39/40 German

Finished the regiment last night with the exception of a couple of machine gun platoons, and here are a few examples...

Anti-tank rifle platoon from the HQ unit and mortar from 2nd battalion.

One of the mixed stands. The Matchbox figures had a few extra bits attached to them which look alright, however they don't have the same animation as the modern Pegasus ones, though not bad for thirty odd years all the same.

I used the figures in this arrangement of platoons to form a company that could represent police, boarder guards or reserve units of some kind, but normally they will be 3rd company of the 3rd battalion.

Regimental and battalion command sections. A huge thanks to Paul Foster for the extra figures needed to make up this unit. I now have to get onto doing some light tanks and flak crews etc, if we want to get the Calais scenario completed before Paul goes away for his tour of duty.

Pz 38t

Had the good fortune to catch up with Stan from Canterbury Miniatures the other day, and after a pint and a chat came away with this, the Pegasus Pz 38t. Also got a look at the HaT 251/1, very nice and reasonably priced, will definitely be getting some of those.

39/40 Battalion Support

In celebration of a very mediocre exam performance, (who would have thought adolescent psychology could be so difficult!) last night I painted these.

Still some finishing work to do as always, the brick wall and ground equipment on the bases for a start - the loaders are the same pose for both weapons.

I wanted to use Matchbox mortars for the regiment but have decided to go with this Pegasus combination for the 1st battalion.

Found this while scrounging around for more mortars, it will be added to my 1944 Light Battalion, which didn't have one before now.

The Russell Collection 7

A few pictures from David. He is working on a mid to late WW2 Russian regiment.

Nice conversion from the ww1 set.

Infantry platoons. Dave is very careful about his painting as you can see, all of his figures are painted and then neatly based and numbered. He has a couple of different sets to use for his rifle and smg units, and should provide a nice mixture of poses in the finished product, more of these when I get them.

39/40 German Infantry

Have completed only sixteen platoons of about fifty required for the regiment. Been working long hours and studying for exams, which are tomorrow, so this is all I've managed to do for a while.

The figures are very animated and well posed. I have resolved to paint all multi part figures on the sprue henceforth.

Tried to include a few features, such as piping on collars where possible and helmet insignia, doubtful that the rest of this unit will receive the same attention.

These platoons are all from Pegasus, except the Matchbox officer. 1st Battalion will be almost exclusively Pegasus figures, 2nd Battalion a mixture of Matchbox and Pegasus, and 3rd Battalion all Matchbox, with a few head swaps for variety.

Will show you the lot later on down the track, now back to the books.

AAMGs

My mate Paul over at http://plasticwarriors.blogspot.com/ has recently put together a quite excellent AAMG stand for his WW2 BEF collection, and I thought I might show you all my own attempt.


I made this stand some time ago and have learnt a lot about converting since. The donor figure was an Esci Marine, the right arm, holding the Bren gun, is off an 8th Army figure of some description, and the left is from a Valiant one, heavily shaved down to meet the required scale. The loader is from Revell, with a magazine added.

The last picture shows what I tried to model it on, they are metal but I don't know by whom, possibly SHQ? I have thought many times about doing another of these but always seem to have other things on the go. I have some holidays coming up soon and plan to do some more Royal Marines with figures that were sent to me by Chris from Auckland. Another mate, model maker extraordinaire Gerard Davey from Hokitika, just sent me some British infantry, so I now have plenty of figures to chose from.

Calais Progress

This is the German infantry regiment that will be facing Paul's almost completed BEF around Calais in the not too distant future. The majority are Pegasus but there is also some Matchbox and Airfix in the mix as well.

Here are the command platoons from the first battalion. The Matchbox officers have had their bases removed to better match the height of the Pegasus ones.

Here are a couple of platoons that I have been experimenting with painting wise. Their uniforms have had a thin black wash applied, and their faces dry brushed rather than skin tone colour then a skin wash. Not sure which colours will eventually win out, but with time getting short I might just go for the less time consuming , we'll see.

Update

Scored this while I was in Australia a couple of days ago; the Sunshine Coast is a very nice place to visit if you ever get the opportunity. Anyway, once complete this will give me a full company of these for my early war British collection. I've completed the basic layout of a couple of 39/40 German infantry battalions, but lack the support weapons to finish them, specifically MMGs. So I might start on what I've got and just see what turns up down the track.

