Some WW2 repaints...

Been a while since I dabbled with 15mm stuff, but I had a bunch of German vehicles I wasn't super happy with.  Instead of flogging them on eBay and buying more stuff...I just tossed them in the ultrasonic with some alcohol.

 

While they came out a bit 'chunky' - some of the primer didn't come off, so these are a bit less 'crisp' on the details, I speed-painted these to put them back into service.

 

 

Last of the Tankhicans.

 So after blitzing most of the Kasserine box upon arrival...I've finished the last model which will be painted for a while.  The remaining tanks are going on eBay or into the "for later" pile.

A Panzer III M, equipped as a Flammpanzer, or flamethrower tank.  A few crude modifications, a pump/tank applied on the back, a thicker barrel installed, and the vision ports cut/sanded off from the sides of the turret (I did this for the other Panzer IIIs as well as they're all later models).

Gave it a minor camouflage scheme so it stands out from the others and can be picked out for gaming easily.

15mm Inventory

Needed to start re-organizing my RUBs for Battlegroup in 15mm.  Shuffling some stuff and trying to make space for all the new additions.  While doing so, I figured why not take some pictures of the whole collected force.

The full 15mm collection, both Soviets and German Fallschirmjaeger.

The Soviet armour collection (well...most of it)

German Fallschirmjaeger platoons along with their support options, aid station and AT guns.

The German armour pool.

The Soviet self-propelled gun collection with some lend-lease tanks and German spill-over.  To the right, the mass of four Soviet infantry platoons.

The Soviet support options and tractor/truck park.  Endless trucks, halftracks, tractors, scout cars, supply trucks, repair vehicles, siege guns, mortars, MG's, artillery, AT guns, AT rifles, command and scout units, aid stations, etc.

Tank Day? (Or getting 15mm out of my system...)

After spending many moons not touching my 15mm WW2 stuff I've obviously been on a kick the past few days - simply because I was getting tired of painting 28mm post-apoc stuff, etc.

Using the Kasserine box that I got a little over 24 hours ago...I whipped up two 50mm guns (shown in the previous post), and then six tanks, a platoon for each of my respective forces; Germans and Soviets.

A platoon of M3 Lee tanks, Lend Lease program for the Soviets.

A platoon of Panzer III L's - one of the more numerous models produced, one of the "final" versions.

 

Now sadly I still don't know what the hell I'm doing when it comes to 15mm tanks...so they're different from all my other ones, because I simply haven't found a perfect way to do either German beige/brown/dunkelgelb (German: dark yellow), or Soviet boring green tanks, etc.  I'm too lazy to follow the more hardcore tutorials...but these will do fine enough on the table.

Fallschirmjaeger Finishing Flex?

So, in a somewhat therapeutic fashion I've been cranking out the "last" of my Fallschirmjaeger.  I still have some miniatures on the sprues, but I've covered almost all of the options in the army lists and I have a nice fighting force with a lot of support options available.  It's likely I may only do one or two more small infantry units for the FJ force.  It's nice to have finished this project after letting it hang for a while.

Using the Kasserine box I received today, I knocked out two 50mm guns (I had painted the crews yesterday).  I added a 120mm mortar team, an MG loader team and a small recon team armed with panzerfausts.

 

 

The Kasserine box showed up today.  It's a staggering value at $60 for everything you get in the box.  That gets you 5-10 space marines nowdays, so...two large armoured groups is pretty nice for the price.  I think Flames of War is a pretty awful game, but I don't mind taking advantage of their miniatures!

 

The small mountain of plastic.  I'll be able to use the AT guns (already painted), the German armour, and most of the American armour as Soviet Lend Lease.  All in all, I'll use almos the entire box.

 

We also had a decent sized 20mm game of Battlegroup this evening.  As usual I barely took any photos, but my Soviet defenses held against a large German force (Tigers and armoured panzer grenadiers, Panzer III's, etc.).

 

I broke the Germans while I was at 30/38 Battle Rating.

Germans storm my right flank and occupy a gun dugout.

My 85mm AT gun was wiped out so a rifle squad occupied the gun position.

A picture of most of the table.  I had to defend against a determined foe!

Fallschirmjaeger Get Reinforced

 Inspiration can come from some weird places...

My buddy recently had his car stolen (and recovered).  One of the things stolen in the process was a box containing his Battlegroup German army - or a large portion of it.  No doubt the thief thought it was something else.

So this put the kibosh on our semi-routine Battlegroup games.  For this reason I decided to actively flesh out my Fallschirmjaeger force so that he can borrow more of it when playing.  If he wants to rebuild his German infantry platoons, that's fine - but in the mean time he can use my force with his remaining models and we'll have a large/suitable selection for him.

So, with a new box of FoW models ordered and on the way, I decided to warm up my 15mm painting hands, and add some infantry elements to the FJ force.

The work desk.

A new sniper, a loader team, an additional tripod MG34/42, a 75mm recoiless gun, and a forward aid post.

No medical or staff miniatures on hand, so my forward aid post is more of an HQ or logistics....thing.  Just needs to be represented on the table.

My German infantry box at the moment.  Two platoons, each reasonably well supplied with platoon support options.  Some additional AT guns, an engineer squad, etc.

Games!: The second battle of Pepyanguska.

 So my Battlegroup Buddy and I decided that we were going to smash heads again over the same village from the other day.

We've named the town Pepyanguska (inspired by the "Pepper your Angus" meme).