Extra Tobruk Pits

I recently bought Hellfire and Back!  the FOW early war in the desert book.  Pretty fun stuff, especially all those silly light tanks flying around.  Anyway I've been looking for a way to modify my Australian MW Div Cav force to an Early War force.  A "morph" if you will, since all the equipment except the Grants is usable EW.

Since I'm not going to buy a another infantry platoon and command for them just yet, I figured I could make a decent Tobruk Defense force.   Since my other favorite tank, the Matilda II features in that.  Haven't bought the Matilda yet, but I did buy a pack of "Tobruk Pits", which are MG nests in a small concrete bunker like thing.

The blister comes with 2 nests, and 2 of each nationality that uses the pits, 2 brits, 2 aussies, 2 french, 2 italian, and 4 German (2 early, 2 late).  It seemed a pity to waste the extra guys, so I measured and created on a 3D printer 2 more pits.  These will be usable for my Germans if I do any Beach/dug in type scenarios.  So LW of course.

Here's a pic of the finished pits.  The printer isn't SUPER high res, so I had to do a bunch of priming and sanding to get the surfaces smooth.  The "ground" doesn't matter as I will cover that with pummace anyway.  Anyway they came out really nicely.  Hopefully the paint will last the test of time.  The originals are on the right, the new ones are on the left.

And while I was doing 3D printing, I figured I would finish the turret ring for my 28mm Matilda II tank for my jungle Aussies.  I might want to change the gun from a 2lbr to a "Frog" flamethrower but it'll be fine for now.  The turrent just never fit on correctly, but its nice and snug now.  Can't wait to get this guy done.  And it will probably inspire me to pick up a few 15mm versions for the FOW Aussies.

The original tank:

Bottom of the sanded turret:

New turret Ring.

28mm Australians Snow Followup

Ok, this'll be weird but I wanted to give a followup to the snowy dull coat problem I was reporting last post.

Someone over on AmbushAlley forums suggested painting on olive oil over the snowy looking parts.  I was surprised and delighted to say that it worked perfectly.  I wiped off the remaining oil and the snowy surface is no longer snowy.  The pic is below.  I tested on this guy, and when it worked, I did the rest of the snowy squad.  Thank God I didn't have to repaint them again.

The original:

And post olive oil:

28mm Australian Platoon Continues

And in case you haven't had enough of my obsession with my old homeland, here are some 28mm Jungle Australians to be used in Burma or Kokoda Trail campaigns.  Haven't started their Japanese opponents yet, but I'll get to that..

So first up, a group shot of the entire platoon.  Granted, no Heavy MGs or Mortars (or tank support) yet, but still a good start for a skirmish game.

And squad 1 next up.  

 

Squad 2:



The command squad with a some really nice sculpts by Brigade Games.  The other more cartoony guys are made by Artizan.  Both mix well, but I prefer Brigade as they have a more "Rodin" feel to them somehow..  Maybe its the lack of eyeballs. I dunno.



I have kept my squad ID numbering system, so you can see Squad 3 here with an MG as one of the corporals/fireteam leaders.  The main reason I do the MG labeling is because the Bren guns these guys are carrying aren't the most obvious.  You can also see on the middle guy a white powdery looking effect on his base.  More on this in a moment.



Squad 3.  You can see the white powder on the middle guy... grrr

Here's a close up of one of the worst.  This happened before when I'd finished painting my 2nd squad.  I dullcoat sprayed 'em, and it looked like they had just come in from a light snow storm = HORRIBLE looking.  It looks worse in real life.

Anyway in case anybody out there has run into this "white powder snow dullcoating disaster", I looked it up on the web and found that it sometimes happens with dullcoat, either because of humidity, or over shaking, phase of the moon etc. etc.  Here are a few links that hopefully should help.  I'll probably try spraying one guy again with dullcoat to see if I can't get rid of the snow.  Quite bummed about it because these fig sculpts are so good, and I want to get moving on their Japanese counterparts.

http://airfixtributeforum.myfastforum.org/archive/cotes-and-varnishes__o_t__t_3476.html
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?183180-Brush-on-matt-varnish