Painting Challenge entry 1: Barbarossa German AFVs

A bit late on this blog, but better late than never :) I managed to open up my challenge with a quick set of 6 Early War German AFVs for my Barbarossa era Flames of War army project. I had wanted to take the first place in the challenge for at least a short while and succeeded in it! My glory lasted for a few hours, but now Finnish honour has been upheld on our independence day so all is well in the nation.

So I present to you 2 Sdkfz 231 8-rad reconnaissance cars and 4 Panzerjäger I light tankhunters. The 8-rads will probably not see too much action as after a few revisions they have been dropped out of the list. Still they are cool models and I had already bought them so decided to paint them up anyways. Maybe with another revision of the list they can make the cut again :) The Panzerjägers on the otherhand will play an important role in providing fast moving AT assets to act as mobile reserves boosting defences and taking flanking shots or go and take on enemy artillery etc.

Paintjob wise these were fairly simple with a Panzer Grey basecoat followed by two successively lighter drybrushes. This was followed up by an enamel wash meant for panzer grey followed by slapping on some mud to make them look like they've actually driven somewhere after coming out of the factory. I didn't really want them to look too worn as I'm planning to have my force present something from the beginning of Barbarossa campaign.

At the moment I'm working on some Infinity miniatures. Progress is super slow as there is just so much delicate detail in these guys that every shade takes ages to put on. I also decided to copy the style of the studio painter which is causing some problems as I don't usually do much edge highlighting etc. and can't really seem to get the effect to work like I want. Definately won't make it before Friday so I'll have to wait until my next appointed entry publishing date.

 

Sturmpioniere Vorwärts!

I got around to finishing some of the lingering projects on my table on sunday. With Rammstein now available on Spotify I queued up their production and got around to finishing the Pioneers that had been sitting on the desk for nearly two months already. After these there is only the 40k Hellbrute left, but I doubt I'll ever finish it as it was only for airbrush practice and all the airbrushing part is done already. So from now until the end of March only challenge entries :)

I really bit of more than I could chew with these guys as painting up 15 infantry at the same time was just too much. One of the reasons it took so long to paint was that the table just seemed so full all the time and painting one shade at the time on all of them seemed like nothing really progressed. Add to that the fact that these were the first 28mm Germans I did so I had to decide paints and do a bit of research to at least get the shades somewhere close to the originals.

They are all Warlord plastics and metals from the Pioneers box and some kitbashing with left over parts from our club German army and additional metal heads from Warlord. Unit composition is far from historical as I basically just picked 10 guys and the command from my prepped minis box and when building I couldn't resist using all the metal extras that came with the minis :) The 251 was already painted up in September, but the crew was being painted with the rest of the minis so took a while to finish it up as well.

I tried to keep the paintjob simple with only a couple of layers on the uniform and most details just done with one layer and a wash. Works well enough, but maybe still bit too slow to do. Funny enough painting the camouflage uniform models is a lot faster as you can get away with just a wash and no highlighting. With the basing I went for a more late autumn look for a change. Looks quite nice and it's a bit different from what I normally do.

Winter War Campaign begins

We played the first game of our club Winter War campaign a week ago coinciding with the 75 year anniversary of the start of the Winter War and Soviet Union attempting to invade Finland. The pics took a bit longer to get set up as I've been out of home for most of this week. Still better late than never :)

I functioned as the Umpire running a scenario depicting some of the delaying actions fought by the Finnish covering forces that delayed the Soviet advance so that the majority of the Finnish army could get into position at the Mannerheim line defences.

The scenario saw a Soviet company advance along a road supported by a small T-26 platoon being ambushed by Finnish defenders at a road block. The Soviets were superior in terms of manpower and equipment, but the Finns were far better positioned and just had to delay the Soviets for a long enough time.

The set-up was actually quite close to the Jungle Ambush scenario on Warlord Games website with the addition of 2 minefields for the Finns. Soviet forces included 2 command teams, medic, Comissar team, 6 full strength Infantry squads, a MMG team and 3 T-26's with one of them being the twin machinegun A variant. The Soviets were also able to bring back destroyed infantry squads as Reserves on the next turn after their destruction. The Finns on the other hand had 4 eight man squads supported by a light antitank gun, a MMG and a sniper team as well as their command and medic.

The game started with the Soviet Vanguard of 2 tanks, 2 infantry squads and the company command deploying on the road with the Finnish heavy weaponry at the crossroads on the end of the table and the rest of the forces laying in ambush surrounding the road.  All forested area was regarded as Rough Ground. The Finnish Jägers could deploy 4 units in the woods using markers that could be revealed when the Ambush was sprung or when the enemy got within 8".

The first volleys of the Finnish ambush were deadly with many Soviets losing their lives immediately. With mounting casualties the T-26's started moving up to fire at the offending Finns who didn't understand that they were just bringing them freedom from capitalistic oppression.
 

A furious shooting match ensued with the Soviets trying to oust the Finns by shooting. This proved futile with 3 squads being wiped out in quick succession and no progress being made in clearing the minefield and roadblock.

With the Commissar and more troops showing up on board the T-26s finally gather enough courage to move up the road and clear the Finnish troops from the nearby forests that had kept the Soviet infantry at bay. However this put them on the sights of the Finnish antitank gun that suddenly started hitting it's shots putting one tank out of order and immobilizing the other.

All in all a fun game, eventhough the far more numerous Soviets took a serious beating and only managed to disable a single minefield and not make any headway along the road. Some atrociously bad dice rolling on the part of the Soviet player saw the Finns come through the shooting match almost unscathed and nonexistent co-operation between the infantry and tanks in the beginning of the game didn't make things any easier for them either. Fire support and mobile cover for infantry was nowhere to be seen so they were quickly cut down.  Still this was the case historically too with the Soviet tanks advancing alone while their supporting infantry was moved down with machine-gun fire leaving the tanks alone and vulnerable to close attack.

The Challenge Begins

And the race is on! 5th of December marks the date of the 73 year anniversary of Great Britain declaring war on Finland in 1941, but also the date when the 5th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge begins! Between now and the 20th of March 72 painters are battling for domination and the bragging rights that come with all the side challenges etc. I'm going for 1000 points this year and trying to focus more on finishing some projects rather than participating in all fortnight challenges.

A bit slower start now that I only had about an hour for painting this evening with some more time tomorrow. I'm trying to be clever with an early submission of some Flames of War vehicles in a bid to take the first place for at least a single time during the challenge :) A quick coat of grey and a light highlight with my airbrush has them ready for decals and painting of details before a finishing wash that I'll hopefully manage tomorrow morning. While I had my airbrush out I also painted the basic colours on 8 Infinity miniatures from the Icestorm starter pack.

I also still have some Germans to finish that have been on the desk for ages. I'm trying get them done after the Flames of War stuff so I can concentrate on challenge minis for the rest of the 3 months :) I was planning to paint them during last weekend and this week, but unfortunately a massive hangover on the weekend and an unscheduled 4 day business trip got in the way of more important things.