Easter update

Well, I managed to make a bit more progress over the weekend. I finished my first Afrika Korps platoon, three shiny new (can't bear to weather them just yet) PzIIIs. Also finished painting (but not basing) my first stands of PanzerGrenadiers. Hopefully I'll get the bases finished today.

A couple of other units, my Diana tank hunters and A/T guns have also had their first dry-brush/wash. I'm happy enough with the technique, as long as the first drybrush covers fairly well, you end up with a result similar to block painting, but far less painful!

I've also been trying to track down some details of a particular colour scheme for my Desert Rats Honey tanks. Years ago, I built one from a Matchbox kitset, in what was termed (I've since discovered) a "Caunter" scheme. More details can be seen here. I may end up using this scheme, even if it wasn't used by may chosen regiment, simply because I like it...

Pics at last

I finally got around to borrowing my mother-in-law's camera again. It's got a decent macro setting for taking close up pics. A new camera and a daylight lamp (for painting and photography) are rapidly climbing up my "want" list.

Anyway, these where taken fairly quickly, without a lot of effort in the set up, but hopefully are clear enough to show off what I've been painting lately.

The start of my Desert Fox FOW army is my first PzIII tank. I haven't really found a method that I like yet, this one is painted with a fairly heavy dry brush, a black ink wash, another heavy dry brush followed by a flesh coloured wash, followed by some more dry brushing and then some detail work. Certainly good enough for the wargame's table at least!



Also, I've painted a few more Desert Rats since the last time I uploaded any images. Here's my first platoon and company HQ.





Here's some close ups. I haven't tidied up all the bases yet, I'm still deciding which colour to use on the base edges. I'm currently leaning towards the lighter shade, to tone down the "orangeness" of the bases.









In the last image, you can see the two types of basing material that I've been using. The squads on the left are using GW sand, while the ones on the right, and the command squads are made using sand from the local beach (it covers our house fairly regularly). The latter is my preferred option, it's much finer, and hence more in scale than the GW sand.

Finally, for a bit of a change, here's some in progress shots of my Khadorian Mekaniaks for WarMachine. These guys need to be tough, as they repair war jacks on the battlefield, beating off attackers if necessary!





I'll try to get some more painting shots up soon, but of course need to do the painting first!

Shared honours

Well, I managed to get a couple of games in over the weekend. Sam (my regular opponent) and I setup some Warmachine games, one 350 pts and one 500pts. My Khador took on the might of Menoth. Sam was fielding Feora for the first time, so I had a lot of quick learning to do.

On my side, I hade my trusty Sorscha and Destroyer, aided by Widowmakers, Winterguard and Eiryss. The first game went down to the wire, attrition played a big part, until Feora charged Sorscha. Even though my Destroyer (and one Winterguard!) had a free strike at her, it still left her with three health points, at which stage she used all her stored up focus to fry poor Sorscha.

The second game went a bit differently, as 500 pts of Menoth can be pretty intimidating. I found myself outflanked, with large numbers of jacks and infantry on all sides (or that's how it felt). I played a fairly defensive game, waiting (hoping?) for Sam to leave me an opening. I got lucky, when I pushed Sorscha forward, I was able to use her feat on all of the enemy's models, which was most unusual. This gave me a chance to manouver into place and then take out Feora with one strike. Sam still had some infantry left, but wasn't looking forward to fighting it out so we called it quits then.

Definitely learned a few lessons though.

• Always keep your warcaster safe, only bring them out if you're going in for the kill, and then be sure that it'll happen.
  
• Snipers (including Eiryss) can be used to distract or hinder your opponent. Even if they get wiped out, they tend to suck up your opponents resources, often leaving him open for a killing blow from an unexpected direction.
• Perhaps the best use of snipers is taking out infantry, especially the ones who get armour bonuses for shield walls, or because of casualties or whatever. They've still only got one wound, and at up to 14 inches, a sniper that hits is a sniper that kills. Units can be halved in size, or even wiped out due to morale checks in a single round's shooting.
  
• Be aggressive with your jacks! Khadorian jacks can take so much punishment, it's not funny. Charging them forwards, they'll normally take a round or two's punishment on the way in, but then they'll clean up anything they're in contact with.

In other news, I also managed to finish the assembly, and undercoating of my entire 1500 pt Afrika Korps force for Flames of War. It's based to the point that I can start playing games, so I'll have to see if I can jack up something at the local club or games store.

Gotta get some game time...

I've decided to change my basic method for painting infantry. Not the actual painting techniques, but how and when I go about basing them. See, the problem is that I want to get my army on the table as soon as I can, but I also don't want to be painting figures on crowded bases, where I can't get the brush at them.

So here's the hybrid approach that I'm trying with my Afrika Korps.

1. Prep a units woorth of figures.
2. Mount the NCO's and MGs on their bases.
3. Mount the remaining riflemen on popsicle sticks.
4. Spray 'em all primer grey.
5. Black ink to bring out the detail, and fill in bits the spray misses.
6. Paint the based figures first.
7. Paint the riflemen.
8. Put riflemen on the base and then do the base work - flock, paint and vegetation.

The nice thing about this method is that I can start playig games after step 2. Especially if I get my entire army to step 2. Then I can fill in units if they perform well, or according to whim. We'll see how we get on.