More Soviet Heavy Metal - Including An Atlantis/Aurora JS-III

 A few more 1/48th scale WW2 Soviet armored vehicles. The SU-100 and two T-34/85s are metal 1/48th models my buddy gave me a few weeks ago; the JS-III is an inexpensive plastic kit picked up off of ebay. It's an old Aurora re-release by Atlantis - only $17 so couldn't pass it up. Very few parts and went together very nicely.

They were all airbrushed with a mixture of various greens on hand, then highlighted with Vallejo Yellow Green dry-brushed on. The decals came from the JS-III kit - exccept for the slogan on the SU-100 which came from a Hobby Boss T-34/76 decal sheet.

I have to ask my buddy who made these metal tanks - they are in 1/48th scale which is unusual nowadays.

The JS-III came with the commander; the rest of the crewmen are leftovers from the Bandai kits.

One of the T-34/85s was missing a lower rear panel so I used some plastic card for a replacement. The rear sproket wells were fashioned from Green Stuff.

Except for the JS-III kit, all of the rest of the tanks were kindly given to me by my buddy. I suppose I need to get some infantry now. Until next time, thanks for stopping by and best wishes to you all.

Battle of Mahiwa (1917 East Africa) - Bolt Action

This was a fine Bolt Action game run by my buddy at his place with all of his figures and terrain. The scenario was based upon the Battle of Mahiwa in 1917 during the East African Campaign. I ran the Germans and African troops led by General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. My buddy ran the Commonwealth South African and Nigerian troops under General Jacob van Deventer (interestingly a Von and a Van against each other).

Start of the game with proper refreshments to instill valor and vigor.

My German/Askari troops occupying the village - this was a victory condition. They held it until the end of the 6 turn game. The smaller building was initially held by the South African cavalry after dismounting, but soon dislodge by the Askari forces after charging into hand to hand combat.

View from atop one of the village dwellings overlooking the South African armored car.

An Askari squad advacing into the rough - with local wildlife looking on.

Some of the native special trooops with the South African force. They were never able to get into close combat.

View of the German center and left at the start of the battle

The South African armored car being assualted by German infantry.

South African cavalry moving up to the village prior to dismounting - having already acquired pins from Askari rifle fire.

Askari and German troops having moved into and occupying the village early on.

An Askari squad decimated by Nigerian rifle fire - local wildlife looking on to the human carnage.

The game was called a victory for the German forces as they held all three village structures. The Commonwealth failed to dislodge them after multiple attempts of assaults and ranged fire by both rifles and artillery. A nice game that was quite enjoyable and looking forward to more of the same. Best wishes to you and thanks for stopping by. 

First Completed "Post-Retirement" Project - Wargames Atlantic Great War French & Germans Infantry

 I may have mentioned it previously, but I just retired on 30 April from my job with Washington State. My actual last working day was last Thursday, the 28th - so had time to work on two boxes of Wargames Atlantic Great War French and German Infantry. These painted up quickly as I used an old can of Army Painter Wolf Grey to basecoat the French and a can of Krylon Camouflage Olive to base the Germans. Painted them up with the usual block painting and Minwax stain - followed by a little highlighting.

The French box is short 12 figures which I had used for Tirailleurs for a Western Desert WW2 game. 

Minimal equipment with a no-frills uniform really sped up the process. I used Vallejo Grey Blue to highlight the uniform.

The Germans also have minimal equipment and the late war uniform has simple cuffs with non-exposed buttons - again making for quick painting. The Krylon Camouflage Olive is a very close match to Vallejo Fieldgrey - the latter used mainly for highlighting.

Here they are with their earlier painted brethren.

The French are now 58 strong, and the Germans 60. Still need to had some HMG teams.

Here's a shot showing the Germans base-coated with the Krylon Camouflage Olive and only the jackets being painted with Vallejo Fieldgrey.

On the gaming front, I have a Saga game tomorrow (first time in years), and a Bolt Action WW1 Middle East game on Friday. So I suppose being retired does have benefits when it comes to the hobby. Thanks for dropping by and wishing you the all the best.

1/48th Bandai Bolshevik Battlewagons - KV-1 and T-34/76

Two more kits that my buddy graciously gifted me. These are old Bandai kits but still look as good as current available kits. If it weren't for my buddy, I likely wouldn't have gotten any Russian armor. Although I did paint up a Tamiya Beutepanzer KV-1 a while ago.

The kits originally came with stickers for markings - very old school, I guess. The decals on these were picked up off of ebay. I tried Googling the Cyrillic slogan on the KV-1 but couldn't find out what it means.

The Bandai kits (including the previous German tanks) come with interiors - engine, gun components, and crew compartments. I skipped using these parts which sped up the building process. However, if one wanted to use them, most of the hatches and lids can be left opened to view the interior. Quite impressive for these older kits.

Wasn't planning on building a Russian force up but may need to get some infantry for support.

As for the green - I experimented with some of the Vallejo Model Air colors. Not having prior experience with Soviet/Russian colors, I'm okay with the results for these. As with most vehicle colors, exposure to the elements would create various shades of the base color.

I dry-brushed Vallejo Yellow Green over both tanks to highlight and lighten up the overall look.

Well, no sooner was I finishing up these two tanks when my buddy dropped off several more Soviet tanks. These are metal models also in 1/48th scale. They size up perfectly with the Bandai kits. My buddy said he knew I liked this scale and he was using 1/56th stuff now. I plan to use the T-34/85's for Korean War Bolt Action to face the Pershing I painted a few years ago.

Thank you for visiting, Comrades!

