Point 213 Progress - Germans Complete

Well,

This weekend saw the last models I will be contributing to the Point213 game completed, Two Tiger I's.

Two Big Cats

Once again, these are Warlord models and went together pretty fast. Once assembled I primed both models flat black. Once that dried, I then applied Vallego Middlestone by sort of wet drybrushing onto the models. Once the first coat was dried, I applied a second coat of Middlestone to the models.

Wet drybrush of Middlestone applied.

Once that was dry. I started on the tracks and other details like the tools on the deck and such. This went pretty quickly since the Tigers don't have too many detail to pick out. Interestingly I bought the Rubicon German Stowage and was going to apply some of these to the Tigers, but as I looked at pictures, I could really not find too many that had extra stowage on them, especially the ones in Normandy. I chatted about this with Drunkensamurai, and he has a great Tiger book and it seems that only Tigers on the Eastern front had pictures with extra stowage. The Germans seemed pretty fanatical about keeping the Tigers in clean good shape and seemed to have been supplied via other means rather than the crew having to haul it around with them. So long story short, no extra stowage was modeled for these two.

Camo Applied, do you see me?

After the tracks and details were painted, I applied the camo to the tanks using Vallejo German Cam Brown and German Reflective Green. I actually struggled with which camo scheme to apply to these kitties, but in the end with a rather simple design. Once I was satisfied with the camo pattern, I then used Army Painter Strong Tone all over the models and let them sit to dry. Once that had completely dried, I then applied decals to the vehicles using the smaller numbers in the Rubicon decal sheet instead of the larger ones that Warlord supplied. I choose to use Tank Numbers 234, which Herbert Steif commanded and tank number 221 which was George Hantsch commanded. Both of these tanks were at the real Point 213 Battle and were part of Michael Wittmans platoon.

Herbert Steif Tiger
 

George Hantsch Tiger

Once the decals set, I then applied a dry brush of Americana Mississippi Mud color to the whole model, this gives the tanks a light layer of dust and just the right amount of weathering. Once again Tigers were kept pretty clean and I can't stand when modelers go crazy with the weathering effects. If you talk to most tankers (current and past) they kept heir tanks in pretty good condition since it is/was their home away from home. So just a simple weathering effect looks better than going nuts.

And there you have it, two more tanks completed for the Point 213 game. So since I completed these, on Sunday I went down to Drunkensamurai's place and we started working on the 48 linear feet of bocage that will be needed for this game. We are doing the Bocage in 6" sections (once a tank successfully crosses bocage you remove a section per the BA rules) and were using pink insulation foam for the base of the bocage.

Here is about 40 of the sections of Bocage!

 We cut the bases out and beveled them, then cut various heights of pink foam and glued them to the bases. Once that set we went back and filled any gaps and cut the foam into more random shapes. Drunken will be adding some of the section we cut off glued to various sides to give them a more robust, plump look to them. Once that is done, we will be painting them dark brown and applying Woodland Scenics coarse ground foam and applying a ton of glue to harden them up.

So stay tuned friends, the Battle for Point 213 game progress' forward...

TK