I just wanted to do some rebasing…

… and went over the top. And build more. And repainted a lot.

Let’s start from the beginning. As the long time followers will know, we used to play WWII games using the „The Face Of Battle“ rules. Those were skirmish rules in the classic sense and worked really well with individualy based crews for crew served weapons.

Roughly a decade ago we switched to Battlegroup since we wanted something that catered for bigger games and was a little faster. Battlegroup does not really care much for the basing. So neither did I. But when I started adding some completely new forces in recent years (my 1939-41 Germans, late war Fallschirmjäger and Poles) I started basing crews served weapons and some small teams on multi bases. And I really liked the looks. So I made the decision to do everything new fitting that criteria this way and slowly rebase the old stuff. My Americans already got the treatment two years ago (man I could have bet that was last year), it was now time to start with my Germans.

Up first is a Bandai Pak40 in 1:48th scale. Which is a bit of an oddball in my collection these days. The roughly 50 year old Bandai kit is the only model kit on the market these days. You can also get a PaK40 in 1:48th from Blitzkrieg, but that is about it and then you you need to crew it.

About the only options for a seperate crew that some to my mind are Victory Force and 1st Corps. Which essentially means a very limited variety. So I decided to go with 1:56th guns (for those guns where I will essentially need multiples), mainly on account of Warlord games offering a choice for virtually any force and setting and secondly because I have some guns with crews from other manufacturers (Empress, Heer46 and Offensive Miniatures) for some of the more odd forces / settings like Gebirgsjäger, Volksgrenadiere, Charkiv and so on.

Why am I telling you this? Well since it is going to be my only PaK40 in this scale, I wanted to pick a setting that limits the chances that I will have to put two of them on the table at the same time. So I went for very late war SS. I already had a crew from Victory Force painted up in a mix of Pea Dot and plain uniforms ready so they would only require a repaint of the helmets to match them to the gun. But then I decided to repaint on the gun as well. Back then I used a green that was too dark and applied the camo with a brush. Unfortunately the paint had been a little thick, so the camo formed a slight raise on the model. I wanted to equalise this with a new coat of camo and some varnish. At least that was the plan. I decided to go for a Resedagrün base and apply a hard edged camo over it by airbrush. What I did not realise back then, was that the masking putty started to flow that day (it was the first heatwave here in Germany that day) which led to extremely raised edges. So essentially I had the same problem as before. I felt it was half as bad after two coats of varnish, but looking at the photos now… I think I will apply some heavy camouflage to the model. So you might see more photos of this one in the future. The crates and loose ammo are from the Rubicon offering below.

Up next is a PaK40 from Rubicon in 1:56th scale. My old system meant, that I could get a way with very few gun models by simply having different crews to place besides them. These days it means that I have more crews than guns. Like a Wehrmacht crew with a strong mid war vibe. Since this is a setting where I could imagine two PaK40 on the table I went with Rubicon here. (There will eventually be another gun from Warlord to add to it.) The gun is completely new, while the crew is one from Victory Force I painted ages ago. Most of the crew are converted from their tri-pod HMG set, only the gunner himself is from the dedicated PaK crew set. Again the helmets were repainted to match the gun, as were the ammo containers (which actually come from the Bandai gun above).

The next gun, a Pak43 is 1:48th scale again. Quite an expensive model from Gaso.Line. But worth it. I repainted the gun, but to be honest, I cannot really say why. I think it was because I did not like something about the camo pattern. The crew is from Victory Force once more. In retrospect I am not really sure about the gunner. While kneeling poses seem ok for the rest of the crew he is very much dwarfed by the gun, which makes him look strange. But Inwould imagine the crew operating the gun under fire, so he might try his best to keep a low profile. And it is a huge gun, which is why the German troops called it Scheunentor (= barn door). Which is also why I put it into a prepared position to break up its outline from the front.

Now the next one is completely new. A PaK97/38. Years ago I saw a painting by Giuseppe Rava and somehow it made me want to model that gun with a SS crew. The model itself is from Rubicon. The gun commander and loader are from the old Bilt Action rules (before they were sold to Warlord Games). I think they originally came with a PaK40, but I always loved them since they are so very dynamic. Since there is only two crew and the PaK97/38 requires a three men crew in Battlegroup, I build a gunner from the Warlord Games plastic SS set and I feel it turned out good. This also gave me a chance to try out a new recipe for Oak Leaf camo.

