FOW - Panzergrenadiers - Part 4

Well, I had hoped to get another post in again last week, but it wasn't to be. Following my last post the East Coast of the US felt the tremors of a 5.8 earthquake (centered near the GF9 office in VA) and the wrath of a Category 3-2-1 Hurricane (Irene). While the first event didn't impact my vacation at all (although I did feel it all the way on the Outer Banks of North Carolina), the second certainly did. It was quite the constant topic of conversation, and as it seemed to be growing in strength and proximity, NC was put on a State of Emergency, and we were under mandatory evacuation orders. This meant we had to leave our relaxing paradise a day early and try to prepare as best we could once back in Baltimore for the storm's arrival there.

There has been quite a lot of chatter about whether or not media outlets like The Weather Channel overhyped the dangers posed by the storm. Personally I felt like they pushed it a bit too far, but what else have you got to work with when you're a 24/7 weather channel?

Regardless of the actual severity in my local area (only one tree downed, no power outages) I know that a lot of my friends suffered various levels of deprivation (some are still without power after two days) and that the only road to our idyllic vacation location was cut completely (washed away), so regardless of the "hype" the storm has had a considerable impact all along the Atlantic coast.

Of course, all that time inside waiting for a tropical storm means quite a lot of painting. These shots are overalls of my three platoons of Panzergrenadiers. I went back to the first platoon you saw and repainted much of the webbing black, following the advice of John from Santa Cruz Warhammer (who buys and sells WW2 kit for a living). I then painted up my second platoon, all with the M40 uniform pants, which were the German Fieldgrey rather than the standard grey I used for most of my first platoon.

For my third platoon I assembled them from a donation gratefully received from my mate Brien. Even at 15mm I could tell these guys were a little different. The pants on some of the models were a little puffier, the boots shorter, and they had quite a bit more webbing. I'm assuming these are Mid-Late War troops, and I painted them to match my second platoon as best I could. Now that I have three platoons painted (the most I'll need for any one game) I figure that when it comes to building actual lists I can field the 1st and 2nd platoons first in my Early War lists, and the 2nd and 3rd platoons first in my Mid-Late War lists. At a push I could field all three in any period (which was always the plan).

To match with my "slightly different" troops from 3rd platoon, I figured I'd paint up the four Steyr Kfz 70 trucks that were a gift from my mate Rob. It seems these trucks were a later introduction to the war effort, meaning it was appropriate for my 1st and 2nd platoons to ride in the Krupp Kfz 70 trucks that saw service throughout the war. Again, at a push I'm sure not many folks would mind me using all the trucks together regardless of period. In addition I painted four Kfz 15 field cars for the command teams, although only three are needed at the moment.

As part of my final platoon I used one of the signposts from the plastic bases sprue to add a little bit of extra character. You can see here I've opted for the signpost that would never really exist, but it shows the potential targets for my army, it can be posted anywhere in Europe between France and Russia, that should be flexible enough ; )

Next time around I hope to have the Company HQ underway (if not completed) along with some photos of actual kit from John.

Take care.

Cheers

Dave

PS. You may also have noticed some activity in my "Hobby" tracker. I decided that if each of these 15mm guys was to count as a model, I couldn't leave it as it was. Back when I painted up the tanks for the Heroes of Armageddon project, I awarded myself "10 models painted" for each tank. I went back and removed all those extra points (counting each tank as a single model), then added back in a point for each FOW model painted (one for infantry, one for trucks, one for tanks etc). I feel much more karmically in balance now.