A delightful showcase of progress (or lack thereof) on today's WIP Wednesday! The fruits of my labor paying off with the Epic Pike & Shotte figures, the Kasserine Pass Afrika Korps Germans are nearing completion, and their well-supplied enemies the Americans are moving along at pace. Of course there are more Baccus buildings being completed, and, speaking of buildings, some adorable 3mm North African buildings and experimental palm trees for you to look at with this week's mostly desert-themed WIP Wednesday. Kasserine Pass is getting closer!
Let's get to the pictures!
Kasserine Pass Units for 36" Battlefields:
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| Medium Tank Company / Battalion along with some lighter tanks the GHQ 1/285 Panzer III models are absolutely fantastic!!! Full of beautiful raised details. Since this pic was taken I've painted the tracks on them and some of the stowage. |
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| Reconnaissance Battalion (Aufklärungsabteilung??). - in Peter's WWII rules and my modifications of them - the spotting units allow you to spot and target units further than your conventional forces - making them super useful on the table for armor that is engaging at stand-off and artillery spotting. |
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| DAK Infantry. I touched up and rebased what I could find. Note that I put LMGs on some stands and others I did not incase I was crazy enough to try Battlegroup: Torch or Tobruk in 6mm... |
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| Anti Tank support with the infantry |
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| Almost all of the DAK tanks I could muster. Going to use the Panzer 38s as Italian armor seeing as how they're exotic looking compared to the "conventional" German armor....and I dont have any Italian stuff in my collection. |
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| Unbased Panzer IIs. I'm basecoating new bases now. |
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| More DAK recce, command, halftracks, and prime movers. Still need to base them. |
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| Trucks, halftracks |
Now onto the "green machine" we have the Americans. Again this was all the infantry I could dig up but it was enough for a good sized element for Kasserine Pass. Enough for LMG stands, support stands, and even an engineer stand with flamethrowers! I am *not* drybrushing the dark sand on their bases however, as these guys will need to do triple-duty in North Africa, France, and Italy.
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| Yes, I know the Shermans are the wrong mark!!! |
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| The GHQ models do look outstanding. I'm going to paint the stowage, tracks, and put a nice dark wash on them (4th from the bottom has a coat of agrax earthshade on it - but for the rest I'm going to use nuln oil) |
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| Still lots of Ami's to base, including a bunch of infantry support stands. We Americans love our firepower! |
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| The elements who have received bases already. Some Tank Destroyers, Halftracks, and Sherman tanks. |
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| You might see a small pine cube with a milliput dome on top. I see a North African mosque! and it'll look more like a mosque when I'm done painting it! |
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| I botched these chenille bump palm trees but they'll look better once painted. I need to make quite a few of them so dont worry I'll get plenty of practice! |
Speaking of buildings, here is another completed Baccus 6mm building. I have a seemingly endless supply of them.
and last but not least, "progress" continues on a new Epic "Pike & Shotte" Regiment for Tilly's Very Bad Day. I have been block-painting these lads very deliberately and while it's been alot of work, I think they are looking good so far.
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| Not sure what color I should paint their "bandoleer" but I'll figure something out. |
So that's all for this week. Lots of progress on the North African front this week and we're almost ready to fight the big battle (which I have not yet planned out scenario-wise). Dave is coming over Friday and I'll introduce him to Peter's rules and play an eastern front game - potentially Kharkov from the Littlewars TV scenario. Hope everyone is having a great week!
NIICE
ReplyDeleteVery much looking forward to the PeterHex game of Kharkov. That little wars tv episode was weirdly zoomed in somehow with Fistful of Tows, whilst you can show a more elegant tactical battle I reckon.
And the 6mm stuff looks EPIC.
...while i am trying not to be tempted by the Warlord stuff lol
I knew you'd like this post, Darren! We're getting closer to Kasserine Pass. Pretty soon I'll be onto the scenario development portion, once all the terrain is done. This weekend I'll test Peter's rules and my mods against a live human being!
DeleteI noticed that too about the LWTV episode. Wonder if it's because they used microarmor and from a distance you really dont see the minis that well?
The Warlord stuff....I had a neat idea for how to use it. Im not going to ditch my 10mm stuff - instead I'm going to paint up the warlord epic stuff for single-based units for C&C games (BattleCry, CC Naps etc). Wonder if they'll publish a Pike & SHot version of C&C??? That would be fun and my P&S stuff will already be on single bases.
