More painting updates, I've been pretty busy.

With the benefit of hindsight I'd have painted this tank green/dunkelgelb rather than brown/dunkelgelb as the rust pigments just seem to blend in with the brown colouring on the hull on the end pictures. Still it's not totally finished yet theres a few more sections to do, hopefully have this finished tomorrow though.

With the paint chipping I tried to do something a little different and show the "oxide red" primer that German tanks were undercoated with but the colour choices I used were poor so I added black into the red sections I did which as you can see in the final pic tones them down quite a lot. There's still a few stages of varnish to go and some washes to add so they'll be toned down even more hopefully.

Base colours:

Some drybrushing and highlighting to tan areas.

Tracks and stowage/tools base coated and some chipping/wear added:

All metal areas drybrushed in gunmetal then mig rust and dry mud pigments added to various areas:

Jagdpanther and VK4501 updates.

Worked on this guy in between waiting for coats to dry on the VK4501 yesterday, not amazingly detailed but it's what I was going for:

Tidyed up some of the pin wash this morning and glossed over to seal:

VK4501(P) update.

So I got my hands on a lovely Battlefront VK4501(P) thanks to James as mentioned in the previous post. Here's some pics of it's current progress I've snapped in between working on my British stuff.

It's for a late war army I'm constructing which I'll reiterate at the bottom of this post. Gorgeous looking vehicle and you can really see where the Ferdinand/Elefant came from when you look at the drive train on this beast. I'll be painting this in a tri-tone camo that I'm going to be airbrushing on thanks to my brother in law has loaned me his compressor. The camo pattern will be hit and miss as it'll be made up on the fly and I've never used an airbursh with a compressor before only with canned air (which is crappy btw and ends up costing you as much in the long run). Below are two pictures, one of its base coat and one of its current state.

 

The base coat I use is a mix of Tamiya XF-4 Yellow Green and some Vallejo 70882 Middlestone, this is beacause I love how Tamiya paints work through airbrushes but the colour is a little too vivid for my liking. To be honest the image still looks very bright and it doesn't look quite so stark in the flesh, I gave the model three coats of Mig Filter for Tri-Tonal camo to try and draw the shades together. This has then received a gloss varnish and a "pin wash" using Mig Abteilung black oil paint mixed with a small amount of white spirit, this achieves a black lined effect quickly, cleanly and most importantly reversibly. If you're too generous with the pin wash you can take a clean brush with white spirit on it and manipulate the section you've made a mistake on, you can thin it down, wash it off parts you don't want it to hit and even remove it altogether.

  Tomorrow once this wash has dried I'll give the model a thin gloss coat again to seal it in and apply decals then work on the detailing where I'm planning on making this tank look pretty worn and weathered. I plan to use Panzer Grey as the colour with which to pronounce stone chips and scratches as this would've been the original colour underneath the more recently added tri-tone scheme. After all of that I plan to hit it with some super matte varnish to dull down that shine and also some of the shades in the camo very slightly.

EDIT: I think you can see between the two pictures just how much the XF-4/Middlestone base has really toned down with the camo pattern on it and the coats of filter?

Todays Painting

I've got gloss onto almost all of my British armour and a Mig Abteilung oil wash over that. They're starting to look ok but I had to stop proceedings to give the guys a run out, I'd arranged to play at one of my local clubs against a guy who runs Germans. They're all green and recognisable so I was happy to field them as was and he was too, I ended up defending on a No Retreat mission and was really crappy on my re-enforcement rolls 5 dice and I finally got one platoon. Long story short, I lost.

I've unpacked the British again and I'm a good way into the process again, I've also constructed and primed 5 more T-34/85s to go with my existing 5 and my Tiger P which Starmonkee (James on here) gave me from the Mid War Monsters boxed set. The Tiger P is going to be the command tank for my 653 Schwere Panzerjager list which has been constructed from THIS Article and PDF. Flavourful force, probably insanely hard to play (for and against) but it's something else to have around and I love the option you can put into this.

