Well progress on the German platoon has bogged down in the last couple days... Whilst it did appear that the final stretch was just in sight, with only a couple figures left to paint and base, a sudden lack of motivation has led me down a more exciting path: support options. Taking a break from painting infantry has been a blessing, and being able to flesh out my support options will allow for more exciting games (the basic 3 German infantry sections vs 3 British infantry sections becomes quite dull after 4-5 games). Moreover, the arrival of German armor will definitely make the British PIAT team finally see some action, previously only having been employed once to fire against a German occupied house.
Painting soft edge camo by hand for the first time was definitely a lot harder than what I initially expected, and even though it has been a great learning experience, I'm not extremely pleased of the final result. I ended up going for some serious drybrushing to make the camo blend a bit more and stand out less. I definitely learnt my lesson that when it comes to camouflage patterns less is more.
Also I'm aware that parts are missing from both Stugs, the mg shield and mg34 that should be present aren't on, and a hatch is missing on one too. So I added some clump folliage to cover the missing bits up and add some extra spice! These happen to be some of my oldest Flames of War models and parts got lost a while ago unfortunately, seeing as these were the first tanks I painted I thought I might as well just use these older faulty models for practice :)
To give the German platoon some further choices I will probably in the near future start working on a fourth infantry section, a forward observer, an extra senior leader, an HMG, a sniper and an infantry gun. All these choices would then allow me great flexibility when fielding the platoon depending on the mission at hand.
However, now that this little side project is out of the way, I'll be jumping straight back to finishing the original German platoon.
Well seeing as my 15mm German platoon for Chain of Command has been coming along quite nicely, and is nearly all finished, I thought it would be time to make a little post to share the progress.
I've been painting the platoon one section at a time. I realized after painting the British in one large batch that having to go through that process all over again for the German platoon would burn me out quite quickly. Finishing one section at a time, instead of having 30 half painted miniatures laying about, is in my opinion more beneficial as you actually get some fulfillment from finishing part of the project. At times when painting the entire British platoon I felt lost in a swarm of brown uniforms...
In any case here are, basing aside, two finished German sections:
Each section is made up of a 3 man MG34 team, a six man rifle team, and a SMG wielding corporal. Also seeing as each of these sections has a panzerfaust I threw one in each rifle team.
I'm very pleased at how these have turned out, unlike the British who were quite quickly batch painted, I put twice as much time per figure when working on these guys. I do accredit this to my more patient individual section approach, making me want to make sure every miniature was perfect before moving onto the next section.
Finally I also have a half finished section, 4 riflemen are already complete, I'm just missing 2 more riflemen, the LMG team, and the NCO.
Once this section is also done I only have the two man Panzerschreck team and the Oberleutnant left before basing the lot!
Getting a nice month break from university has filled me with motivation to finally get around to making my own wargaming blog. After reading online that it's a great way to also stay motivated, as you feel you can document the progress, and share it with others, I decided that along with my new project it would be time to get it started.
Now you may be wondering about this new project... Well seeing as I have a significant 15mm Flames of War miniature collection which is simply gathering dust, I thought it would be time to get around to assembling and painting some of the models. However, not being a fan of Flames of War, especially after glancing at the v4 rules, I looked for a new gamesystem. Which brings us to my project...
Well I found that Too Fat Lardies have a truly unique and amazing rulebook for WW2 platoon level skirmishes: Chain of Command.
After a couple test battles with my multibased FoW miniatures I decided the game would be more satisfying with individually mounted miniatures. After roughly a week and a half I was able to churn out an entire British platoon, 3 sections (each composed of a 3 man Bren team, six riflemen, and an NCO), a PIAT team, and mortar team. Rounded out with a platoon Sergeant and Lieutenant. 36 soldiers make up this late war British platoon.
Now I move on to the Germans with renewed enthusiasm!
