The Brit, The Yank and the Hobby Episode 20, Battlegroup Tobruk

This week Piers from Battlegroup fame joins us to discuss the new Tobruk supplement and talk about all things Italy in the desert. 
You can join the discussion at our facebook group, or listen directly to the show at the links below. 

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The Brit, The Yank, and the Hobby episode 9

Episode 9 of our historical gaming podcast is now live, and can be found at the following links

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For more information, and to speak to us directly, as well as find photo's and models related to this episode come on over and join our Facebook Group, at The Brit, The Yank, and The Hobby.

Operation Sand Dune Part II

Been a month since my last update on this project, so here's a heads up! 

Carl, Sam and I have filmed another update that's already out on Youtube, and you can see that here. 

In that vid I'm actually building one of my Panzer III's, and now have put together the Panzer IV's for the force too bringing me up to a total of 2 Panzer IV F1's, and 3 Panzer III Ausf J which were very kindly provided by Warlord Games. On the subject of Warlord, I've produced a quick and easy painting guide for DAK armour. This isn't the sexiest paint finish, but it will give you a nice and quick force without too much effort, and I've also just produced a follow up article on adding stowage to models too, which should be available before too long.

Onto my own stuff. As I've mentioned so far I've got 5 tanks in total and have spent quite a bit of time scouring my boxes and spares bins for stowage for them, as well as pondering images of vehicles in use by the Afrika Korp. 

The most common theme is piles of gubbins on the rear decks, and hanging off turrets, with the occasional damaged fender appearing once in a while too.

Replicating the stowage was relatively simple, and I delved into the extensive range of Warlord stowage I've acquired over the years, probably too many to actually list which ones I've used as I'm not 100% sure where some of them even came from.

 With hind sight I do wish I had weighted my vehicles with some pennies or lead shot, however I did completely forget to do this in my enthusiasm to get the models done...  Lesson learned for next time (probably not).

Adding the battle damage couldn't have been simpler, as I simple used some sprue cutters to trim off the parts I wanted gone ( I do love the track detail on the Panzer III especially and I've wanted to show this off for a while now on a model).

Doing the chipping was just as easy, I again used my clippers, in this case an old Citadel pair and lightly gripped the fender in the jaws and lightly twisted the part  until it bet and twisted using pictures of the real thing as a guide on how far to go with it. The whole thing took maybe 10 minutes to do for all 5 vehicles (4 really as the first Panzer IV was undamaged...).

 I've reviewed both the plastic Panzer III and Panzer IV on my blog previously and I'm a fan of both kits. As I'm loosely tying my force to 1942 I'm relatively limited to which vehicles I can use in the force, and these will form the core of my army in a tank wars force, with the addition of a few squads of infantry. The Panzer IV's will fulfil their role of supressing infantry and gun teams, whilst the Panzer III's rove around hunting armour and machine gunning soft skins... at least that's the plan for now.

I'll be getting these painted up in the next week or two, and will do a step by step guild to how I airbrush them, and after this I'm tempted to expand the army now to cover the entire desert period as I really, really want to add at least a Tiger...  Next time I'll be adding some recce 222 armoured cars, and maybe a Panzer II if I can find it in the stash, as well as a Tiger to form the centrepiece of the collection. 

Thanks again to Warlord Games for their support in bringing this project to life, and as ever you can see more of my work at Volley Fire Painting Service

Finally, along with my friends Carl and Rob, we have started a historical gaming podcast named the Brit, the Yank and the Hobby, and episode one covers the history and gaming of the early part of the desert campaign, you can find us on Facebook, iTunes and for android or PC users 

Warlord Games Pazner IV Ausf H

At long last I'm back with a building article! This time I've been working on one of Warlord Games Panzer IV's, this time with a winter feel to it to accompany some Winter Russians I'm converting to Winter Germans. I'll not do a review as I've already reviewed the kit here and I've also compared it to Rubicon and Die Waffenkammer here.

For this tank I decided to make a really banged up, worn looking vehicle, with plenty of missing mudguards and Schurzen, as well as only partial Zimmerit. The observent of you will be aware that Warlords kit doesn't actually come with Zimmerit paste so my first task was to add this to my tank.

