Panther ready to Prowl

So,

The other night I completed the weathering on the Rubicon Panther, used Vallejo environmental paints and did some touch up work on, it is now ready to hit the table to hunting allied armor.

All ready for battle

Read deck detail

Vallejo paints used

Toon tank vs Historical tank

 TK

WIP 28mm Rubicon Panther

So,

I have had this Panther sitting on my desk for over a year now and I decided to get working on it and getting some paint on it. I was going to enter this kit into our local Hobby Expo, but that is on hold. So I figured this is a good time as any to do some work.

I primed the model in Flat black, then proceeded to brush paint the Vallejo Middlestone color onto it. I have an airbrush, but just don't like to clean it so its easier to brush paint items. I also painted the treads as well with Vallejo Track primer followed by a dry brush of Natural Steel by Vallejo.

Base Color applied

 Next up came Camo Brown from Vallejo which I made some splotches on the tank.

Brown Camo patern.

I then went with Vallejo Reflective Green, which I am almost out of, so will be picking up some very soon.

Three Colors now

Next up was a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone. Once I applied that I let it sit.

Dirty Panther

So there you go, WIP up until yesterday, hopefully I can finish it up in the next few days.

TK

WW2 German Armored Reinforcements

So about two weeks ago after a game of Bolt Action, Robert & I were talking about some of our projects that we needed to finish up for our German armies for Bolt Action.

I had 4 vehicles that needed paint, so I decided that I should finally get painting on these. So first up was a Warlord 251 with PAK 36 and a Rubicon Hetzer. For the Warlord kit I went with a very simple strip pattern over a German Yellow (Middlestone) color. The Rubicon kit was a bit more time consuming as I did an Ambush scheme.

Left side

Right Side

Ready to Ambush

Just an FYI, these are all hand painted, I did not use my new airbrush on these. The 251 painted up pretty quickly, but the Ambush scheme took me about 3 hours of paint time to do. The hardest part is doing the dots and trying to make them random. Human beings love patterns and trying to do a random pattern is very hard.

Next up was a Rubicon 250 and Stug G from Rubicon as well. The 250 got a variant of the German three color scheme that I sponged on as I wanted it to look like the crew did it in the field. The Stug G was a simple two color scheme that I copied off of a 15mm Stug I did for my FoW army years ago.

250 NEU

This kit included crewmen

Stug G

Simple scheme

15mm vs 28mm

So there you go, four new vehicles for my 28mm German Bolt Action army, these took way too long to get to the paint table, but now they are ready for action.

TK

Red Devils Attack!

So,

A few weeks ago Drunkensamurai and I threw down a game of Bolt Action, version 1. We took about 1000 points ( I actually had about 1022 points) each with him taking his Red Devils vs a Veteran Grenadier Force. This game we used the new Bocage pieces that we have been working on and set up a very Normandy looking table. 

It was a hard fought game with the Germans barely pulling out a victory defeating the Red Devils. Some folks asked why we were still using the version one rules, well, to be honest, we like the rules and have not read the newer version yet. We are going to be doing one more large game (Point 213 Hill battle) in June which will be the last time we use the older rules. So here are a few pictures i snapped off while playing.

The Normandy Table

The Sunrise over the battlefield

A German MMG covering the road. 

Germans advancing next to the fields.

Covering the gap in the Bocage

Red Devils take the ruined farmhouse.

Germans rushing across the open road.

Advancing on the ruined farmhouse.

Squad one with Mortar support.

Charging the farmhouse

Oh, and after the game i was so inspired to play Bolt Action again I busted out an army that has been sitting waiting to get painted, my Japanese Force. So stay tuned for more pics of them in the future.

Next New army IJA

TK

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

Point 213 Progress - British Complete

Well,

On New Years day I completed painting on my British Troop for the Point 213 game in March or April of this year. These are all Warlord models and were pretty easy to assemble, I found that I enjoyed putting these together as compared to building Tamyia 1/48th scale models.

Painting for these was also pretty quick as well. In fact I used the same Testors dark green paint can that I used on my Tamyia models ten years ago, no issues. Then I did a Army Painter Strong Tone wash on the whole model followed by a Americana Honey Brown wash. Decals were from Warlord and went on after the Strong Tone wash and before the Honey Brown wash.

