From ByronM:15mm WWII Canadian Infantry & Churchill Tanks (110 points)

From Byron:

This week I decided to get a force together for Chain of Command, which I have played several games of with Curt and with the Fawcett Avenue Conscripts.  I had picked up a pile of 15mm WW2 British (Canadian) figures YEARS ago with the plan in mind to do a landing force for a Dieppe game using Flames of War.  I never got around to it, being stuck on how to actually do the terrain and the buildings of the town.  Therefore they sat.  

Once we started playing around with CoC I got interested in the idea of some Canadian WW2 troopers again and dug them out.  Only to find that all the British I had, were wearing shorts!!!!  Damn, I had picked up 8th army guys and they have sat here for probably almost 10 years!  

Well, I had to come up with something else so figured I would give the Plastic Soldier stuff a try.  So I found and ordered a pack of 5 Churchhills and a pack of British infantry a few weeks back to try them out.  I had heard mixed reviews, but figured at less than $60 for 5 tanks and 150 infantry I would give it a shot anyway.

So, with all of that long story out of the way, here is my first Chain of Command 15mm force.  

There is a platoon of Infantry made up of:
 - Platoon Headquarters with a lieutenant, sergeant, PIAT team, and 2” mortar team
 - 3x Infantry sections, each made up of a Corporal, Bren Team, and 8 riflemen

Overall, I really liked the Plastic Solider infantry, there are a few poses that could use some improvement as they merge the packs into the body awkwardly, but overall they are really nice.  It is 15mm and for the most part you probably won’t even see the few slight things that bugged me.  For 150 figs in a box at the price I picked them up for, they are way better than I expected.  All the detail is there, faces are good, and almost no flash.  Awesome!

There is also a platoon of Churchills which is made up of 4 Mk III’s and a single MK IV.

The tanks impressed me even more.  I had heard that Plastic Soldier company had some issues with soft details, but I saw none of that here.  Everything was crisp and clean. While they were a little work to put together, having about 25 parts a piece, there was very little cleaning required and everything fit perfectly. So while they took a little time to get together it wasn’t really that much more time than a resin/metal kit.  Better yet, they worked out to just over $6 a tank, which I thought was pretty good value for what I got.

I had a lot of fun painting them all up, both the tanks and the infantry, but especially the tanks.  There is just something about 15mm vehicles.  They paint up so insanely fast, and look so awesome with so little effort compared to 28mm vehicles.  These were airbrushed for priming then base colored, then sponged for some chipping, some silver on the chips, a quick wash for some depth, a clear coat, then some pigments for weathering, and then another clear coat. Total time…. maybe 3 hours for all 5, and I think they look ok as is, but may go back and add some grime and rust drips, still haven’t decide. 

Now to get in a Chain of Command game with them!

You've really done an amazing job on these guys Byron. The infantry is excellent but those Churchills are completely brill. That airbrush and weathering technique you've used looks wonderful, especially with the minimal amount of time you put into them. Amazing. 

This platoon of Canadian infantry and their accompanying Churchill tanks will give Byron 110 points. Great job!

From JohnM: 20mm WWII German Panzer Grenadiers & Gestapo Officer (44 points)

From John:

I am playing a solo game of CoC now, I just wanted to get my new British Paratroopers on the table, as well as getting a better sense of some of the vehicle rules. So essentially it is an Attack on an Objective scenario and one of the supports that the Germans selected was a squad of Panzer Grenadiers in a SdKfz 251/1.

Well I had the half track done but as I was playing the game I realized I did not have any PzG figures available in case the troops decided to leave their halftrack! Could not have that of course, so went to my reserve box and found 10 PSC 1/72 figures that would do. 

The PzGren's are well equipped and have two LMG teams. They need to be as in the last photo you can see through the smoke an approaching section of elite British Paratroopers. I must say I like painting small units of figures, you can put the time in but I have to say the collar flashes were a challenge.

I have also included a Gestapo Officer from SHQ Miniatures. I am not sure why he has a monkey on his shoulder. But the figure itself certainly gives off a bloodless psychopathic look. I am hoping to put together some rules for him, somewhat similar to the Commissar rules in the Soviet list.

Great work John! After painting a kabillion 28mm Napoleonics these small, discrete units must come as a breath of fresh air to you. I really like the 'combat photos' of the new lads in action (though I have a sense it's going to end badly for them). 

The less said about the Gestapo officer with the taxidermic hedgehog on his shoulder the better...

These eleven figures will give John 44 points. Good luck in your solo game John, may the best man win!

From ClintB: 15mm WWII US Halftracks (35 points)

From Clint:

Just finished 5 US halftracks by the Plastic soldier company. These are 15mm scale and for my US PBI collection. They come in 5 sprues to a box and require assembly. I found they went together very easily but were a little fiddly to my fingers but not to fiddly to stop me getting more if I need them.  

