Sunday, August 24, 2014

King Tigers for Flames of War

My ever increasing late war German collection now has a couple of King Tigers.  These are Battlefront models and they come with both the Henschel and Porsche turrets.  This makes then rather expensive models but the good news is you rarely need more than two and usually only one.

The Henschels will see there battle debut next weekend at a local late war tournament.  I was hoping to get in a test game or two but it is not to be.






Even though I have no plans to run the Porsche version any time soon I painted up these turrets at the same time to ensure a good match.  These turrets don't fit as well as the Henschels and probably need magnets.






All in all a nice kit and they should be fun to play.  I am not sure what I will be working on next.  I just got more Napoleonic French so I should probably work on that for a while.  But I also got a deal on some more 40K Orks (that I have no need for) and I am really getting the bug to work on those for a while. 

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

StuG Batterie for Flames of War

Here is my StuG Batterie for Flames of War.  I have always loved the StugIIIG and ever since I started FoW I have dreamed of building this army.  But my cheapness kept me from making any real progress.  The first tanks in the collection were a couple of the original Open Fire! stugs that I traded for.  They were crap and I was sure I would end up throwing them away.  A few weeks ago a friend had all the Germans from the new Open Fire box which included three stugs.  Well, now I was getting close to having a start on the army.  Once I realized that the plastic schurzen from the Plastic Soldier Company stug set could be used to salvage the crappy old Open Fire stugs I was off.  I bought a box of PCS stug and got started.

The complete company.  The army includes Battlefront models and Plastic Soldier Company models.

The commander is from the Panzer Kanonen set.  I did not like the metal schurzen that comes with this model so I upgraded it with a set from PSC.

This platoon is made of the Battlefront plastic stugs from the current Open Fire box.  These models are OK but seem a little too wide to me.

The second platoon is a mix of manufacturers.  The command tank is from PSC.  The other two are modified Battlefront models from the original Open Fire set.  The tanks were one piece casting ans the schurzen has a bad habit of breaking off.  I used my Dremel to remove the schurzen and also to remove the huge casting on the base of the tank.  I then used PSC schuzen as replacements.  The are not perfect but they look good.

This is the StuH 42 platoon and all the models are PSC.  I left off the schurzen (because I used them to fix the other tanks) to help differentiate the models from the stugs.
Initially, I will be fielding this force as the 280. Sturmgeschutzbrigade from Bridge by Bridge.  I will be able to use my Fallschirmjagers to fill out the support.  Some of these models have already been on the table in support of my Fallschirmajagers and they will eventually backup some standard German infantry as well.  All in all these tanks will see lots of table time for mid and late war games.