Leichte Panzerkompanie

I started working on this project to see just how easy (or difficult) it could be to build up a collection of Flames Of War models that could span numerous lists and periods during the war. Well, I have been pleasantly surprised by the speed with which I've been able to assemble and paint these 15mm models. Sure, they're a lot smaller than the 28mm I'm used to so they should take less time, but I'm pleasantly surprised by just how much less time and by the techniques common to both scales.

Anyway, this is the first of a series of posts of Army Lists and accompanying photos of the models I have painted for them. First up will be a "journey" through the Blitzkrieg Early War book, starting with the Leichte Panzerkompanie.

HQ
- 1 Panzerbefehlswagen, 1 Panzer I, 2 Panzer II C (early) - 155 pts

Combat Platoons

- Leichte Platoon - 1 Panzerbefehlswagen, 2 Panzer I, 2 Panzer II C (early) - 200 pts

- Leichte Platoon - 1 Panzerbefehlswagen, 2 Panzer I, 2 Panzer II C (early) - 200 pts

- Panzer II Platoon - 5 Panzer II C (early) - 225 pts

- Panzer III Platoon - 3 Panzer III E - 390 pts

Divisional Support 

- Panzerschutzen Platoon - HQ w/Anti-tank Rifle, 3 Schutzen squads - 265 pts

- Bunker Flak Platoon - 2 Bunker Flak - 450 pts

Total - 1,885 pts

Not a bad start to it all. Of course I haven't tested it on the tabletop yet. Next in the series, the Mittlere Panzerkompanie.

Cheers

Dave

The "hobby mojo" is well and truly back!

So, after being in a bit of a funk, I'm now well and truly back on my hobby track and chugging along with quite a few projects. Very happy with that indeed!

You may remember I ran a little poll recently regarding the scheme to choose for my Light Panzer Company for Flames of War. Lots of you voted (or a few of you voted lots of times) and the result was very close (less than 7% difference). The overwhelming bulk of the comments were, however, guiding me towards the simple grey color scheme. So, that's what I went for.

In the evenings of last weekend (Fri/Sat/Sun) I was able to get in a total of 12 hours painting which, surprisingly enough, was all I needed to complete over 1,500 points of FOW goodness.

You can see the results below.

I split it all into simple batches to get things rolling, and that worked out incredibly well. Following a "recipe" from my buddy Mike, and it goes a little something like this.

• Prime all models with the Flames of War German Armor War Paint spray (the dark grey one of course).

• Drybrush with GW's Adeptus Battlegrey

• Drybrush with Vallejo's London Grey

• Wash panels with a 20/40/40 mix of Vallejo's Charred Brown, water, and GW's Devlan Mud. The focus for this should be the crevices and angle where the armor plates meet.

• Paint the tracks and exhaust covers with Vallejo's Red Leather

• Wash the tracks and exhaust covers with Badab Black

• Pick out any details (like shovel handles etc)

• Paint on the German insignia and squad markings

• Lightly drybrush with GW's Khemri Brown, paying particular attention to the tracks

Quite simple really. And very quick to do in batches.

I painted all the vehicles based on the Panzer I body (8 tanks) on Friday night, just to make sure I was comfortable with the plan. All three of the Panzerbefehlswagens (left) have a crew member poking his head out, denoting that vehicle as a command tank. The Panzer Is (right) do not. One word of advice with the Panzer Is, be careful with the little machine guns on the turret. If you knock them too often they might break off.

Saturday night I painted the 11 Panzer IIs (right) using the same methods as on the first batch. I was able to get more done as I was familiar with the process and there were no crew to paint.

Then I finished it all off with the Panzer IIIs and Bunkerflaks on Sunday night (while watching the Cowboys fall apart again - warmed my heart). The Panzer IIIs (in the left of the pic with the Panzer II) were quite nice to paint as the "muddy brown" wash over the larger plates looked great. Very smooth and subtle. Same goes for the Bunkerflak. I also had to paint up some 88 artillery crew and I followed the suggestions for the colors found on the Flames of War site.

So, there you have it. My army is now ready to invade Poland (or France) and should be seeing the tabletop before the end of the year. I'll let you know how things turn out.

Cheers

Dave

Happy Halloween (and please vote in my poll)

Happy Halloween! (for this weekend at least). Above is the Blitzhund model from Grindhouse Games' Incursion range of miniatures. Much more on these guys next week in the lead up to the next set of charity auctions.

So I decided to scour the Flames of War website to track down as much info as possible before I started on my Light Panzer Company. There are a number of cool pages, and some very interesting information as far as the color scheme for my army.

