Flames of War: PaK 40 team

 Hello guys, 

I bring you just a quick update of last month's painting, a couple of German WWII anti tank guns, 7.5cm Pak 40,  in plastic, from Flames of War, these are from the old set "Open Fire".   I don't paint 15mm miniatures quite often, but these were fairly easy to paint, although they are not my best paintjob, as I prefer to paint vehicles.

I used an airbrush to paint the guns, using Ammo Mig paints and products to do the weathering, later  I used beach sand and static grass to make the bases.

I painted them in panzer grey, although at the end of 1942 it was about to be changed by the famous dark yellow used by the Germans from mid war until the end of the war... this limit a little bit the useage of this guns... but as my friend and me are not "button counters" I will probably field them in games set in later stages of the war.

This summer I played several games of Flames of War with a friend, mostly battles set in 1942-43 in the eastern front, so I needed heavy AT guns to counter the waves of Soviet  T-34's fielded by my friend... My panzers III and IV (short barrel) were not enough, so a couple of brand new (at least in 1942) Pak 40 will bolster my Wehrmacht forces during Fall Blau offensive.

I hope you like them!

Tercio of Dragoons Vanderpit/Valensart (Walloon)

 

Hi mates,

Now there is the turn of a unit I painted a while ago, but never featured here, Tercio of Valanzart I did not showed before because I misinterpreted the colors of the uniform, which should be all green, and I painted in green with blue facings because I thought that this unit later became "Dragones de Batavia", during War of Spanish Succession, and that is true... BUT during late XVII the uniform was different from the WSS so now I am thinking about repainting in green the blue parts.

The miniatures are Front Rank 28mm French dragoons from WSS but the Spaniards used in some Tercios the same cap for their Dragoons in Flanders, so I used those miniatures as I am a big fan of Front Rank miniatures.  I like to base my dragoons in individual bases and sabot bases because they usually  fought in a skirmish mode until the very end of the century.

On January 12, 1676, a Tercio of  dragoons were raised in the Netherlands by patent awarded to Niklaus Hartmann to participate in the war in Holland. The command passed the following year to Vandewin Vanderpit and in 1684 to Theodore de Valanzart, with whom the unit participated in the  League of Augsburg War.

The flag was taken from the book "Spanish Armies of the League of Augsburg War".

This Tercio fought a lot of battles during the late XVII c:

Franco-Dutch War :

Bouchain 1676

Battle of Mount Cassel and Charleroi 1677

1678 Battle of Mons

War of the Reunions:

Luxemburg 1684

War of the League of Augsburg:

 1689 Walcourt Defense

1690 Battle of Fleurus

1692 Battle of Steenkerke

1693 Battle of Neerwinden

1694 Taking of Huy

1695 Recovery of Namur

I hope you like this little thread.

Cheers

More 3D printing beauties: World War 2 tanks

 Hello friends, It has been a month since my last post, I will update the blog soon with some painting minis, but in the meantime, in this little summer entry, Let me introduce to you some vehicles in 28mm and 15mm, for Bolt Action and Flames Of War respectively.

A hobby colleague is very well equipped with 3D printers, and he has brought these WWII vehicles 3D printed for me. For my German project (1944 and 1945), and for my ambitious Far East project of Japanese, Chinese, and Manchukuo armies/vehicles. 

The vehicles I have ordered are practically impossible to get them from the main manufacturers in plastic or resin, because no one seems to produce them, so I finally opted for this fantastic technology, as I have done earlier with XVII c. stuff.

The first of them is a 28mm  Jagdpanzer IV L/70 Alkett, a vehicle that I have always liked, and that I was lucky enough to see in the tank in Saumur tank museum, in 2015, the only one left in the world of this variant.

In my opinion the model has a pretty good quality, the only thing that seems poorly designed are the tracks which I will have to cover with mud, and I also will add some stowage  and plastic parts of other kits in order to give it more flavour and improve the general looking.

The second vehicle is a 28mm 6 ton  Vickers tank, used in small numbers by the Nationalist Chinese army in 1937,  It is an odd vehicle that I loved when I saw it in action during the battle scene of the most excellent film "Nanking Nanking" (2009). 

the third tank is a Japanese Type 89 medium tank of the early thirties, that fought on Manchuria and Shanghai in 1931, and then in China, Mongolia, Malaya, Philipines....  the model is in 28mm and In my opinion, the best detailed of all, specially the tracks!   I got 2 versions from different sculptors.

later model (best quality)

Earlier model (worse quality)

And finally, the two antagonists in different scales :)

I hope you like this little post, I am looking forward to paint them as soon as I come back home from my holydays!

