Christmas Village: The Bank

I've started a Christmas tradition of painting up a new Christmas Village piece for my wife each year.  Since I wasn't home last Christmas I went ahead and did one to celebrate Christmas in July with her this year.

I tried a few more advanced techniques this time.  The stucco-like walls and roof were both painted with an airbrush to achieve a modulation effect.

You can't tell from the pictures, but I also did a gloss coat on the windows.  The colors on the window panes were also blended with the airbrush.

I super-glued a little puff of cotton to simulate smoke from the chimney.  We'll see how well the glue holds long-term; I might have should have used hot glue.

I covered the snow areas with snow by Gale Force Nine.  It ended up not sticking as well as on a miniature base.  Maybe I'll try mixing it in with the glue next time?

Of course, she'll still get another this Christmas.  These little plaster houses are starting to get harder to find!

Dianas and Schleppers

Completed a few couple more platoons for my DAK force.

This is the first three Diana Tank Hunters.  I'm planning on doing three more and field all six on the table.  (Yes, I know there were only nine in all of Africa...)  I may do the next three in a sort of camo pattern.

Vehicle #3. 

Vehicle #1.  I added a passenger to distinguish this one as the command vehicle for the platoon.

Vehicle #2.  Because these models have such large, flat surfaces, they benefited more than usual from some color modulation and weathering.

My extensive research (first few pages of Google Images search) found no instance of a Lorraine Schlepper in Africa without this green camo pattern.  I used masking putty and an airbrush to achieve it.

After painting so many vehicles in plain desert beige, it was a nice change to do some camo.

This one as a crew member pointing at something.  Must be the leader...

For the crew, I used a mix of the plastic crew that was included in the box and some left-overs from the metal crew I had ordered for my 25 and 9 pdrs.

Here's all my Schleppers together.  The casting on these new ones did not seem especially better than the older ones I used for in 21. panzer force.

Looted Guns!

What’s for fun than blasting someone’s tanks in the desert?  How about stealing someone’s big guns a using thier own guns against them.

I recently finished a platoon of captured 6 pounders amd 25 pounders for my DAK force.

I used the new plastic gun box sets for these.  Crew is a special order pack of DAK gun crew.

After seeing the new plastic gun crew, I'm glad I used the old ones.  These give a much wider range of poses.

I plan on using the 25 pounders as more of an area defense unit.  Put them in an area to deter enemy tanks.  If the tanks stay away, they can still contribute bombardments each turn.  

Since I don't need a staff team, command team, or observers anymore, I used these to make a distinct gun team to serve as the unit commander.

staff team

Observer team

6 pounders are a great cheap option for AT guns.

Compared to the German PaK38, they have less mobility and no HE.  However, if you only plan to use them as stationary AT guns they're a great bargain at 3 points each.