Speaking of trying out… I also bought some new paints for Italian camo that I wanted to give a try. Stössi’s Heroes have a nice set of Sturmmann Otto Funk & Grenadier Klaus Schuh, who served as a MG team in the scout section of the 12th SS in Normandy. The photos of them in Rots are amongst those most used from the fighting in Normandy. Now the minis depict them while the photo was taken and on that occasion they both wore overalls made from Italian camo fabric. The minis are actually really nice, but have two slight „defects“. For one they are a bit short. So glued another thin base onto the slots bases I use to make them about as tall as the other minis I use. The other is that the miniature of Funk is carrying post war NATO ammo boxes. So these had to be replaced with boxes from a Warlord plastic set and some filling with green stuff.

And last are the only minis that were (almost) just rebased. My Wehrmacht artillery spotter team. In a recent game the upper part of the Scherenfernrohr had broken of. When I repaired that, I had to remove the tripod and cut the parts where it broke flat. This lead to some damage to the paint and to make sure it was all uniform, I repainted the whole thing. The spotter and his radio operator where based together as well.

 

Two 12,8cm PaK 44

Turns out Corona did not have the effect on my blogging habits that I expected. While I did indeed play less in recent months, I did not blog as much either. But this was mostly due to most of the projects being bigger and taking more time.

One of the first one projects I tackled were two 12,8cm Pak 44s. The models themselves are 3D sculpts by the very talented Richard Humble printed in resin in 1:48th scale. (Anyone interested in these… the models are now being sold in 1:56th scale by Rubicon.)

Since these came without crew miniatures, I had to build some myself. I used plastic minis from different Warlord Games sets for them. These lend themselves quite well for these kinds of conversions.

12,8cm PaK 44 Kanone 81/2

Up first is the 12,8cm PaK 44 Kanone 81/2. This one actually saw action very late in the war. I wanted it to be manned by a Wehrmacht crew and to give them a look reminiscent of the last winter / spring of the war. So they are all wearing greatcoats.

12,8cm PaK 44 Kanone 81/2

The painting is also meant to represent this period of the war, with a Resedagrün base and Dunkelgelb and Schokoladenbraun camouflage. The camouflage was intentionally airbrush with a little too much pressure leading the feathering, to make it look like a fast and sloppy paint job.

12,8cm PaK 44 Kanone 81/2

12,8cm PaK 44 Kanone 81/2

The ground is meant to match with very muddy ground and dried out winter grass.

12,8cm PaK 44 Kanone 81/2

12,8cm PaK 44 Kanone 81/2

The other gun is the Rheinmetal version of the 12,8 cm PaK 44. Now while a few prototypes of this one were build, they never saw action (as far as I know), but it simply looks cool.

Rheinmetal 12,8cm PaK 44

For this one I chose an SS crew. Again going for a late war look they are wearing a mixed assortment of clothing. Greatcoat, regular uniforms (both in Feldgrau and Erbsenmuster), smock and Zeltbahn.

Rheinmetal 12,8cm PaK 44

The paint ob is quite simple. Just red primer for the gun and Dunkelgrau for the barrel. From what I have read, barrels were often primed grey, even till the end of the war, due to the grey paint being more resistant to the heat of the gun.

Rheinmetal 12,8cm PaK 44

The paint job got some streaking grime and rain marks to show that the gun was exposed to the elements. There is a tarpaulin hanging over the barrels to break up the guns silhouette. The tarpaulin was born out of necessity. When I had just assembled the gun, Sami accidentally swept the model off the table with his tail, breaking the gun. After I glued it back together , the barrel had a slight bend. Not much, but it was slightly noticeable where the barrels broke. But the tarpaulin is masking that quite well.

Rheinmetal 12,8cm PaK 44)

For the base I went with an urban look. This way it could the urban fighting seen a lot during the last few months of the war.