Bandai 1/48th Hetzer and Panzer II's

Here's the first round of kits donated to me by my buddy last month. I had wanted to start on the Sherman, but discovered it had two hull sprues but missing the turret. Need to ask my buddy if he has it as he said thought he had more kits stashed away somewhere. Anyway, getting a lot more comfortable using the airbrush. I have a process down now - using a jar of water to rinse out the paint cup between colors, and only doing a full cleaning when done.

The crewmen in the dunkelgrau Panzer and the Hetzer are from the Bandai kits; the DAK crewman is from a Perry metal set.

The DAK Panzer will be used in a Bolt Action game I'm hosting next month at Enfilade. I wanted another tank to assist in the assault by the Axis forces. The grey Panzer may be a reason to build an Early-War German force.

As with the previous Tiger kits, used an oil based wash for pin lining and detailing.

The exhausts still need some weathering.

Although old, these kits are still very nice and go together nicely.

On another note, I'm retiring at the end of this month. It'll be my second retirement (retired from the Army in 2008), but won't be able collect from the state until I turn 65 since I only have 15 years. My wife is a great comptroller so we should be good until then. Thanks again for checking out the blog - and I should be doing more gaming once retired, for good.

Tiger Hunt - 1/48th Tamiya and AFV Club Tigers Finished

Took a little while to finish these, mainly due to the drying period of the AK Interactive oil washes. The recommended drying time for these are from 12-24 hours. Since this was the first time using them, I went for the full 24-hours as I didn't want it to react badly with the final matte coat of Krylon spray.

The AFV Club kit on the left is supposed to belong to the 102nd Heavy Tank Battalion which served in Normandy. The Tamiya kit on the right is supposed to belong to the 505th Heavy Tank Battalion which served on the Eastern Front. 

Used one of the Bandai figures for the AFV Club tank; the Tamiya kit came with the commander.

The oil wash was used rather sparingly on the zimmerit of the AFV Tiger. When the wash was partially dried, I used a brush with very little thinner on it to wipe away some of the wash to lighten it.

The decals came with the kits and decal setting solution was used. It worked well setting the decals into the zimmerit.

A bit too big for 28mm figures, but they were a nice project to familiarize myself with the airbrush some more.

The picture above shows the two 1/48th Tigers next to a Corgi 1/50th Tiger on the far left. The Corgi looks good with 28mm figures, IMO.

My buddy dropped off a bunch of 1/48th kits he had sitting collecting dust for years - all he wanted was a some beer for them. Here are the kits below - plan to start on the Sherman first.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out the blog and current projects. Until next time, wishing you all the best in your endeavors!

Tigers Striped - 1/48th Tamiya and AFV Club Models

Pulled out the airbrush again today. Initially only planned to prime them, but ended up adding the camo. The one without tracks is the AFV kit that has zimmerit molded on; the other one is the Tamiya.

This time I used the Vallejo set that has Dunkelgelb RAL 7028 and other colors. I painted the Tamiya first using the Olivgrun RAL 6003, but it looked too dark. For the AFV Tiger I added a some brighter green from the other Vallejo set I had. The Rotbraun RAL 8017 was also a bit too dark for my tastes so I added some reddish Rotbraun RAL 8012 (primer) to it.

The pattern on the Tamiya reminds me a bit of Charlie Brown's t-shirt design.

For detailing I plan to use oil washes - it'll be another first for me. Supposedly this is a better way to do pin-lining as the oil based wash can be cleaned up using mineral spirits/thinner which should leave the acrylic painted camo unaffected.

Pretty satisfied with the results of the airbrush. One thing that was a little troublesome was having to stop a few times to clean and unclog the airbrush.  Also, as this airbrush doesn't have a detachable paint cup, I had to clean it out between colors.

I also painted up and stained some tank commanders. The one on the far left is from the Tamiya kit and the rest from an old box of Bandai figures.

Well it was nice to get more familiar with the airbrush. Thanks again for dropping by and wishing you all the best.

Perry DAK - Based And Ready For Bolt Action

Finished up the 12-man sprue of Perry plastic DAK figures. Nothing special here - just blocked painted, followed by Minwax Tudor Satin stain and sprayed with matte. Used Warlord Games 25mm rounds to match the rest of the figures for Western Desert Campaign.

Nice figures, as expected from Perry. As I didn't have the entire set, not sure how many more arm/weapon options may be included but the single sprue I had seemed to have only a few spares. That is, I would've liked to have more firing poses - particularly with rifles.

I do like the simplicity of these figures - all of the equipment worn on the rear are molded in one-piece, making it easy to attach to the figure.

Picture above shows a Perry figure with a Wargames Atlantic figure to the left and a Warlord Games (metal) to the right. The Perry figures is slightly smaller than the other two, but looks okay on the gaming table with them.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out this small project. Best wishes to you all.

Perry DAK - WIP

Perry DAK WIP. Just a 12-man plastic sprue picked up from ebay. Figured the Axis needed a few more troops since they'll be the attackers in a Bolt Action scenario. Haven't picked up the full box yet, but this sprue only had a few arm/weapon options. Specifically, there are two prone figures - one of which has a rifle already molded onto the main torso. The other prone only allows either an anti-tank rifle or MG 34. There is another arm/weapon option for the MG 34, but it is a shoulder carry pose. I chose to use the anti-tank rifle for the prone and use the shoulder carry for the MG 34. In Bolt Action, infantry attacking armored vehicle can only cause minor damage if the unit doesn't have anti-tank weapons. Figured this will give the unit a fighting chance. Although in the last game at Fix Bayonet, the Italian unit without anti-tank weapons caused the Crusader to be destroyed even with minor damage rolls.

With the usual Minwax Tudor Satin stain treatment.

Block painted with various khaki and OD colors from the Vallejo DAK paint set.

After these are done I have two 1/48th scale Tiger I plastic kits - one an AFV Club and the other Tamiya. Plan to get some more airbrushing done on them.