Flames of War: Stalingrad Panzers

Hello guys! 

It has been a month since I last updated the blog... You know, summer , holydays and those things that prevent you from painting. So now, after a few days off, I bring to you some Zvezda 1/100 Panzer III and Panzer IV, for my Flames of War Stalingrad project.

Last month I was painting more XVII c. stuff but I stopped without finishing my French petard team (but I will finish that soon) because I had several games of Flames of War with a friend at home, and my mood/interest switched from baroque period to World War 2, so I finished my half painted 14 Panzerdivision for Stalingrad.  I also bought Flames of War Scenery and some candy like a 15mm Junkers 52 for scenery purposes, also 3 Opel Blitz, 3 sdkfz.10 with flak, a couple of Stuig 33 and so on.

The Panzers are all Zvezda with some battlefront plastic and metal add ons, like stowage, tracks, guns (in the panzer IV).   Panzer III are of early type of shorter gun, for longer 50mm guns I will use Battlefront's plastic set of Panzer III.   And Panzer IV are D. version, I know they should be F1 models for Stalingrad battle, but I had 3 Zvezda nice Panzer IV D and "converted" them with F1 metal guns from Battlefront and turret rear boxes also in metal.

I painted them as If they were display models, so a lot of weathering. In the future I think I will put less dust and paint less chipping in the vehicles, because in this scale I prefer cleaner tanks (just a personal preference), but I am very pleased with the result of the unit.

As they are 2 platoons of 3 models, I will add a company HQ of a Panzer III ausf J and Panzer IV ausf F2 or even a captured T.34 mod.41 from the Stalingrad Starter Set of Flames of War.

I also have been inspired by the brand new Ammo Mig Stalingrad colors book :) very interesting and full of color profiles of tanks and vehicles of both sides:

https://www.migjimenez.com/es/publicaciones/4864-stalingrad-vehicles-colors-camuflajes-de-los-vehiculosa-alemanes-y-sovieticos-en-la-batalla-de-stalingrado-multilingue-8432074061465.html

Panzer IV platoon:

Panzer III platoon:

Again 2 platoons photo:

                                        

I hope you like them!

My small Dutch army for late XVII c. wars

 Hi mates, 

As you know, I paint Spanish and French for late XVII c. wars, Well, some time ago I started a parallel adventure ... I realized that the Franco Dutch war of 1672-1678 cannot be properly played without a Dutch army, so I needed more Grand Alliance nations and started I started looking for solutions.

The answer was to find some regiments already painted (good quality) by another painter, and then inter mix those units with more painted by myself, to save time and because I am too lazy to start an army from scratch these days 😅

I found a fellow painter, Peter Walker, whose blog I strongly recommend  (http://peterw3169.blogspot.com/), who was selling his collection, and I acquired part of it, specifically two infantry and two cavalry units, to which,  I added the army commander, another officer, artillery, a guards regiment on horseback,  and converged grenadiers, and I have yet to add the Dutch Blue Guards and Coerland dragons in the future.

So this post is little more than an army showcase so far.

the units are the following:

William of Orange, as you saw him in the previous blog post.

Grand Alliance's converged grenadier unit, with grenadiers from several regiments (Dutch, English, Austrian...)

Dutch officer,  featured on this blog a few months ago, Northstar 1672 conversion. I also use him as Spanish officer because he has no sash with national colour, he change nationality .

                                                         Dutch artillery, Warfare Miniatures

"Gardes Van Zijne Majesteit" or Gardes du Corps, these are lovely old School Foundry sculpts, this regiment is more suitable for League of Augsburg War than Franco Dutch War.

Regiment of Graaf van Wittgenstein in 1674, possibly present at the battle of Seneffe 1674. In 1676 the colonel was Albert Ferdinand Graff van Berlo. painted by Peter Walker.

regiment nº 10 of cavalry, fought at Seneffe his colonel was heyden in 1688. Painted by Peter Walker.

Regiment Schwarzenberg painted by Peter Walker, based by me

Regiment van Palm (Salisch 1688) Regiment op Holland 1673, painted by Peter Walker, based by me.

I hope you like this Dutch contingent, I think the miniatures although painted by 2 different painters, have cohesion and look like an army.