Rheinmetal 12,8cm PaK 44

That is it for today, but since we are off on holidays, I will have more time posting in coming days. So there is more to come.

 

8,8cm PaK 43 auf Kreuzlafette

Playing late war games in a World War II setting, especially on the eastern front large-caliber Panzerabwehrkanonen (PaK / anti-tank gun) are a must to give you some edge over the heavily armoured tanks like the JS-2. The long-barreled PaK 43, both on a Spreiz- and Kreuzlafette are perfect for this.

8,8cm PaK 43 (Kreuzlafette)

Playing in 1:48th scale, the later is not too easy to get. But some years ago, I had the good luck to get my hands on the, now long OOP, Verlinden model. It is a very nice model, but even by modeling standards it is not an easy model to build. So I had to make some modifications to the connections between the gun and the shield to make it work out and stand the rigors of game play. But even that way, it will better be picked up by its base and not the model itself. Fortunately I have decided to base all my future AT-guns and indeed put all my old ones on bases for Battlegroup, so that will not be much of a problem.

8,8cm PaK 43 (Kreuzlafette)

Like the Jagdpanther, this was a testbed for the new weathering methods and I have to say… I feel it turned out exceptionally well on this model.

The crew itself is the 8,8cm FlaK crew by Warlord. It is a bit small even for their own 1:56th scale models, but I feel it still looks OK. While the gun was painted this winter, the crew was done about 15 years ago. I only redid the skin on the minis. I think that is where my technique changed the most during that time and I wanted them to blend in with my current models.

8,8cm PaK 43 (Kreuzlafette)

 

Our game at Crisis 2015: Battle of Berlin

So, after keeping you all excited for days now, here are the game shots from our Battlegroup: Fall of the Reich  demogame at Crisis this year.

To be honest, it is hard to make a coherent game report out of the game, due to all the chatting with people, explaining the mechanics, answering where the vehicles and models came from and so on. But I will at least try for a very short synopsis:

The Germans were a mixed Battlegroup formed around a nucleus of a Volkssturm platoon, beefed up, by a squad of Hitlerjugend tank hunters, a squad of SS Panzergrenadiere in a halftrack, some Wehrmacht Pioniere, a SS sniper team, a Pantherturm, 8.8cm Pak “Scheunentor”, a Borgward Wanze, a Panther and a Tiger II (Commander).

The Russians had a Platoon of rifles, with Maxim, Ratsch-Boom AT-gun and AT-gun team, an artillery spotter team for their onboard mortars and heavy artillery, a squad of Assault Pioneers, one of Scouts, three T34/85, two JS-II tanks and a lone T-34/76 (Commander).

Julian and I started the game in quite classic fashion. The Germans waiting for the Russians to run into the traps they had laid and the Russian tanks trading were shots with the Tiger and Pantherturm at long-range, while waiting for the infantry to catch up and protect them from the pesky Panzerfäuste.

During this time not much happened. Much like the Demo last year, both of us managed to alternate at rolling bad so we did not take out much with our long-range shots. (The funniest exchange was between the Pantherturm and JS-II who had problems spotting each other and one of the JS finally did and hit, he got a snake eyes for the penetration roll [he would have needed a three on two D6] only to roll a twelve the next round.) The most impressive exchange was the Russian sniper and one of the SS snipers killing each other, which left the lone German sniper to kill one the artillery spotters, pinning the other. When the Russina infantry command was also pinned, this effectively rendered the Russian mortars and Artillery useless (especially since the the participation gamers would continuously forget to unpin them). We also found out that a fanatic squad of Hitlerjugend can well take out a squad of Soviet elite scouts at short-range with their SMGs and a little help from the Panzergrenadiere. And that even with our gods eye view of the battlefield, it is easy to drive a T34 around a corner only to find the road blocked with Czech Hedgehogs and becoming a prime target for a PaK as a result.

Obviously things really picked up once the first participants came and played along, driving their tanks and infantry on without regard for losses. At that time tanks started blowing up all around the table and infantry perished left and right. This was also the first time I saw man-pack flamethrowers in use in the game and boy are they deadly assaulting buildings, especially on a squad sporting a fair amount of SMGs! All in all we had a cracking day and I hope the players had one, too. I will leave you with the pictures!

