French. Finished.

Can you guess where I am?

I'm on the road! So I thought I'd post a quick trifecta of blogs this evening covering some of the work I've done over the last month or so.

First up, my early war French. With which I got 5th place a recent tournament, not bad if I do say so my self. The only dude who beat me was the illustrious Scott from Itty Bitty Soldiers and WWPD fame. I'll get you next time.

As my internet is crap in the hotel room and it'll take some time to up load these I'm going to keep it short and sweet. I'll just say the Panhards and Somuas were a joy to paint. Infantry is always a bear though. But, i think everything turned out quite nicely.

A note on the pics, it appears I had a crappy color correction going on so it's a bit blue shifted. I'm going to try to get some cleaner pics when I get some gumption but I think these will work for now :)

Constructive Criticism always welcome. Now, on to the pics!

More after the break!

GUNS! GUNS! GUNS! French Arty in Early War

Boom.

French Arty for tourney next weekend?

Check.

These fine 155mm howitzers were a key part of the defense of France (snicker).

All pieces and parts here are BF and are for the most part quality. The single trail on the cannons makes them a much easier build than the dual trail versions.

Although I retain my hatred of most faces sculpted for this line. I mean... Is it something with the mold that makes most of the faces look like formless blobs of hate? I know you can do this! The command figure wearing the shako has a great grumpy look on his face! Why can't you replicate similar human looking features on other models?

Two modeling painting notes. First, I've continued the tree theme on the staff team and the observer but I just couldn't conscience putting trees on the arty stands, it didn't really make sense. Second, the shako worn by artillery officers was dark blue with gold braiding (thank you Osprey books) so I did my best to replicate that here.

Off to the pics!

The Battery.

More after the break!

Baguette Bearing Bastards, EW French Infantry

Tamiya images, always great for inspiration. 

Hey ya Soldats. In pursuit of painting up a full EW French army by ohhh... next weekend I finally decided to tackle the infantry platoon.

It's been a little while since I knocked out a platoon of infantry so it was slow going to start. And the French EW infantry are of mixed quality, so it was a bit of bear.

But I also totally love a well based infantry platoon. It really does add something to the table when you play. For this group I decided to go a bit bigger than I did with the Germans. These dudes are hanging out in a forest. Or, at least, a copse of small trees.

BF had some issues with models, some of the faces are just awful (a recurring theme I'm noticing in the EW stuff) and the legs on some of the models are flat, oddly shaped and pock marked, blerg. But I will always take the chunky style BF dudes over the smaller, more properly proportioned PSC ones because I think they pop better on the table and there's more "space" for me to work with on each dude.

This is also the first infantry platoon that I painted that lacked either camouflage or winter bits. So on that level it was both interesting and a little boring. Probably why I put more effort into highlighting them and putting together the bases.

Well, that was all the exposition I had :) Enjoy the pics:

Awww yeah trees.

Way more after the break!

Laffly's and Panhards (French Early War Painting)

The worlds first Technical? Brilliance.

Laffly's are sweet.

I mean, it's an armored truck with a giant gun on the back. Not like Bunkerflak big or anything, but still this little guy got more than his fair share of tank kills during the invasion of France and the low countries so it simply had to go into my army.

Also, it's a great piece of kit on your gaming board as well. It's speedy (but wheeled, so be careful), has a solid gun and an MG for when you need to focus on those squishy infantry dudes. In combination with Panhards, for lifting gone to ground or putting additional pressure on those lightly armored targets, this guy really sings.

Today I bring you a unit of 5 of these guys, along with 4 Panhards I just painted up as well. They end up looking like this:

And this:

For more glorious full color images (and some more historical ones of the Laffly's) get past the break!

Bat Rep! Kradschutzen v. Panhorde (Our first early war game)

My homie Ben "Loon" and I are hard at work on putting together our early war armies. As you've seen from the blog I'm doing French, and he'll be joining with a German list.

Yesterday, we decided to put the paint brushes down and get in a game.  Our first in the Early War era (well, I played a few at NOVA last year but not with an army I'd want to play :) There had been much smack talk around the hacienda recently so we decided to put our money where our mouths are.

Ben is bringing his motorcycle gang (Aufklarungschwadron to you historically minded folks) while I'm throwing down the always loveable Panhards in a 1625 point hold the line scenario with the Germans on the attack.

First off, the lists!

Weighing in at 1625 points with 8 platoons, including the fearsome Bunkerflak, Loon brings the Nazi's on motorbikes.

And in the very very French corner weighing in at 1620 points with 8 platoons are the gentlemen in their armored jalopys!

Now, on to the game! (After the break)

First Platoon of Panhards

Hey all!

So for today I've got the first 3 Panhards of my French Early War reconnaissance army. I'm painting this up for an early war tournament at Huzzah Hobbies up near Dulles Airport here in Northern Virginia.

The Panhard is a pretty sweet little guy. A wheeled unit, with a solid gun, armor that isn't 0 and it looks freaking cool.

I've always wanted to do an armored car company (well a couple, as the mid-war Brits have some sweet machines as well) and the upcoming event has given me the perfect excuse to do so.

So what about the history of the Panhard? Well, i'm glad you asked. Wikipedia just told me that the nick name of the AMD Panhard 178 was the Pan-Pan... I likely won't ever call it that.

