Bunkers Finished!

Wow, these took way longer than I thought they would.  The Flak nest especially took forever as I had to fill the slots on the roof.  Tried some new weathering tools from AK Intereactive and loved how they turned out.  It just took some getting used to as these are totally new techniques I'm trying and will next apply to the Marder IIs.  Hopefully the practice I got on the small turret will help streamline the process on a whole armored platoon.

Group shot, might doctor up my BF trenches and Barbed Wire too to match.

Flak Nest painted up to match some Italian style buildings.

HMG nest.  Liked the AK Rust effects.

The AK streaking products were fantastic.  Rain marks and Rust streaks came out nice.

Tried to make the Panzer II turret look like it had been exposed to the elements for awhile.

FJ Heavy Machine Gun platoon

Finished up the HMG platoon too,  these will more than likely be fully attached out every time I play, but I painted up a command stand too.  Wall pieces came from various bits.

Heer 15cm Nebelwerfers

Man, these took forever.  I was going to originally just use regular bases and dress them up with a rubble theme to match my FJ, or maybe a fence line? I couldn't get anything to look right so I dug out my old resin bases from the 15cm howitzer box set and modified them to work.  I trimmed off all of the artillery rounds and other stuff that wouldn't work with the rocket launchers and used a few bits from my parts box to fill them out.  Pretty happy with how they turned out, but wish the smooth texture was a little better for pigment use.  Only thing that really bugged me was the molded on crud on the base edges, impossible to remove and looks like crap if you paint the edges like I do.

Walls painted up very nice.  Little bits of spackle left on the bricks.

Found some pics of NW smoke rounds with the white bands and thought they'd add some contrast.

Base edges were painted Panzer Grey to differentiate from the FJ and also to remind me they're Allied.

A respite from painting all-nighters

To break up the monotony of furious last minute painting sessions, Reno cae over last night for one more practice for KublaCon.  Yet again, we threw our respective lists at one another, this time we played Hasty Attack.  Totally not anyone's favorite mission, but we think there's a good chance it might make an appearance in San Francisco.  Long game, but 4-3 win for the FJ.

The board

Reno started with IS-2s, Su-122s, and Su-76s.  First turn he rolls forwards.

Marders Immediate Ambush right behind some trees...

Right side objective with bunkers and small FJ.

Left side with removed objective, large FJ now need to move!

Turn two, soviets keep on comin'  Sturmoviks come in and kill a Marder, but not before my Flak nest shoots one down!

First reserve platoon arrives for Reno.

Turn three they keep charging through, 

Sturmoviks show up and kill another Marder and a shrek team too.

Marders kill a couple Su-122s.

Reno's advance bogs down.  Literally...

Turn four my Stugs arrive on the opposite end from objectives and engage the Su-122s.

Marders sneak out to shoot some IS-2 booty, killing one.

Reno tries ro assault, but the single shrek team hits twice and forces them back.  The next turn they get hit by Marders again in the rear and are destroyed or run.

Stugs move up to fire on Reno's reserve Su-76s.

He still has a bunch of tanks slowly reducing my FJs.

He pushes across the river and through the woods, hitting on 6s, and decimates my platoon to a man.  Ouch.  Second FJ can still contest though.

The marauding Stugs have now killed the 76s and are free to make a run for his objective, but not before the Red Air Force bags another tank.

Stugs take his objective, but Reno was making Company Morale checks.  4-3 for the FJ.

Second Fallschirmjäger Platoon

Next up is the second combat platoon of Fallschirmjäger with attatched 'schrek.  The cobblestones were nice, but super hard to cover the holes.  Also, there just weren't enough sculpted cobble bases for a whole platoon.  Oh well.  Next on the table are some allied Heer 15cm NW41 rocket launchers.

Liked the cobble bases, wish I had a few more.

Fallschirmjäger Platoon

Just finished the first combat platoon plus the attatched panzerschreks.  I used Battlefront's urban rubble bases, I think they were ok but left just as much work, if not more, to hide the gaping holes around the figs.  The oldest of my FJ figs, old V1 Battlefront guys, had rectangular bases that had to be trimmed before they would fit in the indentations.  Ultimately, I could have been happy just using some of the inserts to add some interest, but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

Full platoon plus two attatched 'shrecks

The BF urban rubble bases were kind of a pain, but added some nice texture variety.

1. Fallschirmjäger Division- HQ Platoon

It's finally happened!  I finished a platoon for my Fallschirmjäger army that I've had in some stage of partial completion since v1.  I originally planned for a Cassino themed FJ list way back in the early days of Festung Europa, had them half painted before getting married and living in Korea for two years, and them moved two more times in two years.  When the Cassino book was released the FJs were given a new lease on life and once things slowed down a bit on the home front I dove back in.  Initially I was just going to touch up the dings and scratches and finish a few more stands of dudes, but upon inspection the splinter camo I did seven years ago was somewhat... less than awesome.  Long hours of repainting an entire army worth of guys in camo smocks were ahead of me and the Nationals tournament at KublaCon was an ideal deadline for completion.  Here is the first completed platoon, Company Commander and Second in Command with a detatchment of 8cm GW43 stummelwerfers.

CiC and 2iC

8cm GW43 stummel morters

Group shot!