More Panthers

 I've managed to finish off some more Forged in Battle Panthers, another platoon of 4 in fact. This brings me up to 10 finished of the 14 I have.

Coal Staith

Just a small update here. I have a few things in the works (more Panthers & some IL-2 Sturmoviks, for example), however they have been dragging on, and I have got distracted with other things (boarding a friend's loft, for example). With that in mind, I have managed to complete something simple however, this coal staith for the model railway. 

This is a Skytrex one piece resin kit, and well cast. The coal has been painted with black gloss primer to get the sheen. While real coal can be quite matt, a lot of model train coal on the locos is shiny so I've gone with this to match at the moment.

FV432s redux

Todays update is 5 FV432 Armoured Personnel Carriers. These are for my Cold War British. These are from Battlefront's kit. They went together easily, but I understand are a little underscale for height.

These are intended as transport for my British mechanisied platoon (Also BF, currently still in the blister).

Big Panther

 Today's post is another Panther tank. But a bigger Panther tank! This is a 1:76 Matchbox Panther that I bought about 20 years ago and have finally built and painted. 

 It's not a great kit, it is limited in detail, the rubber tracks don't fit well (you might be able to make out where they have had to be cut, otherwise they snap the sprocket wheels off) and the transfers backing silver a lot (again you might be able to see this on the turret). I do like the scenic base however, and the model looks ok once finished.

All in all for a beginner kit I started putting together as a teenager, it's fine. I do find it amusing that most 15mm models these days have more detail however, despite being smaller!

 

Carriers and Bridges

So today update is has got me 10 more models painted for this year.

First up, we have 9 Universal Carriers for my Desert British. These are the new plastic Battlefront kit, and have gone together really well. I've very pleased with these, like most of the new Battlefront plastics they are of high quality and easy to build.

I've assembled two sets as basic carriers as I think I'm more likely to use them, and one set with the Boys AT rifle (which unfortunately compete with both armoured car choices, which I feel are both better).

Meanwhile I have also painted this Skytrex Assault Bridge as scenary. It was pretty easy to paint, with a limited palatte and coming as a single cast white metal item. It was also sharp and well cast with limited flash.

Gravel Wagon

So today's update is something for the railway. It started life as a cheap second hand pickup from a local railway show and looked like this.

This is a Hornby Railroad wagon (R1085), which often comes as part of their train sets. It's a bit basic, as well as being overly plastically and a bit too vivid yellow for my taste.

I spent an evening adding some contrast paint, black, brown wash and picking out some replacement boards. Contrast and wash were used for the bulk of the painting as I wanted to preserve the printed text on the orginal wagon, and yellow overpaints easily. I also added a gravel load (spare ballast) to the wagon using a piece of spare packing foam as a base.

It now looks like this, a significant improvement!

Panthers

This month, I've completed some german Panther tanks. These are Forged in Battle Minatures, and I've painted a HQ of 2 and a platoon of 4 Panthers. I have another 8 of these to paint at some point, but I've struggled to motivate to paint these, so I've moved on to painting something else for now.

Viaduct

So things have been a bit quiet recently, hobby wise. Work has picked up, and I've also had a big project going on, a Will's viaduct.

This is for the loft layout and it's a bit of a whopper!

Kit went together fairly easily with the exception of the curved plastic underneath the arch sections which was a bit of a pain.

Jordanian Force

I had a game of Team Yankee - Arab Isreali War today.

I thought I'd take a few shots of the complete force, including 2 new M48 Pattons which are awaiting transfers.

Booty Tanks!

 Beutepanzer, or Booty Tanks, were a fairly common occurance in German service, especially in the early war and at the end of the war when armour was in short supply. They were commonly used for security roles, especially captured French and Italian tanks where the designs were fairly obsolete.

Some of the Soviet tanks, such as the T-34 or KV-1 where of at least comparable, if not superior in aspects to the current German designs and were more commonly seen in front line service. Often adopted 'ad-hoc' straight of the battle field by some units, occasionally these beutepanzers would be seen in greater numbers, such as 2.SS Panzer Division at Kursk who had captured 25 tanks and a repair workshop a month or so earlier and were able to equip an entire company with T-34 tanks in preperation for the battle of Kursk. These tanks had recieved some upgrades, with Panzer III cupolas and side skirts added. In addition to improving the visibility and protection respectively, these also helped change the profile of the tank, which, together with large German Army crosses, helped to reduce friendly fire.

These models are Forged in Battle and are their Kursk T-34 models. Two boxes has allowed me to produce a company of 2 HQ tanks and 2 platoons of 3 T-34.

Lending a Tow

Today's update is 12 artillery tractors for my Jordanian's. These are PSC Morris Quad Tractors. Nice little kit, which went together well.

These bring me to over 100 models painted this year, about on track to try and paint 200 models this year.

Panzerwerfers

So I finished 4 Panzerwerfers this weekend. These were armoured halftracks with Nebelwerfer 15cm rocket launchers mounted on top, used for artillery support. The models below are from Battlefront, and are in resin and metal.

VIP (Very Infected Persons) 4

 So I finished off the VIP Zombies for Zombicide today, getting the remaining 8 painted.

These probably arn't my best work, but they arn't bad and are at least done. They also complete Zombicide, so I now have it fully painted!

Next up will be a surprise project, then hopefully FOW German Panzerwerfer 42s.

VIP (Very Infected Persons) 3

Up today, Pimps and Robbers, zombie style!

4 more Zombicide VIP zombies done, both the Cops and the Pimps. I'm try for more speed paint jobs with these, I'm not sure if that's driving the fact I'm not as happy with these as I'd like.

VIP (Very Injected Persons) 2

So I've got 4 more Zombies done from the VIP set, this time both the sailors and the construction worker zombies.

VIP (Very Infected Persons)

So I have recently been gifted half of both the VIP sets for Zombicide. As such I've started throwing some paint on them, so I can get back to having Zombicide fully painted. Here you can see the Santa zombies and the Hotdog Mascot zombies.

 

Elefants and Stug IVs

 So today's update is a few vehicles I've been working on for Flames of War.

The first are 3 Elefant tank destroyers. These models are from Forged in Battle and are to their usual quality.

Next up are 4 Stug IV, again Forged in Battle models.