Sunday Afternoon Game.

James and I had a game at one of local (ish) clubs facing off with my box fresh 3rd Armored Light Tank Company against a Panzerspah Lehr Company. We rolled the "Surrounded" scenario from the V3 book and with James being mechanised he was on the defensive, a difficult task for his manoeuvrable force facing my equally manoeuvrable light tanks! Unfortunately the lists aren't fully painted yet but I've only had all of the U.S. stuff for literally a few weeks and I've been painting them like a lunatic to get them table ready ASAP. I hope to have them finished within a week.

The lists were as follows:

3rd Armored Light Tanks:

HQ - 2 Stuarts
1st Platoon - 5 Stuarts
2nd Platoon - 5 Stuarts
3rd Platoon - 5 Stuarts
Medium Tank Platoon - 4 Shermans
Medium Tank Platoon - 4 Shermans
Armored Rifle Platoon
Armored Mortar Platoon
Understrength Recon Platoon

Panzerspah Lehr Company:
HQ - 1 Puma
Panzerspah Platoon - 3 Pumas
Panzerspah Platoon - 3 Pumas
Panzerspah Platoon - 3 Pumas
Panzer Platoon - 5 x PzIV
Panzer Platoon - 5 x PzIV
Panzerpioneer Platoon

This isn't going to be a batrep but just a few random pics from the game.

The first Pumas fall to massed Sherman and Stuart shots! Meanwhile the Panzer IVs form a secure gun line in the treeline using their concealement well and picking off Shermans and Stuarts alike across the open ground between them.

This lone Puma on the bridge was photographed at the end of the battle but he was one of the first casualties and successfully blocked the bridge slowing my Shermans progress over the bridge! This made them take a few turns to get into the accessible, open rear of the board instead of the single turn it would've taken n a clear road!

Stuarts manoeuvre into cover on the edge of a field ready to leap frog to the next available cover (which was a leap too far might I add!).

Stuarts race at the Panzer IVs in an effort to close their targets down then break for side armour shots, they actually bailed a few of the Panzers from the front. Unfortunately they all remounted and returned some withering fire on the headstrong "Spearhead" Division.

Flanking Shermans breakthrough to wreak havoc in the enemies rear, destroying or breaking the last Puma platoons and exchanging fire with the remaining PzIVs!

Aftermath of the "crop fight" leaves many burning Stuarts but has held up this flank for long enough to allow other forces into the rear. As you can see at the top of the picture, Shermans are rushing into the void left by Pumas.

Aerial shot of the end of the battle, company morale check was forced rather than anything clever on my part but I had the top objective capped with nothing to oppose me next turn!

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?

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?

Quick update on the last few days work.

Tigers being glossed for protection prior to a slight wash on the decals and finishing off 2 crew men who I still haven't finished. For some reason the white balance on the camera went nuts when I was taking the pic of the Tigers so they look a bit strange, almost in a haze. Might be the varnish fumes...

Panthers - all washed, glossed and decalled. Tracks and weathering to finish now.