They do come with a few optional pieces such as stowage different bumpers, machinegun mounts and crew. I could have put up 8 figures in each halftrack but instead elected to just do the drivers, co-driver and another figure to operate the .50. Most of the other crew are for sitting on the benches as opposed to action poses. 

As I see these more in a battle taxi role I did not want to clutter them with loads of extra figures, although if I get another box that might well become my best option. I have kept the bases very simple so they fit in with the rest of my force and besides when I look at a grassy field it does not have too many clumps about. It may be very different where you live but in the South of England, tend to be cultivated and with quite an even grass length (maybe not at the edges or on scrub land but generally).

These have been prepped for day 1 of the challenge and I kept putting off doing them mostly because I get side-tracked very easily. But In the end I wanted to get them done before the challenge ended and as we are now running out of time I did have to force myself to get them done as I had a new parcel of goodies arrive yesterday and I am eager to start them. 

Nice work Clint. These M3s certainly seem to be in the midst of cruising through a 'Green and Pleasant Land'. The more I see of the PSC range the more I like them. These models look to be very crisp, with nice sharp lines and clean interior detail (and the stowage always a welcome touch). I also like how you did the weathering and mud around the wheels and tracks. 

These five halftracks will give Clint 35 points. Great job!

From BenD: 15mm WWII American Tanks, SP Guns, Jeeps, Halftracks & Patton(!) (118 points)

From Ben:

Hello All

A little change of pace from my current Soviet Drive (Don't worry I'll be back to that in the next few days). Just before Xmas I sold all my FOW US to fund my Soviet army as I had big plans but small pockets. Well one of the guys who bought my tanks wanted me to round out the army, after a little time to finish my Soviets for Corrivalry I started the US APCs.

First up I did 6 Priest Artillery and 2 OP Shermans, these are all Battlefront models and were great fun to paint. The modeled on Stowage (always a favourite of mine) really adds a lot of character to the unit. Although the crew were a paint to stick in...

Next up was 3 Half Tracks from the Plastic Soldier Company. These guys were a little fiddly to put together but I'm happy with the end result.

And Finally Patton and a Jeep recon unit. Patton is a lovely model with real character and a great model to paint. The jeeps were also fun but having now put together 20 or so of the battlefront jeeps I find them a right pain to do. 

In case your wondering the the .50 cals are missing by request of Mike as he's planning on magnetizing them.

Really beautiful vehicles Ben. The Priests are fabulous, but my favourite has to be Patton's armoured car with its 4-star pennants and the man himself reviewing the troops, making sure 'the other poor dumb bastards die for their country.' Classic.

These fine American vehicles (and their crews) will give Ben 118 points. Well done!

From BenD: 15mm WWII Russian Sturmovik & Lend Lease Sherman and Stuart Tanks (128 points)

Hello All

I have finally got around to painting the Stuarts I have been talking about for a while now and have seemingly done everything in my power not to paint! At the same time I also painted up the Sturmovik I also need for the event and a company of Sherman 76mm for a future Lend Lease only force inspired by Steve's one.

The Stuarts are from the Plastic Soldier Company and are technically the wrong model, but they were the only Stuarts I could get my hands on in time for the event and the difference is only the turret. Also the way I look at it is a Stuarts a Stuart, as long as I don't use the same model for both types of Stuart it shouldn't be confusing. Also I loved the model so much when I did my US versions I wanted to build and paint them again.

The Shermans are also from The Plastic Soldier Company and were a lot of fun to build and paint. I did a small swap on them and used some spare Battlefront .50cals I had instead of the ones that came in the box as they are very flimsy.

And finally the Sturmovik, this is the Battlefront version very kindly given to me by Cid. It was quite fun to paint but I did have a lot of trouble were the under camo joins the top camo on the wings. Game wise I have found this to be a waste of points and it will be dropped as soon as I get my hands on some Heavy Mortars and M17 Anti Air, but I don't have the time to buy the models and to paint them up before the event.

Well thanks for looking and I hope you enjoyed the post.

Really beautiful work Ben. I've always had a soft spot for Stuarts (must have been 'The Haunted Tank' comic books of my youth) and its great to see them being put to good use by the heroes of the Soviet Socialist Republics. 

These Shermans, Stuarts and the Sturmovik will give Ben 128 points. I hope they do well for you in your upcoming event!

It's Cold Out Comrade - 15mm WW2 Russians in Winter by Greg

For the motherland!!

Greetings once again to the good folks at Analogue Hobbies, Greg here.  In his recent post, Curt unveiled his Germans for our latest little project - late WW2 in winter on the eastern front in 15mm.  He asked me to share some progress photos on the Russian side of the project, so here is a Russian rifle platoon and tank platoon decked out in winter gear and basing.

