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

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.

Early War 8th Panzer Regiment, 15th Panzer Division vs The BAR in Free for All

Flaming tanks everywhere! This was both my first game of early war and also the first game I've gotten to play in for the Dice Devils EW escalation league. Unfortunately I haven't had the chance to paint any new models so you may recognize the DAK Panzers from MW. The actual models are IV Es but for this game they were representing IV Ds. Bob and I agreed to play on a 3'x 4' table and the mission was Free for All.

8th Panzer Regiment, 15th Panzer Division DAK OC in IV D 3 x IV Ds

British Armoured Regiment OC in Crusader 2IC tiny light tank (if someone knows the right name let me know) 3 x Crusaders 2 x CS Crusaders 3 x Vickers Mark VI tanks

8th Panzer Regiment, 15th Panzer Division DAK vs Free French Armored Rifles in Encounter

A lone Stuka swoops in for the kill! This was the final battle for the Paths of Glory and both Matt Varnish and I were coming off two 6 - 1 wins. I love playing against MVs armies they are exceptionally well painted with a ton of thought and research put into them. The final mission was going to be Encounter with me being the attacker. This was going to be the first mission that I was going to be the attacker and although I was rocking a tank force I was more than a little concerned with attacking all those armoured rifles!

8th Panzer Regiment, 15th Panzer Division, DAK OC in III M 2IC in IV G 4 x III Ms 4 x III Ns 3 x Nebs 2 x 8-Rads Limited Stukas with bombs

French 2ieme DB (US Armoured Rifles) OC and 2IC Armoured Rifle Platoon 1 with 5 bazookas Armoured Rifle Platoon 2 with 5 bazookas 5 x Shermans 5 x Stuarts Limited Hurricane support

Early War Escalation League!

DAK AFV markings (thanks MV!)

 
Matt Varnish from the Dice Devils has started an Early War Escalation League, which is another great reason to finish painting up my Desert Germans!  I have created two lists one of Mech Infantry the other a Mittrer Panzer Company and now all I have to do is get them on the table.  The way the tiers work are month long periods starting at 600 pts and moving up in 300 point chuncks (ie 900, 1200 & 1500).  I wasn't able to get as many games as I would have liked at 600 points (only one) but I now have an EW game under my belt.  Stay tuned for the AAR from the game and WIP shots as I get more painted.   To help with some of my inspiration take a look at this video that Matt Varnish found while doing some research to help me out.

8th Panzer Regiment, 15th Panzer Division DAK vs Australian Armored Squadron in Counterattack

The scream of Nebs fills the air knocking out a Sherman! This was round 2 of the Paths of Glory tournament held at Perkins Hobby House in Petawawa. The mission was Counterattack, and an important note for people playing in tournaments to try out different missions first so that during the tournament your not playing a mission for the first time. Matt and I had never played this mission and we both misread how deployment works for armoured forces in this mission. We ended up finding out after our game was done that I shouldn't have had as many platoons on the table due to the special rules (we looked at the armoured reserve rules instead of the correct ones). I don't know how it would have changed the game, but I'm sure it would have. Matt was great fun to play against and we had a good time goofing while playing.

8th Panzer Regiment, 15th Panzer Division DAK OC in III M 2IC in IV G 4 x III Ms 4 x III Ns 3 x Nebs 2 x 8-Rads Limited Stuka support with bombs

Australian Armoured Squadron OC and 2IC in Crusader 3 x Crusader 3 x Shermans 3 x Shermans 4 x 25 pdrs 3 x UCs