Battlegroup Fall of the Reich: What's On My Painting Table

It has been a ridiculous couple of weeks of everyone in the family getting sick and a frantic time at work, so the painting has slowed down a lot since the halcyon days of Curt's challenge. However, I have been quietly pottering away preparing for a big push on a British force for Battle Group: Fall of the Reich, and here is what they look like so far.



Basically I'm doing up a force of the 6th Guards Armoured Brigade supporting infantry from the 15th Scottish Division from early 1945. Oh, and a few supporting units from the 79th Armoured Div for good measure. So far we have three squadrons of Churchills and a Churchill AVRE, all from two boxes of the lovely PSC kits, a brace of 17Pdr Achilles from Skytrex, a Humber Scout Car from Peter Pig and four Ram Kangaroos from Forged in Battle. Some carriers and other bits and bobs are also in process.



When I bought the PSC kits from War & Peace Games they were kind enough to chuck in a couple of Sherman sprues so that I could chop up the tracks and stick them all over the Churchills. As photos from early 1945 show, the Guards had some very comprehensive and creative views about welding extra tracks all over their tanks to boost the armour. The effectiveness of this measure is moot, and there is some suggestion that the extra track links may have actually made hollow charge warheads (ie Panzerfausts) more effective, but they certainly seem to have had a positive effect on morale.

Recap of My Challenge Part 2

In Part 1 of my self indulgent challenge recap I went over the figures i submitted for Curt's Bonus Rounds. This then is a quick glimpse of all the other stuff I painted up during the 3 months of the challenge.

As I flitted like a large bald butterfly from project to project during the challenge I made some good overall headway on a few main areas, so I'll group them by period. First up, the population of Hurricane, my wild west town for playing Dead Man's Hand experienced a big increase of everything from law abiding types to ladies of easy virtue and gun slinging no-goods.



Phew! That was quite a few, really.

My German and Soviet forces for Battlegroup: Kursk continued to receive some reinforcements:



And continuing the Battlegroup theme (best company level WWII rules ever), I started on a new project, making a British Platoon for Battlegroup: Overlord and Fall of the Reich.



For something completely different, I also painted a bunch of 28mm Huns. I'll be adding to this army to make it suitable for Impetus, Hail Caesar and whatever else. During the challenge I gradually improved the appearance of the snow bases, thanks to Canadian input, so they look a bit mismatched.



And finally, a figure of Arthur that I painted up for the 'heroes' round, but decided to enter Ney instead.



So there we have it! The painting challenge is over, now on with the painting.

Esoteric History Humour. Because We Can.

Recap of My Challenge Part 1

While the dust is still settling after Curt's wonderful painting challenge, I thought I'd just give a recap of all my entries, especially since most of them haven't appeared on my blog yet. Apologies for the self indulgence. But I suppose that's what blogs are for. All together I submitted 23 separate entries, so here we go.

One aspect of the challenge I enjoyed were the fortnightly bonus rounds, and I managed to get an entry in for each one. They were:

Round 7: Last Stand. Rooster Coghburn from 'True Grit', engaged in both a physical and metaphysical last stand.



Round 6: Favourite Character. Uhtred of Bebbanburg from Bernard Cornwell's Saxon stories.



Round 5: Casualties. French Infantry during the retreat from Moscow. Some of the most beautiful sculpts ever from Alan Perry.



Round 4: Hero. Marshall Ney, from Gorgon Miniatures.



Round 3: Vehicle. A cart for Hurricane. Beaten by a big spider.



Round 2: Villain. Hengest and Horsa from Musketeer Miniatures. Badger heads are sooooo in.



Round 1: Non Combatants. Some good folks from Hurricane.



As price of admission to the challenge Curt also requested a figure inspired by a character from a Sam Peckinpah film, so I made a little vignette of Bob Dylan as Alias in 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid', little knowing how much Curt despises The Bobster.



Next up - all the other stuff!