You will see in these photos that a) I do not have a light box (one of these days maybe, but anyway) so sorry about the photos and b) that I have not yet cottoned on to Curt's very sensible basing scheme using different shapes to denote different functions in skirmish gaming (hex for officers etc).

Part of my hobby nuttiness is an undue rigidity in my preferences on basing i.e. if the infantry are round then they are all round dammit! This works well enough for skirmishing with 15mm sci-fi figures, where the function/role of an individual figure can stand out against the ambient table background a little better because of crazy painting, large weapons among other factors.

But for skirmishing at 15mm WW2, it's tricky to see the different weapons sometimes (or maybe all the time for some players).  So I have ordered some new bases! But in the interim, labels will have to do for my fellows until I get them sorted on to new bases....anyway, on to the figures!

Russian infantry advance through the snow

A sniper waits in ambush - the snipers were pretty scary when we tried Chain of Command, so I thought it would be fun to include one

The infantry in this post are from Peter Pig (in my opinion the very best WW2 15mm figures out there, if you can figure out their bloody web site).  The only exception is the sniper - a spare from a Battlefront pack.  The infantry contingent includes three nine-man squads, two officers and a sniper.  Enough for a Bolt Action of Chain of Command-type skirmish game.

Another view of the charging Russian troops - beautiful sculpts from Peter Pig

After experimenting with different sorts of snow-flake type groundwork products, I opted instead for gel.  I used a mix of different gel mediums on the bases, painting the snow a light blue-grey, and then dry-brushing various shades of white, before tossing in some dirt and adding some grass.  The photos make the grass look really yellow but that is a reflection of the lighting issues on the photos - the grass looks much less lively in person.

The officers are front and centre in this shot

I have been wanting to do winter WW2 gaming for years, and talking about doing it for years, but I always hung up on the details before getting started.  I didn't really know how to do snowy terrain.  It seemed pointless to duplicate my existing 15mm stuff. I didn't want to get another set of table terrain.  Lots of reasons (read: excuses) which, oddly, never popped into my head when I thought of doing, say, desert terrain.  So I'm glad Curt finally kicked me into gear on this one.

There are so many compelling campaigns from winters on the Eastern Front - the counter-offensive at Moscow, the counter-offensive around Stalingrad, fighting around Kharkov, the liberation of the Ukraine, Korsun and Cherkassy pockets.  There is something about the winter of the Eastern Front that is extremely mournful...I can't wait to play some winter games.

The NCO is a blurry with the SMG, but you can see the LMG on the right

The tanks are all from the Plastic Soldier Company. Close inspection will reveal I likely put the wheel assemblies on backwards on one of the tanks.  I don't what it is about model tanks, but that is just something I'm prone to doing. Even the relatively straightforward PSC model tanks are a cluster f*ck in my modelling hands...oh well.  I will never turn heads at the IPMS.

T-34/76 from Plastic Soldier Company

A great thing about the PSC tanks is the spare turret - you can upgrade your drive on Kharkov to a drive to the Oder with the quick switch of a turret!

Quick turret switch and you upgrade to a late-war Guards tank regiment with T-34/85s in no time

Many winter vehicle models I have seen online have a very pristine white paint jobs on them. But that never makes sense to me.  I imagine the life of tankers on the Eastern Front. Who had time to take the tanks for a nice, proper paint job at the depot?  The tanks were needed at the front! The pressure was on to continue the advance! Particularly on the Eastern Front, where the Russian army typically launched shattering counter-offensives and offensives in the winter.  The tanks were driven through all manner of rough terrain, in incredibly tough elements, in combat conditions that to my mind would wear away a rapidly applied field paint job.

Ready to roll toward the Baltic and the Oder river

And winter is seldom pristine on vehicles of any colour.  Snow looks pretty and white in post cards (and at Christmas), but I know from growing up here in Winnipeg, snow gets dirty, mushy, and messy in no time at all.  So I tried to reflect that on these tanks - hard-living and hard-fighting T-34s of the Motherland!  Lots of paint chipping, weathering, soot and mud from the hard work of driving the fascist vipers from Mother Russia.

Soot. Exhaust. Mud. Fun!

I'm really glad to have made a start on the winter 15mm stuff.  I look froward to getting these on the table against Curt's fine late-war winter Germans next month.  I am also going to start on some winter 15mm Germans of my own so we can do some winter games here with the group in Winnipeg.  And the neat thing about winter is that once you have winter Germans, then maybe I can go to some winter Americans...and Battle of the Bulge?  One thing at a time...

From AndrewS: 28mm British Colonial Infantry, 15mm Tigers & Greyscale Viking (177 points)

From Andrew:

First up are 26 British colonials for our adaptation of Muskets and Tomahawks. These are all Empress miniatures 28mm figures. These additions will give me 3 units of 8 line figures and two officers to add to my current troops and complete one of my years personal targets.