The little guy had a solid top speed of about 44 miles per hour, was armed with a 25mm Cannon and a co-axial machine gun to mow down all those fleeing Germans (right...)

Pew Pew

She was a pretty expensive and modern little lass for her time with a silenced turret and a production cost higher than many light tanks.

The battlefront version is much cheaper, about 12 bucks a pop, talk about economy of scale! (Get it?) And it was a snap to put together. 

9 or so pieces, average from what I've seen of a model of this type. 

 And, I think they paint up real nice as well:

Now, on to more pics after the break!

Somua S 35, From Battlefront

So, I'm putting together my early war French stuff and I decided to continue my tank building and painting spree I started with the Tigers a few weeks ago.

Thankfully, the French were totally defeated before winter set in so I won't be doing any winter schemes or painting for this army. I can finally retire my white paint for awhile I hope :)

First up, I'm knocking out the 4 Somua S35 that will be in my Panhard (Panhorde) list.

In game terms I think it's a great little tank. For the time a 4, 2 1 armor is solid and the 2, 6, 4+ gun ain't bad either. The only drawback, like most French tanks is the slow turret. Historically, this little guy stood up well against it's adversary the early Panzer III. It's only because of poor strategic decisions by higher command and an inability to produce it in large numbers that it wasn't a major factor on the battlefield. The Germans used a number of captures Somua's late into 1944, with some seeing action in Normandy.

Here's the final product:

See my inspiration, how it got build and more smexy painted pics after the break!

The rest of KG Hummel

Must. Own. This.

So the other day I posted up the pics for the Tiger 1E's from my KG Hummel list. Today you get the rest of them!

I can't remember if I ever posted the list so here it is:

HQ: 2x Tiger 1E

Plat 1: 4x Tiger 1E

Plat 2: 2x Tiger 1E

Plat 3: Full Pio's (CV)

Plat 4: 3x Nebs (FV)

Plat 5:  4x 250/9 Recce (FV)

Plat 6: 2x FlaK38 1x 88 AA Platoon (RT)

It totals out to exactly 1780 points and is a nice round 6 platoons. There are certainly some changes I'd make at this point like dropping at least 1 of the recce vehicles and picking up another Neb. And maybe dropping 1 tiger and something for some 105's or 155's.

But mostly, this is just a show and tell pic dump so... ON WITH THE PIC'S!

Pioneers:

More after the break!

Winter Tigers, A KG Hummel How To

I have no idea what that says.

Hey all, after posting up my blog yesterday I got some requests as to how I painted up my Tigers to look all winterized.

Not being one to pass up a chance to write, post pics and play a little show and tell I'll gladly share my secrets with you... But don't tell anyone else, I don't want it getting out ;)

Sadly, I don't have any WIP pics of the Tigers so I'm going to show some closeups of the tanks and explain how I got there.

First off, you need Tigers... Or any tank of your choice really... duh.

For Battlefront tanks I ALWAYS wash them in warm soapy water first. Why, well you'll occasionally see that white powdery stuff on there and that, my friends, is release agent. Release agent is a painters worst enemy, other than dropping the model it's one of the key ways paint gets chipped or rubbed off.

After the washing and drying go ahead and prime them. I use a paint on primer because I'm horrible at spray priming and I think you get a better more consistent finish with the brush on variety. Nearly all my stuff is based with a white paint-on Gesso. Gesso is a canvas primer you can find at your local Michael's, Utrecht, or other craft/art supply store for about 6 bucks a bottle. It'll last you WAY longer than spray on primer, in fact my current bottle has lasted about 3 years and I'm only about half way through it.  

 They end up like this, follow along after the break to see how I got there.

Showcase Comics 1780 Late War AAR

Look sharp... but act dumb... 

Well hey there dear reader (I imagine there's only one of you, and it's my mom). This weekend I had the opportunity to travel up to Media, PA with my homie Ben and get some great games at a most excellent location.

Showcase Comics and Games hosted a 3 round 1780 point late war tournament at their Granite Run Mall location. First off, they have a great store and if you're on the I-95 corridor here in the mid-Atlantic you are doing yourself a disservice if you don't go at least once.

They've got a great selection of comics (if you're into that sort of thing), 40k, Fantasy, Warmahordes and my baby Flames of War not to mention a slew of other games and fun. The store has great decor as well, a space marine stands guard out front while Genestealers crawl out of air ducts on the ceiling. Fun stuff.

The gaming loot is excellently sorted by army and type and they had a 20% sale on pretty much everything over the weekend, so: Wallet 0 -- Showcase 1.

But on to the gaming!

So, for the tournament I decided to get experimental and go with Kampfgruppe Hummel out of the new Bridge by Bridge Market Garden Compilation. Here's the list

HQ: 2x Tiger 1E
Combat Platoon 1: 4x Tiger 1E
Combat Platoon 2: 2x Tiger 1E
Support 1: 4x 250/9 recce
Support 2: Full Pioneer Platoon (Each round I took 3 flamethrowers)
Support 3: 3x Nebs
Support 4: 2x FlaK36 1x 88 Anti-Aircraft

It came in at 1780 exactly and 6 platoons. Here's some pics:

After the break I'll break down the rounds: