the tank.

Much more fun to put together were these Marders, from the very handy PSC kit of Marders and Panzer 38(t).

4 vehicles (32 points), 1 gun (4 points) and 7.5 figures (15 points) = 51 points please!


TamsinP:

Excellent work Alan. The rubble on the Tiger is a nice extra touch. I can't find any fault with your scoring, so 51 points it is.

Now, don't forget the IV caffeine if you are staying up all night painting until you reach 1500 points!

From TeemuL: Cromwells, Squirrel 9 (16 points)

So I'm past my target and I really can't won the Squirrel race, but there's something ready (and something else to be ready), so I'll collect all the points I can.

I recently bought some tanks for TANKS and here are the first two of them. Two Cromwell IVs, first one is a "regular" tank, another is CS variant with OQF 95mm howitzer. They have no markings, since I plan to use them mainly on TANKS, which is not that historical game. I might use them later for other games, so I like to have my options open. I just painted them with Goblin Green (really!) and added some reddish brown to imitate camouflage. Nothing very special or spectacular, but more than enough for a casual game of TANKS. They should fit quite nicely to Normandy and areas nearby.

CS is intended for close support and it has no extra equipment whereas the regular variant is intended for longer range, so I'd imagine it would need some extra fuel and other stuff. These two Cromwell tanks give me another 16 points and when combined with earlier SU-152 I'll get enough 28mm WW2 points to claim another squirrel.

List of my Squirrels here, just to keep my calculations correct and help the Duels Wallah and other interested individuals:

28mm Lord of the Rings, 28mm WH40K, 28mm General Fantasy, Age of
Sigmar, Dungeons & Dragons Boardgames, 28mm Ancient Greek, 28mm Pulp, 28mm Oldhammer, 15mm WW2

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Wait, Cromwell's Squirrels? That sounds like a wonky English Civil War dragoon unit, rushing hither and thon, from Pilar to post, chasing shiny objects and Cavaliers over the countryside.

Ah, maybe the next challenge. Instead, we have tanks rushing hither and thon, from Pilar to post, chasing shiny objects and German tanks over the Norman countryside.

Sixteen points of happy tanking to Teemu!

From AlanD: Big Cats (34 points)

Two days to try to get to my total of 1500 points! It's going to be close.

Let's start with a platoon of Tiger IIs and a Jagdtiger from games of Battle Group Fall of the Reich and Spring Awakening. These are little 15mm Zvezda kits, with I like a lot except for the closed hatches. I always like to add crew to give a sense of scale and humanity. OK - next...

The biggest of big cats! Lovely work on these and their camo patters. I particularly like the pics of the Jagdtiger lurking in your rubble.

Almost there! Have a few bonus points for the sheer size of these panzers.

Barks

From LeeH: Two Pzkfw IV Ausf J painted twice! (16 Points)

Panzerkamphwaggon IV Ausf J

I nearly finished these tanks last week, but in the end, I cleaned and re-primed them and started again...let me explain the madness. I decided to give these vehicles a different colour scheme, opting for something called Ambush Camouflage. This is a hard-edged camo that started to appear on German tanks in August 1944. It consisted of the usual Green and Red/Brown stripes over Dunkelgelb with dots of opposing colours over the top. A bit complex, but considering I don't have an airbrush I thought it would be a good alternative to my previous attempts at soft-edge camo. Initially, I was reasonably happy with it, although the dots were a bit bigger than I liked. Then I made a massive tactical error.

The final model of the Pzkf IV

I usually apply an ink wash to my models to darken shadows and, in the case of vehicles, deepen the recesses around hatches and engine grills etc. This time, for reasons even I don't understand I didn't use my normal ink but opted for Army Painter Strong Tone instead. And frankly, that ruined the models. They were way too dark and unlike regular ink, I couldn't clean away the dried excess with a wet brush. The models looked absolutely terrible and I couldn't bring myself to submit them for judging. In the end, I decided to start over so I stripped and re-base coated them. Heartbreaking, but utterly necessary!

My horrible first attempt at these tanks. Ugh!!

The second time around the result is much better. I have applied a much simpler hard edge camo design and my usual ink wash (Peat Brown Winsor and Newton Calligraphy Ink watered down 40%) and I am much much happier with the end results. As much as it killed me to restart these I just couldn't bear to present them in their former state. And the lesson folks is that even an experienced model painter can f-up occasionally!

The inking is much better on these.

The Panzer IV was an important tank, not because it was the best, but because it had such a long service life. It was continually able to be up-gunned and modified meaning it saw service through the whole of WWII in various iterations. These are the Ausf.J, the final production versions of the Panzer IV. In many ways, it was simpler than the earlier Ausf F version, in large part to speed production in the face of heavy battlefield losses against the Russians. The Ausf J was armed with the 7.5 cm KwK 40 L/48 gun and had 80mm rolled homogeneous armour on the front and 30mm on the sides. One innovation fitted to some, but not all, J's (and not on these models) was the move from solid Shutzen side plates to Drahtgeflecht Schürzen (Steel Mesh) which obviously saved weight but was found to be just as effective against shaped charge projectiles like Bazookas.

Well, I'm glad I managed to finish these, albeit just in time for today. Having to strip and repaint a finished model is drastic, but sometimes necessary. 

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Beautiful work Lee. These are definitely a cleaner, brighter rendition from your first rendition.  I have to say that I really didn't mind the darker toned versions. With a heavy dust drybrush they would have looked like seasoned veterans to my eyes.

These two MkIVs will give Lee another 16 points as he bravely grinds by his points target for this year. Well done!

Curt