Der Russe kommt!

Hitlerjugend tankhunter squad besides destroyed Tiger I

Pantherturm and Volkssturm MG-08 team in the front, Tiger II in the rear

AT-gun position with the Volkssturm command looking on

SS sniper in one of the tall buildings

The Panterturm again

LMG position

JS-II advancing

T-34s advancing

Hiding behind the rubble

Hitlerjugend about to take out the Soviet scouts

Russian Pioniere about to assault

Enemy at the doors

Volkssturm advancing

The 8.8cm PaK

T34-85 taken out by the PaK

The end of the Pantherturm

Tiger II waiting behind the barricades

 

Battle of Berlin infantry… scraping the barrel

So in the effort to catch up with all the stuff done in recent weeks for the battle of Berlin game, here is the first step… the last additions to the German infantry.

After having played WWII for well over a decade now, I have been in the comfortable position not to need too many new miniatures for this years game. Having nearly 300 Russians and more again when it comes to Germans (regular Wehrmacht and SS), there was not much to do there. Except for some of the more uncommon troops that were sadly thrown into the meat grinder during the last weeks of the war.

I know many people have reservations about using these units in their games and for some time I contemplated this as well. But as sad as the use of children and the elderly in fighting units may have been, it is still a part of history. And at the same time, very few of us (as long as we play ancients) have reservations playing Spartans, who were taken for training as soldiers at a far younger age, or Romans, who would eventually sell their vanquished foes as slaves. So I made the decision to use units of Volkssturm and Hitlerjugend in the game as well.

Before I start with the pictures, please note, that some of them have been edited (blue dots) to be in line with German law. Here it is a criminal offense to show certain symbols in public on models and such.

Up first are a few Volkssturm I did about a decade ago, which formed the nucleus for the force (and which I wanted to show for completeness sake). These are all Victory Force miniatures. The NCO wears the uniform of an Allgemeine SS NCO. Probably someone who managed to evade being send to the front all war long and now finds himself leading a squad of Volkssturm during the final days. And who will probably disappear to “get some orders at HQ” when the bullets start to fly. This model is a Wehrmacht mortar operator with his uniform repainted. All the rest of this squad are from the French Resistance line. Some had their headgear converted to make them look less French and more German and all have had the Volkssturm armbands sculpted on.

Volkssturm

Up next are a bunch of vintage Bolt Action Volkssturm miniatures. Always loved the guy with the old WWI Bavarian helmet and was very pleased to finally paint them up, after they collected dust for ages. The guy with the Greatcoat came unarmed, but I felt he did not look like a medic, so he got a Panzerfaust from Victory Force.

It was actually pretty funny when Paul hicks passed by the table at Crisis and actually spotted some of his old Volkssturm and Russian minis.

Volkssturm

Now I needed some numbers to field them as a complete Volkssturm platoon under the Battlegroup rules, so more minis were needed. These days this is easy, with the set from Warlord, although I still needed a Wehrmacht LMG team. So all the minis in the following pictures are by Warlord. Some of these are regular SS or Wehrmacht soldiers, but those either served as NCOs for the platoon or as part of the Panzergrenadier squad also used in the game.

And these later minis are up first. I had some bad luck with the fat SA officer, since the mini was slightly miscast, but Warlord send me a replacement in time. The battle never got close to him on Saturday, but if it had, I bet he would have joined the Allgemeine SS NCO from above to get some new orders at HQ. The NCO in the middle and the soldier with the Luftfaust to his right feature heads from West Wind productions. At one point I had used up all the not-so-cartoonish heads from the Warlord set and had to find something proper. The gas mask on the Luftfaust seemed proper. I know some soldiers operating the Panzerschreck without the blast-shield would wear gas masks to protect against the backblast, so it seemed sensible for this mini as well.

Volkssturm (leaders and NCO)

SS Grenadier with curved barrel attachment on his StG-44

SS Grenadier with curved barrel attachment on his StG-44

And now the regular Volkssturm.