 I'll do a more detailed guide in the future, but for now I apply Zimmerit using White Milliput applied in a fairly thin layer to the surface to be treated, then wet the surface and lightly drag a razor saw through the milliput to add texture. It's simple, but can be quite time consuming.

The key defining part of a tank in winter camoflage is the winter white wash paint (Shockingly!) This was applied in the field, and tended to range between beautiful and smooth white finishes to damaged chipped and faded finishes. Naturally this is the effect I'm going for.

To do the winter finish I sprayed the Panzer with grey auto primer first, then used Middlestone, Reflective Green, and Hull Red to apply a standard 3 tone camouflage scheme to the tank.  I sprayed the panzer with gloss varnish and applied the turret numbers from a Warlord decal sheet, then re glossed it. The reason for using gloss varnish is it's harder wearing than matt varnish, and the later stages of paint work better over a gloss surface. 

I can't recommend leaving the tank to dry for at least 3 days strongly enough, I left mine for a week then used blue tac to cover the transfers to spare them being painted out when I applied the white was finish. I use a scale modelling technique to give a worn finish to my armour, and this is achieved by dipping the model in water, then rubbing it in table salt, letting the salt congregate in areas that are heavily worn and used by the crews. 

As soon as the surface of the tank is relatively dry, though it doesn't have to be completely dry I sprayed it with Vallejo Off White, starting lightly then letting the paint build in the centre of panels and upper surfaces. 

After the white was applied I then left it a couple of hours to dry, and then washed the salt off to reveal patches of the camouflage beneath and give a nicely chipped look, Once the salt was off I re glossed my tank and then painted artists oil paint Burn Umber into the panels, recesses and other areas of wear and tear to add a bit of interest to the tank.

The snow was done by mixing baking soda and Vallejo Water Effect, and caking it in the tracks and running gear. At that the tank was done, and awaits it's infantry support! 

As always you can see more of my work here at Volley Fire Painting Service and you can get your own Panzer IV's from Warlord Games

Panzer IV kit comparison

As promised, here is the comparison of 28mm, 1/56 scale Panzer IV models. I've tried to keep the review limited to Ausf F and H variants as the differences are too great in the earlier models to make them relevent to the review process here.

Shown here are 221, and Ausf F2 from Rubicon Models, 222 and Ausf F2 from Warlord. Both of these are recently released plastic kits that allow the construction of F1, F2 and ausf H variants. I've also included Die Waffenkammers Ausf H as the varient is possible with the plastic kits.

All 3 kits are superb, and will give you a great Panzer IV. so I shall highlight their differences as each has it's own merits depending on what you want from a model.

Die Waffenkammers is by far the quickest model to assemble, and although it has very few parts is the only kit to come with a full set of Schurzen rails for the hull.



The kit also comes with a vast amount of spares, a commander figure and commendably thin Schurzen plates. The model is also very well cast and can be put together inside of 10 minutes.

Rubicon's Panzer was one of the first releases from this new company, and provides the options to build the Ausf F1 with short barrel gun, an F2/G and an Ausf H with Schurzen.

The kit has in my opinion the best set of suspension of the 3models,and some beautiful detail on the hull and turret. No figures or stowage are included, though those are easy to source.

 Assembly time is around 20-30 minutes or so. Noteworthy is that Rubicons panzer has the sturdiest Schurzen, although the detail is a little simplified and the plates are quite thick due to the limitations of the moulding process. They are also able to be clipped on and off the model as desired.

Warlords Panzer IV covers the same versions as Rubicons, and has some very nicely detailed Schuzen, although it's a tad more complex than that of the Rubicon kit. Detail again is very good, although the 1 piece hull and wheels results in a slight loss of detail due to the limitations of the moulding technology used. All the parts fit well. Contruction took around 20-30 minutes, and also contains a beautiful commander figure, and some odds and ends like spare Jerrycans and wheels.

To summarize, Die Waffenkammer produce a superb Ausf H, which will give you a very nice model with minimal construction. Rubicon's kit will give you a very nice model, especially if you do an Ausf F or G. Warlords kit will give you a great and inexpensive Ausf H, but will also produce very nice Ausf F and G variants as well.

