Painting Challenge entry 10: German Light AA Platoon

Progress has been slow with most of the week being spent struck down with a nasty flu and the lovely dog eating up what energy was left. Still I did manage to finish up 4 anti-air halftracks that I got started on last week.

I feel planes are a bit more useful in Early War in Flames of War and with them going to make an appearance on quite a few lists I figured some anti-air fire would come in handy, especially as I was going to be rolling out with 3 infantry platoons and light armour which provides some nice targets for planes. The choice is between a couple of 88's or then these Sdkfz 10/5 which carry the 2cm Flak cannon. With the 88's costing far too many points, being basically stationary and leaning on to the overkill side with AT power I decided to use the lighter version. Rules wise each halftrack pumps out 4 AT5 FP5+ shots and come at 90 points for 4. Quite a bargain even if they are basically paper. They are able to really hurt some light tank hordes and add some firepower to help dig out infantry. I painted up 4 as it's the maximum platoon size, but I have a feeling I'll probably only run 3 at a time as points are at a premium with 1550 points being the list size at ETC.

The trucks are a bit fiddly to put together with loads of parts and little attachment points. For example the sides are held on with only a 1mm ledge, some superglue and assistance from some higher power. As there is also a separate trailer and some crew on foot I decided to base them on a large base, which should also limit the chances of breaking any parts of as they can be picked up from the base and not the minis themselves. The large bases also allowed for the addition of some scenery pieces to add some variety as the minis are all identical with no variety in crew etc. As they are a Luftwaffe unit I painted the uniforms with a blue grey shade that's hopefully closer to the real Luftwaffe uniform.

Still two platoons to go, but I don't think I'll be painting them for a while as they don't really need to be done before August. With Waterloo 200 anniversary coming along and a Russia 1812 campaign starting at the club I really need to get those things progressing. There's still 6 French and 2 British battalions to paint for Waterloo games and I promised to paint up the 9th Division for the Russian campaign, which sees me painting 13 battalions of 15mm Swiss units. When painting Prussians I've been able to finish 15mm battalions in an evening or two and I'm hoping to be able to keep the same pace with the Swiss.