3D Printed Tobruk Pits Finished!

Here are the finished Australian Tobruk gun pits. I'll be using the 8th Army versions as Australians for these guys. They came out great and look nice and weathered.

3D Printed Tobruk Bunkers

I bought a pair of Tobruk MG nests way back when when I was building up my Aussie Desert Force. These MG nests models are great because you can use them for many different armies. They give you gunners for Australians, British, French, Italian, German EW and German LW.

However, they only give you 2 actual nests. Since I had access to a 3D printer, I used my calipers to measure the nests and printed more! The models are pretty simple, so easy to print, but this allows me to use many more of the gunners in the box.

Check it out. They paint up nicely:

Original model on the left, raw print middle, painted print on the right. I have 7 nest bases now, and really when I get the chance will do another one.  The plan is to use 4 of them for Desert Aussies/British, and then 2 for German, and 2 more for Winter War Finnish. Will probably use the EW Germans as finns, but it should still work.

I've actually been spending the past 2 weekends painting my US Airborne force, but they aren't finished based yet so will post them when they're done. There's a LOT of troopers, and I haven't even gotten to the support sections yet (Mortar, LMGs, Pack Arty). But another solid weekend and I should have finished 27 infantry bases, 3 light mortars, 6 Bazookas, 3 snipers, 3 supply carts, the CO and 2IC. Like I said, a lotta figs.

FOW Aussies Finished

So its taken forever, but I finally finished my 1500 point Australian FOW MW Divisional Cav force.  I started this force WAY back when for 2 reasons: 

1. I wanted to have some guys in the Australian Army hats
2. I wanted to use Grants because I fondly remember the movie Sahara with Humprey Bogart.  Yes I know he was commanding a Lee, but its close enough.
3. Ok 3 reasons, I didn't want to paint too much infantry.  They were the reason this took so long, so an armored force it is.

First up, a group shot of the whole army.  Technically there's a kittyhawk as aircover, but he's not quite finished so I left him off so as not to ruin the rest of the army, which I think kicks ass.  It'll probably get its butt handed to it in combat, but it looks nice.  The other reason it took so long was it took ages for infantry to get painted, and after finishing my 40k Tallarn force, I just couldn't take any more tan... (heck even the display board is from them)

Next a shot of the Aussie infantry.  There are technically only supposed to be 6 bases of infantry, and technically I didn't buy the light mortar, but I figured I'd paint the whole blister.  Since the blister happened to come with an entire squad of extra guys (even using 5 men per base), I just went with it.

Close up of the grants. These guys are my heavy front armor hitters.  The crusaders meanwhile will fly round the flanks and blast away with their crappy 2lbr gun hoping to hit something.  Since grants (or Shermans if you add them) are 8th army, they only get to be Confident Veteran instead of Fearless Veteran that the rest of the army is.  I've heard what you end up with using this army is a bunch of single Crusaders flying around that won't run away but have lost the rest of their platoon!

These are the older guys I finished like a YEAR ago, but they are still cool.  Like I said the Crusaders will fly around flanks and blast away since they don't have side armor for shooting (a special rule).  The carriers meanwhile actually have something that can hurt infantry, so they are there to shoot up any enemy footsloggers.  Apart from the kittyhawk I don't have any artillery, and basically that's by design since I simple didn't want to paint any.  I'm not really a fan of those armies that take the bare minimum of company requirements and then take a crapton of support weapons.  It just seems a bit gamey.  This army does have support but at least has 2 platoons each of the required units.

Aussie Div Cav End of the Beginning

Its taken quite a while, but I finally finished the start of my Australian Divisional Cavalry Squadron...

This force is around 905 points of the final 1500 force.

It consists of 2 platoons of crusader II tanks, and 1 platoon of 2 universal carrier combat patrols (with 0.5" MG added).

The models themselves turned out quite nicely I think, and at least will give me a functional force that can face Milton's Afrika Korps when they are done.

The final force will look like:

HQ: 2 Crusader II

Combat:

3x Crusader II

3x Crusader II

6x Universal Carrier + 0.5" MG(all)

Support:

3x Grant Tanks (British)

1x 3 squad Aussie Infantry + Sticky Bombs

Limited Air Kittyhawks

Total: 1500 pts

The plan is to have the crusaders race ahead and get around enemy tank's flanks. They have the Tally Ho rule so can shoot at full ROF even after moving. Also, their turrets is the "front" of the tank at all times. Since I have Grants in front, I'm hoping enemy tanks will face them instead as they are more threatening (75mm gun vs a crappy 2pdr!) so the Crusaders should have flank shots. Against a Tiger they're screwed, but that's why I have the kittyhawks acting as my artillery. The infantry are there because I HAD to have somebody with the aussie hats, AND I figured they would be handy to hold any objective I eventually take. The HQ Crusaders will probably lead the charge, each one commanding a separate combat platton.

The carriers are there to take out any dug in infantry. Those 0.5" MGs have ROF3 and a better firepower so should prove threatening to infantry, although their armor is crap, so hopefully the infantry don't have too much AT. Also, since all my Crusaders don't have HE, I can't take out AT guns very well. But again, that's what the kittyhawks and Grants are for. Should be fun. Fearless vet tanks can't be bad!

Not only this, but I'm hoping these guys will be available in the new Early War Desert FOW book (perhaps not the Grants), and THEN the 2 pdrs won't be so silly...

A quick update. Some close up views:

I think I screwed up the crusaders' hatches. Oh well. A nice close up of the Australian 9th Infantry Division symbols. Technically the 75 regimental symbol should be green on blue, but I couldn't be stuffed with that much finicky decals...