Of course, I figured that I would have to stick to the historical color scheme for my army. But which one to choose? Apparently the German Panzer divisions had orders to paint all of their vehicles with a two tone grey-brown camouflage scheme prior to the invasion of Poland. They were later ordered to repaint their tanks to an all grey scheme (the one that most of us with "Western European" schooling would most quickly identify) prior to their invasion of France.

So, would I want a Polish invasion army? Or a French invasion army? With the cool Polish armored train coming next year I figured that would be good, but a little more work.

At the same time, I'm keen to see how those Bunkerflaks do against the tough French tanks, so should I go for the easier scheme?

Then I read this article on the FOW site, and all bets were off. What do you mean there is very little photographic evidence that the two-tone camo scheme was widely adopted for the Polish campaign?

As I'm going to be off at Fall-In! this weekend, I won't have time to work on them either way, so I'll leave it up to you, my faithful blog readers.

Should I paint up my Light Panzer Company in this grey scheme? (tank painted by Chris Townley)

Or this two-tone scheme? (Tank painted by Mike Haycock)

The poll is on the right, have at it. You have until Monday.

Cheers

Dave

Blitzkrieg! It has begun...

It was about a decade ago, whilst visiting a wargaming convention in Wellington, New Zealand, that I was first introduced to Flames of War. A lanky Kiwi by the name of Phil Yates was running a demonstration of a set of rules he was close to completing, and he was using a very cool collection of 15mm tanks on a lovely table to showcase it all. I stepped up to try it out (mainly as I'd recognized Phil's name from a 40K adaptation he'd written called Warhammer: Panzer Aces, or something similar).

10 T-34s against 4 Panzer IVs. I knew enough about WW2 to know that the Soviet forces relied primarily on their quantity to overwhelm the Axis armies they faced, pummeling them with simple yet (eventually) effective hammer blows. As I'm an Imperial Guard/Empire player through and through, I took control of the T-34s and proceeded to hammer away at the Panzers.

I found out soon after that these tanks were made by a company called Battlefront. I started collecting a Soviet force for the Mid-War period (the siege of Stalingrad to be precise), and over the next eight years I tinkered a little here and there, eventually painting up around 2000 points of infantry horde (and tank support).

Despite owning this sizeable force, and the rapidly growing popularity of Flames of War over that period, I really didn't play. Why's that you ask? Well, to be honest, I've never really been a gamer, or had a head that assimilates and retains rules very well. I had my three rulesets already embedded over 16 years of gaming (40K, Warhammer, and LoTR) and learning something new seemed like a big chore.

Almost two years ago now (my how time flies), I was fired from GW and three months later came to work for Battlefront, focused on the best selling historical wargames magazine, Wargames Illustrated. One of my strengths in this position is my breadth of knowledge of historical periods, allowing me to talk to many different contributors to the magazine and draw upon their knowledge to help evolve the magazine to where we have over the last 18 issues.

Our Flames of War Studio team in NZ have always provided our FOW content, so there really was no pressing reason for me to dive head first into the core of our business, someone else was taking care of that.

No reason, that is, until now. In August of this year Battlefront released Blitzkrieg, the first of their "Early War" books covering the German invasion of Poland and France in 1939-40. Although the rules are all Flames of War, the unit types/strengths/weaknesses make it essentially a new game, just perfect for someone like me, ready to get in on the ground floor.

Over the next few months I thought I'd do a bit of blogging about my adventures in the world of Flames of War. It'll be a mix of gaming, modeling, painting, and a dab of philosophy and history all rolled into one place.

PART ONE: The Light Panzer Company

I selected the German Light Panzer Company list for a number of reasons:

• Fighting with tanks is a great way to learn the FOW system, I can add in infantry later once I'm comfortable.

• Assembling and painting 15mm tanks is pretty straightforward, which means I can wrap my head around the scale a bit more easily before really getting some good results on infantry.

• There's a really nifty Army Box available, reducing the number of potentially confusing decisions I have to make early on.

Above you can see my roughly 1500 point army, 24 vehicles. The unpainted stuff is all from the one starter army box I mentioned. The other two primed vehicles are "on loan" from a friend, until my back-ordered "Bunkerflak" models arrive. While all my Panzers are great for taking out infantry and light vehicles, they lack the punch for easily dealing with the medium and heavy tanks I might come across. The "Bunkerflak" are essentially 8.8cm guns on the back of massive halftracks, just great for busting any tank that might roll into my line of sight.

Above is a size comparison shot. Left to Right: a Panzerbefehlswagen (command vehicle), a Panzer I, a Panzer II C (early), and a Panzer III E.

I took me about 7 hours to clean and assemble all the tanks from the box, including putting in rare earth magnets to allow the turrets to rotate, something that is apparently quite important in the game.

Next up, painting the Light Panzer Company.

Cheers

Dave