Finishing off Allied vehicles

These models have been sat in my cupboard for years, so I made a start on finishing them off a few months ago (just checked and it was March!!!), and picked them up again back in October. Anyway, they now complete...apart from painting the crews for the carriers.

My British Mediterranean forces now have some armour in the form of 2 x Vickers Mk.VI and 2 x A13 Cruisers, plus 3 x carriers for moving infantry around the battlefield.

I attempted a Caunter pattern on the carriers, which looks accurate based on some photos I found of British troops in Greece, but perhaps less accurate on the A13s; I couldn't find any suitable reference photos for them, so made it up a bit.

Finishing off British forces in the Mediterranean

Some of the stuff featured in this post has been on my painting table (actually, in the cupboard) part finished for a few years. I did a little bit of work on them a few months ago, but have decided to crack on and get them finished. I've had a weekend of finishing things off, partly inspired by the new range of Greek miniatures that Great Escape Games are about to launch. I've already got a platoon of Greek Mountain Infantry, plus plenty of support weapons including a pair of CV-35 tankettes, but inevitably I'll end up with some of the new range when they become available.

I finished off basing all my Greeks, plus some Gebirgsjager and some British infantry yesterday.

The stuff from the cupboard includes 3 x Bren carriers, which are actually finished except for painting the crews, a pair of A13 Cruisers and a pair of Vickers Light Tanks MkVI. The idea is to use them for scenarios set in North Africa, Sicily, Greece and perhaps even Italy.

I tried out the Caunter camo scheme on the carriers first of all because they had fewer lumps and bumps that needed masking prior to spraying with the airbrush.

I then made a start on applying Caunter to the A13s, but then put them down again a few months ago after getting this far.

The paints are Vallejo Model Air and come from a set called British Caunter Colors. The base colour is 71.288 Portland Stone, the lighter green is 71.401 Silver Grey and the dark green is 71.012 Dark Green.

I masked off another section and applied another thick stripe of Silver Grey today. One trick that I have learnt when applying the masking tape (well, two tips) is to stick the masking tape to your trousers a few times to take a lot of the stickiness out of it, otherwise it sticks to the paint too well, which brings me onto tip #2. When removing the tape, pull it as gently as you can and go as slowly as you can, otherwise it will pull off flakes of the base coat.

This thicker light green stripe is going to have another dark green stripe painted inside it, but I need to leave this one to dry for several days, otherwise risk pulling parts of it with the next application of masking tape.

The other tanks that I will make a start on finishing(!) are a pair of Vickers Mk.VIb's. I had got as far as painting on the base colour, which I think is Vallejo Model Color Iraqi Sand. I'm not 100% sure what I am going to do with them yet, but definitely not Caunter because of the difficulty of masking all the various panels.

All of the models featured in this post are made by Blitzkrieg Miniatures.

Operation Marita - German invasion of Greece

I've been working on painting up a German invasion force and defending Greeks, supported by some Brits, for a few months now. The armies shown here have been put together for Iron Cross, where a handful of miniatures represents an infantry or support unit and one vehicle per vehicle unit.

Other than adding tufts and flock to the bases, I finally finished all of the miniatures this afternoon. Here is the whole of the Allied forces, awaiting some armoured support...

The core of the force is made of an HQ squad...

...and four infantry platoons

A sniper is really useful when defending, which I am expecting to be doing in the majority of scenarios with this Greek army.

A couple of CV-35s (captured from the Italians), which are useful for putting down heavy fire onto infantry.

A couple of infantry support units: a medium machine gun (again, good for putting down a weight of fire and stopping infantry assaults) and a mortar team, which I mainly use to cause units-in-cover to move and lose their cover bonus, which is especially useful for disrupting support weapons and limiting their rate of fire.

A Skoda M.15 75mm mountain gun, an anti-tank rifle, and an 'Elephantino' anti-tank gun to provide some heavier fire against advancing panzers.

In support of the Greeks, I've got some extra British infantry mounted in a lorry. I've also got a British 2 pounder anti-tank gun on the painting pile to provide extra AT punch.

I've also got a few more armoured vehicles to paint for the British

• a platoon of universal carriers to add further mobility to the reserves, 
• a couple of Vickers MkVI's just for the nuisance value, and
• a couple of A13's which have a reasonable chance against the panzers.

I plan on making some terrain pieces too: trench works to give the defenders some protection and barbed wire and minefields to slow them down a little and channel the enemy's advance onto the AT guns.