I've got a few ideas in mind for my T-34s, and I'll show you my 653 Schwere Panzerjager force listing below any thoughts welcome:

Guards Tank Company

HQ Section, cupola - 80
Guards Tank Company, cupolas - 635
Guards Tank Company, cupolas - 635
Tank Killer Company, SU-85 - 190
Decoy Tank Company, PIV, StuG + Panther - 210
1750

Elefants

HQ Tiger P, Bergepanther and Bergepanzer Elefant and Bergepanther 2cm - 460

Elefant platoon (2) - 600

Panzer Platoon, 4 x Pz IV - 380

Panzerpioneer platoon, hq faust - 205

Grenadier Platoon, hq faust - 165

Rocket Launcher Battery, 3 launchers - 120

1750

Finishing Cromwells, once and for ALL!

So I've had my Cromwell army for quite literally years, it's been through several incarnations without ever being truly finished. They're all base coated in green and certain vehicles are pretty much finished.

Several weeks back I decided the colours I'd done them weren't what I wanted so I re-sprayed them all using my airbrush with a nice base coat of Russian Uniform and I'm going to be using my oil wash on them all and doing a very basic scheme.

I'm currently split between fully decalling them with full unit markings or to simply mark them with their tactical markings so I can chop and change them with Shermans and Challengers and field them as 7th/11th Armoured or even Guards Recce.

The painting table atm:

Hetzers finished!

So I've finally done with my Hetzers, on looking at the photos there's a few tiny bits I either need to touch up or finish off properly but they're certainly ready for a table top outing.
 I think I'll go back and add some paint chips and weathering to these at some stage but I've got other units to finish for the tournament next week so these will have to go on the back boiler.

King Tiger, almost finished.

After finishing work early today I decided to get some painting done and get my latest list complete. I've yet to finish 3 nebs, my Pioneer Platoon and this KT. The infantry and guns are all at a uniform base colour stage and all are based.

After selling my original "Ambush Pattern" King Tiger (see pic below) some months back I decided to finish the one I've had sat on the painting table for months half painted.

I've almost got her finished, I just need to finish off the stowage, decals and tank commander.

The emphasized wear is a little stylised but I think it gets the message across? Take a look at my latest KT below and let me know what you thin so far?

Battle Reports

How do everyone.

As you might have noticed there has been a distinct lack of battle report from previous games played. I can only blame myself for this as quite frankly if you knew me you'd know how lazy I can be.

However I shall endeavour to get a report done from the next game.

James

Airbrush back up and running!

So, after foolishly dropping part of my airbrush down the sink while cleaning it I've since sourced a replacement part from a good mate who's sent me his old, broken but precisely the same model airbrush as mine spare!

I've also got some more gloss varnish to finish off my 7th Armoureds black oil pin wash to the standard I'd like so I'll be updating pictures on those tomorrow evening but my current work patterns are pretty crappy so it may be Friday before this happens.

hopefully back up to my previous "pre-wedding" speed by the weekend!

Few welcome back games.

So this weekend I've managed to squeeze in 3 games of FoW, purely as a way of getting back into full swing after several weeks off. I played all 3 games against the same opponent but on different boards and different scenarios, ranging from Breakthrough and Hasty Assault to Free for All. Whilst it's not ideal to play the same opponent 3 times I am still polishing the rules out in my head and just want to get more games under my belt.

I won all 3 games pretty well with all of them as 5-2s if my memory serves, but 2 of the battles being pretty bloody. My force in this was my venerable old 7th list I'd often dismissed as just a "fun" list but in reality it's proving to be pretty versatile. I need to try them out against some different forces and ideally a more heavily armoured and armed force but I'm learning to love them again for the sheer number of tanks you can throw at an enemy.

My list is as follows:

HQ - 2 Cromwells
Armoured Platoon
Armoured Platoon
Armoured Platoon
Armoured Platoon
Recce Platoon
CV Inf Platoon

It has no artillery options at all and relies purely on weight of numbers so I'm very doubtful of its versatility, but we'll see. I'm enjoying playing this force much more than my current German offerings, perhaps it's the luxury of being able to lose a few teams and feel like I'm haemorrhaging points.

I'll be updating this week with painting progress once I put brush to model again.

Return

So I'm back after a few weeks and ready to start knocking out some minis. I've got several lists in the works including a T-34/85 horde, finishing my IS-2s, polishing the 7th Armoured and redoing some of my German inf to bring them up to scratch with my latest works.