Chain of Command German Armour

A while ago I bought a couple of Rubicon kits from Buoys Toys in Cromer, a Panther and a PzIV, which had been sitting around for ages unmade and unpainted. 

I'd wanted to paint them in a late war camouflage scheme but felt that would be hard to do without an airbrush. I'd been thinking about buying an airbrush for a while but, taking some advice from my club mates, decided that it wasn't worth the considerable expense, lack of potential use (as I mainly paint figures) and the need to learn how to use it decided against it! Fortunately one of my club members, Mike from the excellent Tactica Studios, offered to spray the base colours on for me so I could finish the rest.

Mike sprayed them with the basecoat yellow then added the green and brown camouflage. I decided to add a 'dot' pattern over the camouflage and finished the rest of the models tracks, detailing and mud splattering (though not as well as Mike would have done, his tanks look much nicer than mine!).

The Panzer IV:

Another view:

The Panther:

Another view:

I think I might have gone a bit overboard on the dots, most pictures seem to show far fewer and I didn't realise quite how many I'd added until I'd finished, on the individual panels they looked fine but when I looked at the overall tank I realised just how many there were! They have grown on me though and now I quite like them and am looking forward to using them at some point in the future!

Chain of Command Axis and Allies

Some more additions to my 28mm WW2 collection picked up at SELWG and Warfare recently.

Firstly a downed German aircrew from Wargames Foundry:

Must admit I'm a bit disappointed how these came out, they are nice figures but for some reason just don't look 'right', maybe the colours are a bit off. It's a shame they didn't do a U-Boat crew as well to fit in with the 'Dad's Army' theme.

Next in a similar theme some more Home Guard, again from Wargames Foundry:

These add some more infantry and heavy weapons in the form of a Vickers MG, a Lewis gun and a BAR so I almost have enough for a full platoon of Home Guard now (and could just use some of the BEF to make up the numbers). The female figure is meant to be Mrs Fox from Dad's Army I think.

Having bought a fair bit of armour for the Germans, Americans and Russians I thought I should add to the lone Matilda for the British and bought a Vickers VB tank from 1st Corps. It is a resin model and is nicely done:

They also do a Matilda 1 which looked great so I may be tempted by that sooner or later!

For the Americans we have an M4 half-track:

This one is a Rubicon Models version, rather like the German Hanomag it is an iconic WW2 vehicle. No opportunity to use it in "29 Let's Go!" but hopefully it will get on table in the future.

Finally I picked up a Warlord Soviet Naval squad from the Bring and Buy at Warfare for a very reasonable £7:

The Russians are still my favorite CoC army and I expect eventually a third squad of sailors and some command will be added to make a full Naval platoon.

Chain of Command Tiger Time!

While we have been playing the 'Kursk' scenario's I've read a couple of books on the subject which emphasize the influence of the newly deployed Tiger tanks on the battle. It is also possible to choose a Tiger as one of the support options for the Germans (though not by me as I am the Russians).

On my recent trip to the North-East I visited a wargames store in Redcar and picked up a couple of things, one of which was a Rubicon Models Tiger tank:

Better get out of the way!:

It's a nice model that was very easy to put together and is quite the monster tank in 28 mm. I'm not sure it will get much (if any) use but maybe it will see action in the future.