On the attack are the Germans with 3 x Panzer 38(t)s, 2 x Panzer IVs and 6 x Panzer IIIs...

...and 1 x HQ unit, 6 x infantry squads (3 in trucks), a mortar team, an HMG team, a Pak36 AT gun, 2 x anti-tank rifle teams, and 2 x teams of Panzerjagers armed with AT grenades. A formidable force!

A selection of German armour. I have no idea how the Greeks are going to stop that lot!  I might need to "dig" a few anti-tank ditches in addition to making the other terrain pieces to stop the Greeks from being overrun immediately.

German panzers scouting ahead of the main force...

Greek anti-tank units concealed in the pine forest lie in wait...

I will crack on with making the terrain pieces now and also finish off the British armoured units and then maybe by then we will be out of lockdown and get some gaming in.

AAR: Small game of Iron Cross - Italy 1944

My son and I have played a small game of Iron Cross today. It was a pleasure to get some toys out on the table and attempt to teach my 11-year old some tactics and the rules of the game. Iron Cross has really simple mechanics and not very many rules, which makes it easy to pick up quickly, but what it does allow for is permanent involvement from both players...something that is really important when playing against the video game generation!

The game we played was very loosely set in Italy on the basis that the terrain I have been working on over the last few months is all intended for the Mediterranean; the limiting factor making it "loosely based on reality" was that I haven't got full opposing armies for the region yet. 

Like most gamers, I'm not short of figures, but I haven't yet completed forces for this region yet. I have got opposing company-sized forces for North Africa (DAK versus 4th Infantry Division (India)); late war Germans (both Heer and SS) versus British for northern Europe; Romanians versus Hungarians (or Germans) for late war eastern Europe; plus several other single forces for various theatres. Therefore, the forces we fielded were some almost-appropriately dressed DAK versus some British in tropical uniforms. We had an HQ and three units of infantry each.  As the German player, I also had two Panthers and a Marder II; Tom had 5 Shermans. The points were inequal, but in his favour.

I won the opening roll to seize the initiative and deployed some infantry and one of the Panthers near to the road which ran across the centre of the table.

In turn 1, Tom pushed two of his Shermans, an infantry unit and his HQ aggressively up the main road. The Panther and leading Sherman traded shots, but both failed to hit during the first turn.

As soon as the leading Sherman started taking some more accurate fire from the now-stationary Panther, he wisely decided to veer off the main road and take cover the behind the trees and building which obscured the Panther's line of sight.

I think that photo below was from the third turn where Tom started advancing around my left flank with two more Shermans (quantity certainly has a quality all of its own!), and some infantry trailing behind in support.

Meanwhile, using the cover of the villa adjacent to the main road, I deployed my Marder II and started trading shots with the advancing Shermans, which slowed them down a little.

The view from the British right flank with (now) three Shermans advancing...

With the initiative again, Tom spent a few command tokens and targeted the opposing Panther.

Unfortunately, the Sherman scored a direct hit and destroyed the big cat! I thought that I was pretty safe with the Panther's front armour facing towards the enemy...clearly not.  Rolling two 10's was plenty to wipe my tank out.

Meanwhile, on the German right flank, I manoeuvred my second Panther around a small copse and fired whilst on the move at the isolated Sherman, scoring a direct hit and brewing it up. After being the first to lose some armour, I felt slightly better about taking out one of his tanks, which evened up the odds just a little. That's one of the problems with heavily armoured tanks with big guns - when you do lose one, it hurts a lot more than losing a more lightly armed, cheaper vehicle. 

Whilst I was quietly celebrating, Tom continued to advance in force against my left flank.

The Marder earned its pay for a couple of turns, placing repeated shots (even some penetrating hits) onto two of the Shermans, but with each hit it failed to completely destroy them. Tom then had to rally his troops and burn through several command tokens on Company Morale Tests.

The Marder could only stem the tide against a superior number of tanks for so long though and was eventually destroyed. 

It did hold up his advancing Shermans for about three turns though, which allowed me to re-position my remaining Panther into a more advantageous position in the centre of the battlefield for protecting my left flank. However, a previously badly-mauled Sherman, which had been hidden behind the building, taking cover and repairing its damaged turret (make up your own narrative here, if you like!), re-emerged from behind the building at the far end of the road and fired a broadside into the Panther, which punched straight through, killing the crew.

After losing all their armour, the Germans retreated, leaving the British to take and hold the Aprilia-Campoleone road. The photo below is from the German left/British right flank. A great game, even though I lost to my son again.