Finished!: 15mm Battlefront SS Nebelwerfers + Terrain

Hi folks,

Another busy week! For the Saturday bonus themed round ('Childhood') I went with some of my first SS infantry figures - 'children' from 12th SS Panzer Division:

As ever, you can vote for me by visiting the page here and looking for the voting panel on the right hand side (you'll need to turn desktop view on if your viewing via a phone or table, by clicking the link at the very bottom of the blog page I have linked).

These are standard Heer figures from Battlefront, who don't seem to make SS crew for their Nebelwerfers. I added green stuff to their helmets to make them the 'covered' SS style, and turned their normal jackets into the SS style ones by cutting off the shoulder straps.

I then painted a mish mash of SS camo on them. Plane Tree, Oak Leaf and Pea Dot:

Obviously, at 15mm scale as soon as your more than a foot from the models you can't see any of this, but I made an attempt anyway! I also went for a more camo'd launcher as well, rather than the usual yellow shade on my Heer launchers.

For my mid week entry, I focused on terrain for Sundays 'big' game, while working on the Nebs.

Some more 15mm buildings - theses are the more basic ones I had lying around. They look better painted up and will fit in with the rest of the town. The only downside is they have no 'levels' other than the roof coming off:

And some 15mm gravestones for my churchyard:

The grave stones came from Blotz and from a Ebay seller who does resin graveyard bits, such as the tombs and monuments. I mixed the lots together to give me some variety. I also decided to add some tufts just to match in more with my unit bases. Hopefully these look OK on the table! I've a few more to finish off.

This week I'm working on some village scatter terrain, prep for Sundays game and have not long since finished proof reading my sisters next book!

Finished: German 15cm Heer Nebelwerfers and 10.5cm leFH 18's + Terrain

Hi folks,

I've had a busy week or so, between training at work, being really ill for two days and rushing last weekend to get an entry into the AHPC themed round when I thought I have a whole week before the deadline...

Still, I managed to get a few things done for bother the themed round on Saturday and my regular entry on Wednesday. As mentioned, the Saturday entry was rushed. As such, while I got the unit submitted, I really wasn't happy with the job I had done on the basing. Over the last couple of days, whilst not being well, I've just gone ahead and re-based the whole unit so that it's up to scratch.

These three launchers give me a full unit of 6 for my Heer forces. The actual unit would be one of the two regiments in 7. Werfer Brigade, which was a German Corps level asset supporting Panzergroup West. These launchers would be from either Werfer-Regiment 83 or 84.

I've another 3 of these to do, which are being painted up as SS battery from SS-Werferbataillon 12. Unfortunately it looks like the SS Werferbataillon was made up of 3 batteries of 4 15cm Nebelwerfers - so I'll be one short. As these come in packs of 3... I think I'll just have to live with that (for now)! Although I think I might know someone who has some spare crew! So far, as Battlefront don't do any SS Werfer crews, I've greenstuffed the helmets to give them the camo covers, and have started making an attempt at camo clothing. Time will tell how these guys look!

For Wednesday's entry I finished a battery of 10.5cm leFH 18's, which will be from 89. Infanterie-Division.

These guns made up the bulk of German divisional artillery throughout the war. I'm quite happy with how these turned out, although I did end up 'double grassing' the bases. Not sure whats going on with my Static Grass just now but I am just not getting the coverage I need.

Lastly, for Wednesday's entry, I also finished up some terrain. Additional walls for round my Church from Tiger Terrain, some little 'outbuildings' also from Tiger Terrain and some wooden fencing from Blotz.

I was pleased to be able to replicate the colour of the walls with those I finished last year. I am planning on basing the wall sections to make them more sturdy on the table and build in some foliage around them. The fencing was sprayed a dark green and then drybrushed up with some lighter shades, then buff.

While 'Gunuary' might be over, I'm still in that mode so will aim to get the 88's finished this month. Really pleased with my progress this year artillery wise - for the Germans it leaves me to focus on vehicles and infantry for the next little while. I'm still aiming to try and get the 10mm ACW limbers and stuff done before the challenge ends in March, which will be my other artillery related project done.

Vapnartak was last weekend, and I picked up a few odds and ends. Including a pack of PSC 25 Pounders... mistakes were made. I want the Quads to pull some 17 Pounders (the British infantry divisions seem to have used Quads for this, while the armoured divisions used half tracks - the Canadians used Ram Tanks...). But mainly I bought hobby supplies and terrain bits, including some more hedging. Other purchases included some spray paint, tufts, magnetic sheeting, carts/village scatter terrain, a book on ww2 transport vehicles (for £1), the new White Dwarf (Necromunda interest), an old White Dwarf (for £1, making me want to paint some BFG ships), Vallejo paints...  Not as much interesting stuff spotted at the bring and buy this year, which was a shame.

Finished! German 88's, Nebelwerfers and Fusilier Platoon

Hi Folks,

With the end of the June challenge and the huge number of figures I finished over the two months, I took my foot off the pedal painting wise. However I have remained focused on getting this German list built before moving on to something else (probably a veritable horde of Shermans and Cromwells). Unfortunately I still had infantry figures to paint, but thankfully not too many of them. To round out the list I had a unit of 2 x 88mm AT/AA guns, 3 x Nebelwerfers and a small platoon of infantry (an infantry recce unit). I've still got a few bits to do, but at this point it's all vehicles.

So first up, the 88's. Going by the list in the Atlantic Wall book, these guns should probably be Luftwaffe guns. However, as the 89. Infanterie Division had two of it's artillery units equipped with 88's, I've painted the crew as Heer.

Each gun consists of the gun itself, an optional loader team (which increases the guns RoF) and the wheels for the guns. I painted the whole lot for both guns, plus scrounged up a command team. I worried for a bit about the paint scheme for these guns - but I couldn't find any references for possible camo on 88's in Normandy. I finally found some pictures of 88mm wheel units in a quarry during or after the Totalize battle, and there was no sign of camo on them - so i went with straight Middletone.

Next up the Nebelwerfers! Now given that this list was as much a focus on iconic German weapons of Normandy as it was on 89. Infanterie Division, I felt I just had to include these. The division itself didn't have any of these weapons on it's own strength, but was backed up by a Nebelwerfer Brigade which was in the area.

This unit is 3 x Nebelwerfers with command and spotter team. I still have to paint the Kubelwagon for the spotter unit, but other than that this unit is done for now. I might increase it to full strength with another 3 rocket launchers in the future.

Lastly we have the infantry Recce platoon. This is a small rifle only unit with no machine guns - only the command team is anything different being a SMG Panzerfaust team. These are all Battlefront plastics - nice models once painted but still some significant areas on each one which lack detail. Too much detail on the sides and rear of the models just blends in without any definition. Metal models and much better than this. These pictures have come out a little darker for some reason:

Next up on the painting table are the 3 StuGs and 2 Tigers. The Tigers from Lee are painted and just need tidied up to fit in (highlights, radio arials, bases, etc). the StuGs I'm a bit nervous about as they will be my fist attempt at painting German armour from scratch...