Next up is the first 6 Tigers for my eldest son Callum, These are Plastic soldier 15mm versions. They have been given a simple 3 colour camo scheme all done by hand. I am yet to get an airbrush. As usual they have some with crew, stowage etc. All have had some foliage to help with ambushes.

Finally is my attempt at greyscale "fetch me the men in white coats" I had been inspired by Curt's project and thought it would be an easy task, how bloody wrong I was there. This just has to be the most difficult figure I have attempted even though I picked one of my favoured 28mm Foundry Vikings to carry out this project.

Andrew spoils us with a wonderful variety of beautiful miniatures. Those British colonial troops are incredibly vibrant and I'm quite curious about the use of M&T for the Zuluwars - I'll be folowing up on this. The Tigers are suitably impressive, made especially so with the addition of the foliage camo - very nice touch. Finally, I really like your greyscale Viking. I'm flattered that my madness helped in your inspiration to paint him as you did. Many think the greyscale effect is a breeze to pull off but it does require a bit of left-brain thinking to do it justice and this you certainly have done.

This fine assortment of lovely models will give Andrew a tidy 177 points, enough for him to breach his point target - congratulations and well done!

From AndrewS: 15mm WWII British Shermans (102 points)

From Andrew:

Continuing with a theme, Here are my 15 Tunisia / Italy themed Sherman's and 1 Hurricane as the Air support option.

The Sherman's are all 15mm scale from Plastic Soldier Company, the Hurricane is from Revell.

I have painted these as an element of 9th Armoured brigade. The Camo pattern used I found on several images on the internet, it is unusual so therefore decided to replicate for my force and have used a theme within for each platoon to aid me recognising on the table. 

The force breaks down as an HQ of three Sherman's and 4 combat platoons of three Sherman's. All the tanks have been subjected to my usual painting style and the application of stowage and hand made camo nets to enhance the look.

Fabulous work Andrew! I wonder if this camo similar to the green 'mickey mouse' scheme? It's very distinctive with the white outlining. I assume these are for one of your sons? I remember the previous group of Tigers were for them as well. Wonderful gifts!

This company of Shermans and the Hurricane (including the commanders and stowage) will give Andrew 102 points. Well done!

From ScottB: 15mm WWII German Halftracks (60 points)

Scott makes his Challenge debut with these excellent WWII German halftracks.

From Scott:

Here we have a boxed set of PSC 15mm SdKfz251/D half tracks that have been converted using the PSC Conversion kit. 

In this case I have chosen to make the optional platoon command halftracks for the gepanzerte panzergrenadier combat platoons. This features the 3.7cm AT gun, which give the platoon a modicum of AT fire power. In game terms it rarely achieves a heck of a lot but it looks interesting and certainly makes the command vehicle stand out.

After these 3 vehicles I was left with two and wasn't sure what to go with; stummels, 8cm mortar carriers or Flamethrowers. In the end since I already have 2 each of the stummels and mortar carriers, I decides the flamethrowers would be something different.  So these are the SdKfz 251d/16 Flamm halftrack.

Potentially very nasty in the game (auto kills against infantry and gun teams), but in practice I will probably have a heck of a time getting them anywhere near the target platoon! Time will tell...

Next up Tigers... just got decals to go...

After that back to finish off Hobbit goblins...

Wow, lovely work Scott - your camo on these is brilliant and I really like the crews and stowage. Those Flamm tracks look particularly nasty, but as you say the test will be if they can get close enough to do their work.

These five Hanomags and their crews will give Scott 60 points to mark his entry on the roster. Happy to have you back Scott!

From Samuli: 15mm WWII German Armour (30 points)

From Samuli:

A quick follow-up to my previous Napoleonics. These were painted with the redcoats to keep me from getting bored. The first 15mm tanks I painted, so I tested some different airbrushing and weathering effects on them. The Königstiger and Stugs are from Battlefront and the Sdkfz 251 is from Plastic Soldier Company. 

I was supposed to send in a PSC Panther but painting the German Ambush pattern camo didn't really work out and that bugger went into paint removal. I really like the PSC offerings a lot more than the Battlefront ones, eventhough they take a lot longer to build up.

All the minis have been preshaded before painting the camo pattern on top. Everything painted with Vallejo stuff again. After the basic painting I applied the decals and then a quick oil wash in some places to bring out the details.

The decals are from Battlefront and the mud is a product called Quick Mud from Marutechnics. Tried applying it by painting and splashing. Works pretty well on 15mm's too eventhough it's meant for bigger scale models. Not quite sure how well it will stay on the minis during gaming though. I'm not too happy with the quality of the decals and especially the crosses are clearly non symmetrical, but what can you do when nobody else seems to do decals in this scale.

Great work Samuli! Your camo looks very good and I particularly like the mud effect you've achieved with the tracks and wheels.

These five vehicles will give Samuli 30 points.