 As always, more of my work can be seen at Volley Fire Painting.

Warlord Games range can be viewed on their website here http://www.warlordgames.com/, the Die Waffenkammer range can be seen here http://www.diewaffenkammer.com/ and last but not least Rubicons can be viewed here http://www.rubiconmodels.com/

Die Waffenkammer Armour review

With Christmas rapidly approaching I thought I'd do something totally festive and write about 2 bitter opponents from the Eastern Front, so here is my take on Die Waffenkammer (JTFM Enterprises) T34/76 UZTM turret kit, and also the Panzer IV Ausf H. First up, the T34.

Die Waffenkammer's T34 is a masterpiece of simplicity, comprising of a hull, seperate track units, a one piece turret and a big bag of stowage, as well as a nice commander figure. Next to no clean up was required, apart from a good wash in some washing up liquid to ensure that all the mold release agent is removed from the resin. I also used a grey automotive primer on the tank as this is far harder wearing than a standard acrylic primer. Both these steps are very important due to the nature of the resin used, although this extends to all resin (And metal) models as well.

After leaving the primer to dry for about 24 hours I attacked it with my airbrush, spraying the tank with through a range of green paints, starting with Vallejo 897 Brown Violet and finishing at 857 Golden Olive. Paint was misted on to give a sense of fading and wear to the green. Once this had dried I used artists oils as a wash into the recesses, and any excess paint was removed with a cotton bud. Mud was applied in a similar fashion to the wash, using Games Workshop Agrellan Earth left to pool in the recesses to give the impression of dried dust. a quick bit of googling provided a turret slogan which I painted on with Vallejo Silver Grey, and that was the T34 done!

Die Waffenkammers Panzer IV Ausf H Is just as good as the T34, being a very simple model to build with very crisp detail. I particularly like the Schurzen rail allowing you to have the side skirts separate from the model. This is actually the second one of these kits I have built, and I wanted to base this one on a vehicle from 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich after seeing a colourised photo in a forum. Paint was applied using the same techniques as the T 34, with the Dunkelgelb mixed using Vallejo Middlestone with increasing quantities of white mixed in. Yellow Olive Green camoflage patters were then sprayed on and the whole tank was dusted up with a watery coat of Vallejo Iraqi sand once all the inks and oils had dried.

Both these kits are superb, and fit perfectly with Warlord and Rubicon kits. I will be doing a size comparison once I have built a Rubicon T34 and some more Warlord Panzer IV's. Die Waffenkammer models can be bought either direct from Die Waffenkammers website, or ordered from Great Escape Games for those of you in the UK.

Warlord Games Panzer IV Review PT 1

A few weeks ago I posted a review of Rubicons Panzer IV, and promised to review Warlords once it was released. Well it has been, and I have one that I've built as an Ausf F2. I was going to compare it for sizes with Rubicons and Die Waffenkammers kits today, but I'll save that for next time.

The kit is moulded in dark grey hard plastic, with crisp detail throughout. Particularly noteworthy is the commander figure who wears an M43 field cap, and will look great peeking out of any Mid to Late War German armour. My tank being early, the boss got boxed for the time being.

You have the options to build the tank as either a short barrelled Ausf F, a long Barrelled F2 an ausf G with L48 gun and finally an Ausf H with Schurzen. I'll look at the Ausf F and H variants in a later article, but each has great detail. 

Kit was a great fit and simple to assemble, with the instructions being clear and parts marked for each version. I found the fit of the hull front left a few small gaps, and I'd have liked to see the later 1 piece hatch for the Ausf H variant, but other than that it was great.  The suspension unit comes in 5 parts, with wheels and hull side as one piece, to which you attach the 2 piece track units and outer face of the drive sprocket and rear idler wheel.

Model was painted using my Iwata Eclipses, using Vallejo Dark Sea Green for the grey colour and weathered using artists oils for the shading, and both GW Agrellan Earth and Vallejo Dark Earth textured paint for the mud effects.

 The kit scales perfectly with other Panzer IV's on the market, and also looks good next to Warlords's 28mm figures. Personally I'm starting to really like plastic kits for my wargaming vehicles as they take me back to being a kid and buying Matchbox 1/76 scales kits with my pocket money!