Yes, you are correct "Aufklärungsabteilung" is the correct term; "Aufklärungs" is literally "enlightenment" or " intelligence" and abteilung being battalion (the Germans used both terms depending on the arm of service). It's also a great name for a blog ☺!
ReplyDeleteYou are fielding some late war vehicles (Puma and Sdkfz 234 with 75mm). Normally in North Africa, motorcycle company, armoured car company (Sdkfz 222 and 231) and support company (AT + inf gun).
I'm guessing you are using what you have without worrying about it though...
Bandoliers; usually wood powder flasks on a leather belt so could be brown or painted (red or blue were common). Usually best to have powder flask a different colour from the belt to stand out....
Neil
Thanks for commenting Neil - (and I love your blog name!) as you probably guessed I'm not too concerned with the vehicle types since they'll be difficult to discern at 3-4' and their capabilities are way abstracted into the rules we'll be using at an almost "grand tactical" level (that...and I dont have motorycles!) OTOH I do have plenty of 222's so I suppose I could just use them and keep the cooler armored/wheeled recce off the table.
DeleteRe the bandoliers, I've definitely seen blue in my travels around google and I was wanting to paint them a leather color for this unit but painting them blue is very tempting with the red coats. That would look cool and make them pop more.
I like the Microarmor. Are you still cutting down the Pike strips for smaller footprint units or have you settled on keeping them whole?
ReplyDeleteYes sir- still splitting them and putting them on single base units. Gives me 2 units from 1 sprue!
DeleteThe pike figures look fabulous, and I'm looking forward to your Kasserine Pass game. I ran the whole campaign as an operational game a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteThanks Martin! This was a major step towards getting kasserine on the table as I obviously needed miniatures to plop down! Still have to make a bunch of trees and buildings and write the scenario but the minis getting done will be a huge step in the right direction.
DeleteWow I would love to run the entire campaign someday. I'm hoping the GDW boardgame can gin up some inspiration for something like that. I also want to get that on the table as well soon.
Steve, the Epic are looking wonderful. I have concluded that there are only two ways to paint these, badly and roughly and highly impressionistic or to take time and get them looking good and to be something you are glad to own. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground, yours are impressive.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Norm, and you are quite right with your conclusion. Theae guys are taking a long time to finish because I am painting them very deliberately. By this point I have forces painted for one side of an ECW battle (albeit a very small one at that) but it's been slow going with competing projects. If I was focusing on just the P and S forces I might make better progress.
DeleteThey're fun to paint in a mindless sort of way. I'm going to use the epics for single stand unit games like commands and colors.
Blimey Steve, you do have a lot of armour there, which I suppose is one of the joys of the North Africa campaign:). Love the fact that the US force is now referred to as the 'green machine'! The Epic figures look great and for the bandoleers etc, I tend to paint them in a lighter or brighter contrasting colour to make them stand out a bit more, as otherwise the 'normal' brown colour tends to get lost, or at least that's my view.
ReplyDeleteThanks Steve yes sir Operation Torch is one of my favorites with rookie Americans and grizzled , Veteran Brits and mix-and-match Germans. Not to mention the French and Italians! What is not to love there! Re the ECW guys many thanks I'm going to paint the bandoleers a lighter leather color I'm hoping that .makes them pop!
DeleteQuite a variety of modelling and painting with basing, buildings, and the very nice Epic ECW. Palm trees are so tricky to scratch make, particularly for the smaller scales.
ReplyDeleteYes Peter it's quite eclectic isn't it? That's just my inability to stuck with one project for too long :)
DeleteI'm finding out about the palm trees now. They're not easy to make thats for sure. I have them drying on tiny little milliput bases :)
I have quite a few plastic palm trees suitable for 6mm if you are interested - no cost.
DeleteHi Peter that is very generous of you. I will certainly take you up on that offer if you've some to spare :) my gmail is simply steven dot whitesell I may have some goodies to send your way as well.
DeleteHeaps going on Chez Steve, obviously, and all of it good. The GHQ models are lovely, but I particularly like the job you have done on the ECW (best CW??!) Epic figures - they look outstanding!
ReplyDeleteThanks Keith yes sir much going on here! The ECW guys have been a love/hate relationship but overall I'm happy with them!
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