Sniper!

Been a while since posted; away at the weekend and still trying to recover stuff from flooded shed. Ordered a new carry case for my Fallschirmjager from Feldherr which should be with me Monday (should give me motivation to at least get 750 points worth painted).

Speaking of Fallschirmjager I've got a couple of squads half done and I finished off my Sniper team. Pictures are crap - couldn't get camera on phone to focus properly sorry.

Jeez, they look even worse on here - in reality the bases have come out really well with variations of colour - have to get my actual camera out at some point.

3 More Regiments

Last night I also did a bit more work on my Austrians once the kids had gone to sleep; my plan is to split each session I get now in half - some on my Lobositz forces and the other on either my Fallschirmjagers, Frostgrave or Vietnam stuff just to keep me going.

I've also ordered a couple more bags of bits from Baccus before their price rise towards end of April, get your orders in fast!

Fallschirmjager Squad 1

So I've mostly finished painting a squad of my Fallschirmjagers for Bolt Action (minus a touch of luftwaffe blue for helmets and hats as well as metallic grey for weapons. I still need to apply decals to panzerfausts as well as texturing bases but I thought I'd post them anyhoo.

I think they've come out quite well - having said that I do feel the detail on the jacket fronts could be better. I also would have preferred a few more options for the panzerfausts (say a firing pose?).

Now I've done these - I'm going to work out a 500 point list and paint up the necessaries including the platoon commander.

The squad is made up of an NCO wielding an MP40, a second man armed with an MP40, a MG42 (with a second man as loader), 3 Riflemen and 3 Riflemen with Panzerfausts.

For my records (and if you want to know);

Part	Colour	Make
Skin	European Skin	Colours of War
Hat/Webbing	Mechanised Standard Grey	Citadel
Base Uniform	Worn Canvas	Colours of War
2nd Uniform Colour	Battlefield Brown	Colours of War
3rd Uniform Colour	G. I. Green	Colours of War
Uniform Lines	Army Green	Colours of War
Bag	Wool Brown	Colours of War
Rifle	Dryad Bark	Citadel
Leather	Dark Leather	Colours of War
Boots	Abaddon Black	Citadel
Trousers	Sicily Yellow	Colours of War
Uniform Wash	Athonian Camoshade	Citadel
Skin/Trouser Wash	Agrax Earthshade	Citadel

28mm Mass Painting

As I've previously stated, I have large quantities of 28mm models to be painted and I need to stay motivated and do them. I am currently spending an hour or so a night putting together my Fallschirmjager and these are nearly done (just the Pak40 and Mortar to put together) - this is working well and its quite nice doing it whilst the missus plays Sims.

As such I will shortly have my Frostgrave Barbarians, Fallschirmjager and my Vietnam forces already to go  - its enough to be daunted - so I need timetables. I want to get my FJs to be undercoated by Christmas so I can paint a couple of squads before Rookie Day for Morecambe Bay Storm after which time may be more limited and hopefully get some games in.

With planning in process I therefore need to calculate which paints I need to paint them up for Monte Cassino.

Image from Warlord Games

I've used various paints in the past including FoW own ranges as well as GW. What paints do people suggest and if possible colour codes?

3rd Prussian Infantry Regiment

So, was involved in a car accident on Tuesday evening, rear ended and still incredibly sore. So painting as been limited as sitting for long periods isn't great, having said that I've been reasonably organised so although I've not much finished I do now have huge amounts of stuff half painted.

Having said that, I always like to get something done so here is my first attempt at 6mm Infantry - painting in strips isn't as bad as I thought it might be, also a way to go quicker is to do the details and not be too bothered if you overlap on either an area you haven't painted or onto the base coat (in this case the blue uniform) and then do one last going over with a fine brush to do the blue again (really sharpens up the lines). Anyway as such here are my attempts at 3rd (Anhalt-Dessau) Prussian Musketeer Regiment.

Glue needs cutting back 

I also have got the 6 Cuirassier Regiments completed and they have even been textured - just need to decide how I'm going to paint the bases.

Moving forward we'll see how we go - Lobositz is still the target I think as a battle to make a force for but I may look at something else if I can find a smaller one. Austria will definitely be the opponents at first and then maybe French. Depends who else will play :p

British Paratroopers and Canadian Infantry

So here are my WW2 Paratroopers and Canadian Infantry - based upon 1st British Airbourne and 3rd Canadian infantry Respectively.

The support elements are interchangeable (at the moment)as I don't have enough for both - eventually I intend to have enough to field both divisions concurrently but at the moment either my Canadians represent the Air Landing (Glider) Brigade or the Paras represent standard infantry.

British/Commonwealth Forces

I had organised my Parachute Battalions as having 4 companies each as per standard infantry however I now believe that the Paras only had 3 companies per battalion. I will leave this as is until I get the other parachute brigade - this also means that I can use them for standard infantry in the meanwhile.

1st Parachute Brigade

1st Parachute Battalion

2nd Parachute Battalion - Lt. Col. John (Anthony Hopkins)  Frost Commanding

3rd Parachute Battalion

I have played around with a few rule variants for these in terms of the drops but haven't finalised as yet - once I do I will post them. For our Spearkrieg rules, I count the Paras as SMG armed Rifles - so 5 attack at 3" - 4 attack at 6".

Canadian Infantry Brigade (Probably 7th)

In various states of basing, the uniforms of the Canadians are identical to British Infantry but greener. I have enough left to field at least one more brigade, maybe more and I will complete the Division eventually.

Brigade HQ Stands

The equivalent of Regimental commands in other armies.

Engineer Squadrons

British (Commonwealth) forces are not the easiest to work out what is what interchanging regiment, battalion, brigade, company and squadron for various different units. I then have numerous support elements which can be attached to either.

Heavy Machine Guns

6 pdr Anti Tank Guns

17 pdr Anti Tank Guns

Then a few purely for my Paratroopers. I have some artillery support as well as some jeeps complete with appropriate berets. To represent the transport I have scratch built some gliders out of matchsticks.

Pack 75mm Howitzers. Not a massive punch but can't fit much in a glider.

Airbourne Jeeps

"This signpost looks funny sir!"

So that is it so far, I hope to be able to field both of these as division sized forces separately and in unfinished models I'm a good chunk of the way.

Late World War 2 German

So, these aren't new models but I want to find out exactly what I've got and organise it. So here in part 1 is the rest of my German Infantry forces, this time late war.

3 Rifle Regiments

First up, a full strength Fallschirmjager Regiment with additional support elements. These were really fun to paint (if a bit fiddly).

1st Battalion

The paint scheme was (something like); Grey helmet, dark green trousers, light green smock with dark green and brown camouflage. As I said bit fiddly but a bit of a break from the mundane. (Hopefully DPM should work similarly).

Regimental HQ

As per usual I made the antennae with spare paint brush hairs. Might upgrade to steel bars if I ever get the urge.

2nd Battalion

3rd Battalion

I've seen various orbats so excluding the battalion 8cm Mortars, I have kept the assets separate. 

120cm Mortars

Pak 40 7.5cm Anti Tank Guns

15cm Infantry Guns

10.5cm Artillery with FOO

Also available are some Corps assets. With some of these I've played around with the basing a bit (especially to protect StuG barrels).

Flak 36 8.8cm Anti Aircraft

StuH '42

StuG III

StuG III

Also I have a significantly understrength Infantry Regiment with minimal assets. These were bought for games in Netherlands when the German Army was putting anything into the line to hold the gap.

I will flock these at some point, and the Pak 40 (from Skytrex) will probably be upgraded.