Volkssturm

The guys on the left and right got field cap heads from Victory Force. Again, I had only the cartoonish faces left for the set, so this seemed sensible. Plus if you look at the guy on the right, he is sculpted in a way, not a single helmeted head would have fit him. Even with this one, he still looks a bit like Quasimodo. Anyway, between these three, the one in the greatcoat for the vintage Bolt Action set and the one from Great Escape games (see below), there is almost a whole squad in greatcoats, which is nice, too.

Volkssturm

The platoon also needed a HMG and I loved the option to give them a MG-08. Rummaging through my boxes of minis, I found a WWI HMG team from Renegade Miniatures. The size of the minis was right and since they were lying on their bellies, no huge difference in their uniforms could be seen. So I just took their heads off and replaced them with ones from Victory Force. At first I had decided to just paint them in the brownish Feldgrau uniform, to represent the cheap uniforms made with cheap dyes late in the war and given to the Volkssturm. But with their regular headgear and a lack of rank insignia (the lowest Volkssturmmann would not get any) I felt they could still be mistaken for regulars, so the armbands were a late addition.

Vollkssturm MG-08 team

Vollkssturm MG-08 team

And last, some Hilterjugend (and Flakhelferinnnen). 6 of the boys and girls would form a tank hunter squad, with the rest of them (and the Volkssturmmann) beefing up the numbers of the Volkssturm.

Up first is the set from Great Escape Games, which was easily my favorite from all these minis, for all the character put into the youngsters.

Hitlerjugend and Flakhelferin

And the remaining minis come from the Warlord set once more.

Hitlerjugend and Flakhelferinen

 

Some Waffen SS (5th Entry, 5th AHPC)

Ok, the end is neigh (regarding the 5th installment of the AHPC) so I felt it was time to get some points added to my tally and fast. So looking through my massive lead pile I found some SS troops that I will need for a demo at a show later this year. That is one thing I like about WWII (compared to Napoleonics or as I had to find out even SciFi minis)… they paint up fast even if wearing camo and even if they have lots of insignia on their uniforms.

SS troopers

Up first are some additions to my infantry. These are not the first SS I have painted, but I had a certain lack (and still do to be honest) with some types of minis. One are normal riflemen without the face late war G43´s or StG-44´s. While most of them are geared towards late war, those weapons still were an exception and not the norm, so here are two soldiers with K-98 carbines (one of them also carrying a magnetic mine). There is also an NCO beefing up the numbers of squad leaders. and last there is one machine gun assistant loaded up with lots of ammo to feed into a a Hitlers buzzsaw (already had that one painted but minus the loader).

SS troopers

I wanted a distinct late war look. So they are wearing Erbsenmuster camo clothing. Now to enhance the rag tag looks many German units had to take on in 1944 and 1945 they are wearing a mix of both mint and faded clothing as well as a mix of camo clothing and field grey clothing.

Another area where I have a distinct lack of minis are gun crews, so I painted up a gun team for a PaK or other light field piece.

SS PaK Crew

 

Again they are wearing a mix of camo clothing in various states of fading and field grey uniforms. This team will eventually see more men in Eichenlaub smocks added to the team (not sure if that will happen during the challenge though). This will add yet more variety to their looks and enable me to field them as a large team. Even though we are using 28mm we play the Battlegroup set of rules which work out really fine at larger scales as well. In Battlegroup a large crew for a gun gives you a chance for an extra shot per round, so that is a nice option to have.

SS PaK Crew

All the minis in this post are from Victory Force and scaled at 28mm.

 

WWII German forward observers

We recently switched to the Battlegroup series of rules for our WWII gaming. The rules work really nicely when you are using combined arms tactics and I personally feel they encourage them. As a result, we have been using artillery a lot in recent games. Nothing bad about that, only that obviously it would be nicer if you do not have to burden some squad leader with the direction of incoming shells. So I felt it was time for some forward observers. Up first are the Germans, but I will add some to the Americans, British and Russians as well.

The set is from Warlord Games and for once, the faces of their Germans are actually fairly nice. That being said I still wanted some more diversity and used a head from West Wind on the guy with the map board. All the others are straight out of the box.