More to come! As ever, check out out Volley Fire Painting Services for more examples of my work. Til the next time!

Ruicon Models Tiger, Panzer IV, T-34/76

 Afternoon everyone!

DHL have just delivered a veritable box of treasures courtesy of those fine folks at Rubicon Models.

I have been very kindly sent a Tiger, T34 and Panzer IV to review, so drop me a message here or through Facebook letting me know which you'd like to see.  The ideas I have for finishing the models are the following,

• A Tiger 1 Late Production, with home made Zimmerit, probably painted up as a vehicle of Schwere Panzer Abteilung 505, painted in Dulkelgelb with the charging knight image painted on the turret. 

• A plain green T-34/76 for Operation Barbarossa time period, with lots of sublte weathering and dust effects. 

• Finally, as I've already reviewed the Panzer IV I'll do something a little different and kit it out with extra stowage, crew and maybe flags and foliage.

 So let me know and I'll roll the kit into the paint mines and get cracking after work over the next few days!

As ever if you'd like to see more of my work, or would like to let me know which you'd like to see please check out the Volley Fire page at;
https://www.facebook.com/VolleyFirepainting

Rubicon Models Panzer IV

Ok, time for a proper article I suppose! Bursting onto the 28mm Wargaming scene recently is the company Rubicon Models, they have an already good range of high quality injection moulded plastic kits, and today I'm looking at their Panzer IV kit.

The kit comes packaged in a nice sturdy box with a fancy picture on it, and details what your getting inside. I don't have a picture of it as I was so excited to get on with the build it went straight in the bin! Due to some clever engineering the kit gives you the option to build either a short or long barrelled Ausf F, an Ausf G or an Ausf H with Schurzen, and includes the short barreled 75mm L24 gun, and both the Long barrelled L43 and L48 75mm guns.

Design of the Schurzen in particular is worthy of not, as it simply clips onto the model. There's a slight simplification of detail, but anyone who has struggled with Schurzen in the past will really, really appreciate this engineering trick.

Construction couldn't be simpler due to the clarity of the insturctions and fit of the parts. The only tricky bits are the head lights on the front. I do feel Rubicon could have given some specifics on what parts are for which variant, but chances are if that's something that will keep you up at night you already know anyway!

The only place fit was a little off was on part of the transmission housing, but that was solved in about 2 seconds with some filler. In this area of the kit I was especially impressed with the quality of the spare track, with the retaining bar clipping into the supports. Great touch and nicely detailed.

 The rest of the construction was simple and didn't pose any head aches, and took around 20 minutes to complete.  The tracks were simple, being molded in one piece with the front set of wheels and sprockets being separate from the parts to give really crisp and precise detail.

         

 The tank is scaled to 1/56, and looks spot on next to some Warlord Games German infantry.

I painted the model using my Iwata Eclipse airbrush, spraying first German Panzer Grey, then Basalt Grey, then finally a 60-40 mix of Basalt Grey and White over the model to create interest. To tone the colours and contrasts down I then over sprayed with a mix of gloss varnish and panzer grey in a ratio of 80-20 in favour of gloss varnish.

 Kit transfers were applied using a lot of softner. I found the transfers a little thick and they took a while to settle down, but once they did they looked good. Everything was well printed and in register as well.

 After the transfers had cured over night I weathered the model using artists oils in washes to build up streaks of rust and wear to the paint, before applying Games Workshop Agrellan Earth and Typhus Corrosion special effects paints to create the mud. Once all that had dried I bursh painted some Pledge floor wax over the tank to seal it, then dulled everything down with some matt varnish. And there she was, done!

 In conclusion this is a superb kit I'd recommend to anyone. One thing to bear in mind though is that if you wish to build an Ausf H with Schurzen you will need to sculpt Zimmeritt paste on if you are wanting to be totally historically accurate, and also create a round disk shaped hatch seen on later versions of the mark IV. Overall  I give the kit 8 out of 10 bottles of Schnapps overall, but a huge 9.5 out of 10 if building an F or G variant!

As always, more pics of my work can be seen here https://www.facebook.com/VolleyFirepainting?ref=hl