Digging In (pt. 2)

I started these exactly FIVE years ago, when the Mad Padre lived a half hour away and would sometimes come over for an evening of painting.

Canadian section 

German section 

I got them all together and sprayed black, where they then sat on the shelf for FIVE YEARS! Last week I went over to Dick's house for a hobby night and having finished my latest purchases I grabbed these from the lead pile to pick away at them. Well, I made a lot of progress and got them finished this weekend.

Canadians 

Germans 

There was one prone figure throwing a grenade. So for some reason he's crawling around outside of his foxhole.

Pretty simple paint jobs. The castings aren't great, but they look good enough to do the job. For the German camouflage smocks and helmet covers I used a light green base then blotches of mid brown and dark green. The German LMG positions with overhead cover started as prone figures,  but I have enough prone MG42 teams and they should be dug in like everyone else. So this is how I'm disguising their chopped off torsos.

All the Canadians 

All the Germans 

I have a full platoon of Canadian/British and three weak platoons for the Germans. Or the Germans can have 2x platoons dug in and the 3rd in reserve or using my Flames of War entrenchments.

So some more knocked off the lead pile. I'm feeling pleased with myself.

Did I say it's taken 5 years to finish these? And I'm pretty sure that they were in The Pile for a few years before that.

Two Big Games

For our normal Saturday evening game I suggested to Dick that we get his ancient armies out for some Hail Caesar. His reply of "Hot damn!" lead to Mike and I arriving to the table below.

Successor pikes and elephants lined a ridge facing six 60 figure legions plus allies and cavalry. 

Thessalian cavalry and elephants thrash the Roman cavalry wing

I messed up some rules, but we moved A LOT of toys around and had a pretty good cavalry fight on the one wing with the Roman cavalry getting broken. On the other wing Mike had blundered several units off table,  but I wasn't getting good enough command rolls to do anything about it.

In the centre we had just gotten to the infantry clash when it was time to call it.

Pikes crash into legions.  The Hastati in one got vaporised  

Just some of Dick's lovely terrain 

Then on Sunday I finished my PE-2 bomber from True North Miniatures  (started by my friend Don, but now made under licence by Old Glory), and decided to have a ridiculous tank heavy bash of I Ain't Been Shot, Mum to put it and my new Russian tanks on the table. 

The scenario was a Light Panzer Company (3 platoons with a mix of PzIs and PzIIs and a 4th platoon of PzIIIe) with a platoon of Panzer Grenadiers and section of Panzer Jaeger Is exploiting a breakthrough. Facing them are 2 weak platoons of Rifles with 2x 45mm AT guns, 2x MMGs and 2x ATR teams. The Russians also got trenches. Rushing to counterattack are a platoon of T34s, 2x platoons of T26s and BT7s, a recce group with my lone T60 and BA7 armoured car and the KV2. Both sides got 'Armoured Bonus move' and 'breakdown'. Germans got 2x 'Rally' Russians only one. Germans got 2x 'Support' cards for sorties of Stukas, the Russians got one for the PE2 bomber. 

The Stukas showed up a lot but often missed. Although after being directed against the frightening KV2 a lot one finally got a direct hit and the other crashed. The PE2 only showed up a few times and missed.

Before getting destroyed by a 500 pound bomb, the KV2 had been in a long range duel with a PzJgr I, 152mm shells crashing around it but never brewing it up. Although the tank destroyer was close to bailing out from shock when the Luftwaffe finally destroyed the monster. 

The world's luckiest PzJgrI trading shots with the KV-2

When you REALLY need to kill a tank

The Russians made good use of the "Armoured Bonus Move" card to run the T34s behind the main German armoured thrust where they promptly started blowing up Panzer IIIs.

PzIs shooting up Russian infantry 

Panzer Is and IIs did prove useful in shooting up entrenched Russian infantry, but they did die quick.

T26s engage Germans 

BT7s and T26 rolling through burning and abandoned Panzers 

Panzer Grenadiers clear some woods 

I did get an idea to take some of the detail out of the tank damage. Just let shock accumulate unless a gun is knocked out or the tank immobilized. All the temporary negatives to movement and shooting are hard to track.

Maybe I should replay it without the infantry?

Za Rhodina!

The nice thing about the night shift is having the Friday off.

Today I had no appointments or other intrusions from Real Life, so I was able to paint up the latest reinforcements for the heroic defenders of the Peasants and Workers Revolution.

3x T26 tanks for 1941 and 3x SU76 SPGs for 1942 and on wards. I'd been tempted by something bigger like SU100s or SU152s, but the venerable SU76 was the second most produced tank (T34 being #1 obviously). 14000 of them. For every bigger self propelled gun there were 14 or more of the "little bitches." They weren't popular with their crews, hard to drive and they felt exposed. But they were popular with the infantry.

I used a PSC commander to put a commander in a hatch of one of the T26s.

I also painted the SU crew separately. Which is odd for me, but they were attached by their feet so I wouldn't have to do any annoying fixing after cutting them off. Holding them in a clothes peg helped a lot.

Here we are:

Gamers always diss the T26, but it's 45mm gun can kill any thing the Germans have in 1941, and it's kinda cute.

Dastardly Decals!

Bit of a change in gears and knocking some more off the lead pile by working on 15mm WW2 armour.

Got these Plastic Soldier Company M5 half tracks assembled earlier in the fall. I added some extra stowage from my bits box. Mikey brought back another metal M5 from Historicon so I added it as well.

I've also had some Ram Kangaroos in the pile for about 4 or 5 years. I got them when I had the store. Battlefront are quite reasonable when you can get them at wholesale. I added some extra figures to fill the troop compartment and some stowage.

Now back when I started I intended "just a basic infantry company and a few supports." Now I have a full squadron of tanks and enough armoured carriers to lift the company,  the supports and the Padre with his cat!

I've been trying put air recognition allied stars on the hoods of the M5s and plain stars on the sides of all of them. But the hinges on the hoods keep the decals from sticking down and I have to try and cut the circles off because I have no plain stars. So damned decal frustration. I think I'll just dirty these models up with a dry brush of "Mississippi Mud" and call them done for now. I can always source other decals later.

Speaking of decals. I had a friend pick up some German and Russian decals from Old Glory at Fall In and have been trying to add them. They are Skytrex decals which use an old decal system which aren't water slide and don't like to stick to a matte surface.

You have to cut out a flimsy brittle paper. Wet the surface and stick the decal on paper side up. Then wet the paper and wait until you can peel the paper off. Don't wet it too much or things slide around. Don't wait too long or the paper dries stuck to your model. Either way you lose adhesive and the decal starts to lift at an edge.

Not recommended.

Also glammed up my early war Panzers with some air recognition panels. I just did a Google image search and printed them off.  The rare panel with the balkencruz can be seen in a picture from the Russian Front in the mid-war so I put it on one of my mid-war STuGs. The pop of red is very striking.

Finally I have added to the lead pile with some T26 tanks, SU76 SPGs and a PE2 bomber all from Old Glory to boost my early war Russians. But they will be quick to paint and are already moving off the lead pile.

Yes, that is a PSC commander added to the hatch of a Command Decision T26. The SUs come with crew too, which is super nice. I hate open topped AFVs without crew.

The Russians really only need some more infantry and field guns now.