First up, the Firefly:

Warlord Firefly

Next is the Cromwell Command tank:

Warlord Cromwell

Here are all the Cromwell's together:

Warlord Cromwell's

Followed by a group shot of the entire British Troop:

All Warlord Kits

Also on New Years Eve, during the day, DrunkenSamurai and I got in another test game of the Point 213 game. This time I would play the British while he took command of the Germans.

Point 213 Battle test game two.

As you can see from the above picture, the British will be deployed along the road with a random number of pinned down markers. This is to represent the British stopping on the hill to have a conference to find out where are these Germans they have been looking for. This test game went very differently then the last one, mostly due to the fact that I knew what I had to do as the British player and the fact that most of the tanks only had one or two pin markers on them. Needless to say, I will not say what I did to win as the players will need to figure this out for themselves.

Next up will be two of the Tigers I am painting for this game, DrunkenSamurai has the other two. Also we need to get started on the Bocage for the game, since the table will need lots of it, at least 48 linear feet of it to be exact. Here are all the bases that we will be using.

Bocage bases

And hopefully this is what they will look like:

Mikes Bocage sections

These were done by my friend Mike over at Da Greenskins Blog, he built these for our local shop. I may be working on these this weekend, we shall see. So lots going on here so stay tuned.

TK

Point 213 in 28MM

So,

About ten years ago Drunkensamurai and I had this grand idea to play a historical scenario for the battle of Point 213 during the Normandy campaign. The Battle was the German 101. Schwere SS-Panzerabteilung of four Tiger 1's against the British 4th County of London Yeomanry with at least 17 tanks. The battle in a nutshell had the four Tigers ambushing the British that had stopped along a road in column to conference since they did not see any German activity all day. This however changed as the Tigers unleashed hell on them and surprised the British column virtually wiping them all out.

It didn't help that Battlefront put up a PDF of the battle for Flames of War with a nice map and detailing of the armored units that fought in the battle. So Drunken and I both agreed that this would be a cool game to do in 28mm on a 8'x8' table. At the time though, there were not many good WW2 vehicles on the market in 1/56th scale. So we decided on using Tamiya 1/48th scale tanks, they fit in better with the mostly Black Tree Design forces we had, so off we went buying tanks.

Tamiya 1/48th Firefly

Tamiya 1/48th Cromwell

I got as far as collecting the two tanks above, Drunken had a couple of more tanks then me, but right about the time we were buying these vehicles is when Japan had the serious earthquake and tsunami. This caused problems for distributors and it became tough to get Tamiya models at a good price. So we shelved the project for a later date and knew we would come back to this project. Well as these things happen, we never did anything with it and just kept the project shelved until earlier this year.

You see, earlier this year I decided that it was time to liquidate my 1/48th scale armor for more of the 1/56th scale plastic armor kits that companies like Rubicon and Warlord have out. It made it tough to mix 1/48th tanks with 1/56th tanks of the same type, so I sold off all my 1/48th scale stuff to a local friend. With the funds I decided to replace all my existing models I sold in the new scale along with a few other kits. That's when Drunken and I started talking about reviving the Point 213 game again. He committed to replacing his tanks to the new scale and we started talking about doing this project once more. But we were looking at least 23 vehicles and that was a bit steep in pricing for us when your talking $30.00 a tank. So we happened to be talking to another friend and he said he would help out with the game by purchasing some of the tanks for the game.

Drunkens British armor

  So now with another sucker lucky gamer joining us, we set out to acquire all the models needed for the game. Each one of us would build one build at least one British troop of tanks being one Sherman VC Firefly and three Cromwell tanks. Drunken and I purchased the Tigers and Drunken picked up a couple of other vehicles and tanks. All of the vehicles are Warlord kits, I had picked up a Rubicon and Warlord Tiger, but will be picking up one more Warlord Tiger to keep it all Warlord models.

Rubicon Tiger and Warlord Tiger

So with that goal in mind, my wife got me a belated birthday gift of one Warlord Firefly and three Warlord Cromwell's. They arrived last night and I jumped straight in to assembling the Firefly, which I have to say was a great little kit to put together.

Warlord Firefly!