Stug III B

Been saving this one, Trumpeter's Stug III B. All of about thirty parts, well detailed and engineered and zero flash.

You get a few spare wheels and some other items - but I almost always have a few bits left over anyway:)

Good gamers model, quite solid with practical, snug fitting tracks.

Panzer Grey, Black wash, then dry brushed with progressively lighter shades.

No place for a command figure, but I think the CD OOB only allows for one of these anyway, so it won't be needed.

A bit dearer this one, USD$9, but still a most excellent addition for my early war Germans.

Pegasus German Infantry

No point in showing you the whole lot, you can see them all assembled at PSR. These are very finely detailed miniatures and some have several parts. There is a pretty good selection of poses, and the figures have a range of gear on them; including the usual running with grenade tucked into boot (ouch!).

I'm thinking the two sets might not mix that well together, but I'll have a play around with them and see how we go. Will start with taking a few of the Matchbox figures off their bases, but I might have to include a few more spares, such as rifle slings, to make them match a bit better.

Matchbox Classic German Infantry

I started these the other night. I chose them for their classic early war appearance and smart uniforms. I plan to mix some of them with the Pegasus 1939 set, which is also in 1/76 scale.

Nothing really converted, just a few head-swaps. I'm thinking the look of the Pegasus set might be quite different, but we'll see how we go. I expect to see the full regiment mixing it up with the BEF around Calais in the not too distant future.

German Kfz 69

Spent the last couple of nights building this one up. The Matchbox kits are awesome given their age. It went together really well with no problems; excellent engineering of parts all round. This was a present from my friend Paul, and will fit just nicely with my early war German collection.

The box showed camouflage markings but I just went with Panzer Grey, some black ink and a little dry brushing. Just might need to tidy up the wheels a bit.

Added crew figures from the spares box. Wouldn't normally bother with this sort of detail, but I wanted to make it look a bit different from the other two I already have.

I now have a fully company of these, x3 in CD terms. They will most certainly see some use in the Calais game that we are currently researching, but more probably in an infantry support role rather than anti-tank, as I'm not sure the British had a lot of armour around here at this stage.

Old and New, Great War German Infantry

More or less finished these guys, just a bit of touching up to go. Between an old Airfix set and a new HaT one I managed to make a full regiment of three battalions. Here are a couple of companies. The Airfix figures had a lot of flash on them but still look okay; I also included a few Emhar figures for just a little more variety. The HaT figures are very good, although still in that wretched soft plastic, however.

I have been slowly building up data to do some 1914-15 games later in the year, either Neuve Chapelle or Loos, possibly both, and hope that if I put it off long enough, HaT will release their WW1 BEF, which I am greatly antiscipating. If they don't release them in time I'll probably have to get some more of the Airfix BEF set, which is less than desirable, as I already have a regiment of these. In the meantime I've started working with Paul on doing some early war WW2 stuff, starting with Calais.

BA-20m

Review time. The Ace BM range is quite extensive. I chose this one to go with my early war Russian collection, but I've since found out that it was used in many places by a number of nations, including Germany, Finland and China. The kit has a fair amount of parts for what it is.

Lots of superfluous under carriage detail; out of the 33 parts on the kit 14 of them were underneath.

This is where the engineering of the kit let it down, and parts of the armoured frame had to be heavily filled.

The dry-brushing didn't really work, and I have returned it to the painting line-up since taking these pictures.

The gaming part of me is chuffed but the modeller was less than amused. Still, it was remarkably cheap and may find itself in use with some other parts of my collection, such as Nationalist Chinese and possibly my North Koreans, if I can find a reference for it being used there. I would recommend this kit to gamers based on the price alone, at just under USD$6.

Comets

Well, I've had a crack at this disruptive camouflage pattern and am reasonably happy with the results. Tamiya Olive Drab and Dark Yellow mixed with Citadel Black Wash. All parts were more or less finished on the sprue before assembly.

Am still thinking about a little dry brushing under natural light to show off the edges a bit more.

I have done this one as a command platoon, the turret figure is a soft plastic one, a cut-down radio operator from a British paratrooper set; Esci I think?

It has different markings from the one Paul gave me, but I might now give that one disruptive pattern and new insignia also.

Here are the two of them, really need one more for a full strength company, although they were sometimes mixed with other allied units, such as Cromwells and Shermans. Thanks to Geordie for the paint tutorial, one of the things I like most about Blog is the sharing of ideas, and the trying of new things.