Wehrmacht (Heer) forward observers

Wehrmacht (Heer) forward observers

But being on it, I also wanted some for the SS. While the set is cast as a Wehrmacht set, they were fairly easy to convert. With the officer and the map guys this only meant the removal of the collar insignia with a sharp knife. Otherwise most of their uniforms are covered up by the Zeltbahn, so nothing more to do there. The radio operator was a bit harder. He is wearing a Tarnhemd. Now opposed to what wargamers tend to believe SS and Wehrmacht smocks were actually quiet different. They had foliage loops in different places (not sculpted on these figures, probably since many soldiers removed those anyway). But the biggest difference is that the Wehrmacht version was reversible camo / white and had a hood while the SS version was reversible spring (summer) / autumn and had no hood. Since the radio operator is wearing his hood out (most soldiers actually stuffed it in on the inside in summer) it had to be removed. This was simply ground away with a Dremel. Over the years I have grown accustomed to working with a grinder bit on the Dremel and as a result I did not even have to re-sculpt anything. In this case the officer got a helmeted head from West Wind and the map guy a head from Victory Force. I chose to paint these in Eichenlaub pattern. For one it one of my favorite patterns, it is one of the most common and helmet covers, smocks and Zeltbahn were produced in this pattern, so it fitted nicely.

SS forward observers

SS forward observers

 

Some painted SS troopers and the birthday haul

Now that the big Möckern Project is over, I want to turn my attention a bit towards my WWII minis again (although not completely). As outlined in another post, I want to paint my WWII Brits and a good amount of my SS for this years Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. To get back into the mood I decided to paint some SS this week. And here are the results.

Some years ago I went and looked at all the different patterns used for camouflage uniforms by the SS and painted at least one sample each, both spring and autumn versions. I found that there were two I liked the most and those were Eichenlaub (the spring version) and Erbsenmuster. So while my forces will still have some odd other camo mixed in, the majority of the troops will now wear these two types of camo. And this also suits my needs quiet well, since most of the action these minis will see will be rather late war, when these types were already in use.

Up first are the troopers in Eichenlaub. All the minis are from Victory Force (as are the minis in Erbsenmuster), which are still my favorite minis when it comes to WWII Germans for the love for historical accuracy and detail. I only found that the faces were quiet different in style from the ones I have painted over the past 1 ½ years and that these were giving me some pain. Painting these was straight forward. Feldgraue trousers, jackets in a lighter Feldgrau to represent lighter fabrics for the jackets (you can only see the collars of course), Eichenlaub smocks and in one case helmet cover (mini on the far left). Otherwise it is just the utensils carried by the men and the camouflage painted helmets and they were done.

SS Eichenlaub (front)

SS Eichenlaub (back)

Now with the Erbsenmuster I went a bit further. Now the Erbsenmuster was no used for smocks, but for trousers and 1943 and 1944 type jackets. So I went and used Heer type minis for them and painted them accordingly. While the shades are virtually identical regardless of factory and age for Eichenlaub, there are huge differences in shades with Erbsenmuster. I guess this is due to the lower quality of dyes during the late war period. So I went and mixed and matched a bit here. Bold and bleak patterns in this group and even on one mini as well as a regular Feldgrau jacket mixed with camo trousers. I really love what you can do with these.

SS Erbsenmuster (front)

SS Erbsenmuster (back)

What else. Well this week saw my birthday (36th if anyone is asking). So what did I get? Well my better half was kind enough to grace me with a few vehicles from Warlord Games. Three Daimler MK I scout cars (one will be converted) and a Unic Halftrack with 3,7cm PaK (this will joined the three regular and one command variants still in my painting queue). Great stuff, which should allow me to round out my armored forces in due time. From my parents I got the Rousellot book on French Napoleonic uniforms. Leafing through it, this is one of the best and most comprehensive books on the subject I have seen so far and should make a great addition to my collection. Some of the first minis painted for the above mention Painting Challenge will be the Limited Edition minis from Martin K´s Befreiungskriege blog which contain a foot artillery drummer and two train soldiers. Looking at the drawings of those last night, I am sure this book will be extremely handy!