So with that, we are only missing three tanks (Cromwell CS tanks) that Drunken will be picking up in the very near future. So last weekend we got out what tanks we had at the time and play tested the game in our local shop. The response we got to the play test game was amazing, people were blown away by the number of tanks (which was only half!) we had on the table. One Flames of War player thought we were playing Flames in 28mm and absolutely loved the look of the table and the idea.

8'x4' table!

Cromwells running away from the Tigers!

But one thing that we both realized after the play test game, we need terrain, lots and lots of terrain, specifically Bocage! We are estimating we will need at least 48 linear feet of bocage sections, each section will be 6" long, which means about 96 pieces of terrain! Luckily another friend of ours just did up a few bocage pieces for our local shop and we will be using his technique of using insulation foam, Woodland Scenic course ground foam and lots and lots of glue!

So there you have it, another big project lined up for 2017, so stay tuned...

TK
 

A Tale of Two Kitties

So,

Last week Robert over at Drunken Samurai Painting Blog, pitched me an idea for a big game that he would like to do sometime next year. It is sort of a top secret game but what I can tell you, it will require a few tanks in 28mm and use the Bolt Action Rules (I'm not going to spill the beans just yet). So with that said, I needed to start picking up a few vehicles. About two months ago, I started selling off all my 1/48th scale armor kits and started to switch over to 1/56th vehicles to be more in line with 28mm figures.

One of the kits I picked up was the Rubicon Models Tiger I Ausf. E tank to replace my Tamyia Tiger. I love the Rubicon kits and have a few now, so it was a no brainer that I would have this kit. In fact I was so excited that once I got home, I built up the kit! Now with this secret project, I knew I was going to need another Tiger, but after talking to Robert, I decided to pick up the plastic Tiger from Warlord Games this past weekend.

So last night I had some free time, so decided to build up the second Tiger to see how it matches up to the Rubicon kit. Now I have to say, if your in the market for a Tiger model, either one of these great kits will work and you will be satisfied with the results. I will be reviewing each kit below, but hear me on this, both kits are very well done and I really can't say which one is better than the other.

So first up is the cost of each kit:

Warlord Games Tiger = $32.00
Rubicon Models Tiger = $37.00

Now you can get both of these kits cheaper if you go online, but these are the suggested prices for both.

Next up is assembly, the Warlord kit gives you two plastic frames, while the Rubicon comes with three plastic frames. Each kit took about 45min to put together. Now the Rubicon kit allows you to build three different versions (early, mid or late variants), while the Warlord only allows you to build a late version. The instructions for both kits are easy to follow and pretty straight forward if you have ever built any sort of model kits in the past.

Now it is worth noting that the Warlord kit comes with zimmerit paste already sculpted on, which the Rubicon has none.

Another thing you get with the Warlord kit is a commander figure, while the Rubicon kit dose not come with a commander. Now this is not a big deal, but it is always nice to have a figure to add to the tank. On the Rubicon kit, the tracks have no real detail to them but the Warlord kit has actual track detail (you can see the track links and such). Once again its a minor issue, but not it was something I noticed when I assembled the kits.

Overall size of the kits is pretty good, but the Rubicon kit is just a hair larger than the Warlord kit. I noticed it with the gun barrel sizes, the Warlord kit is shorter than the Rubicon kit (and we all know barrel length is important, sorry!). But overall you could easily run both of these kits together on the tabletop in the same platoon without seeing an issue.

One other thing I would mention is that the detail on the Rubicon kit seems much crisper than on the Warlord kit. I am talking about the molded on detail like the tow cables and track equipment rear deck detail. Its minor and once the model is painted it will not be an issue. Both kits do come with decals, although the Rubicon decals are the same ones you get with the Panzer III & Panzer IV kits, would have liked to seen a different set of decals. The Warlord model has a generic set of German numbers and cross' which is nice.

So which one is better? Well I don't know, both kits have their strong points and low points, but as I said at the beginning of the post, these are very small issues. With saying that, I like the Rubicon kit much better since I have the option to build three variants as opposed to one version. But I think I will be buying another Warlord kit for our super secret project since the Tigers would have zimmerit on them and I do not want to green stuff up the Rubicon kit. I hope this little review helps you with deciding on a Tiger to purchase. Stay tuned for painting these big kitties.

TK