Tally Ho! (Desert Light Armour Platoon - Part 2 - Done!)

I'll start this post off by saying a big thanks to all who've stopped by in the 3 or so years I've been keeping this blog. I hit 40'000 views today, and whilst in comparison to most of the blogs I follow isn't all that much, it's impressive to me considering that my own hobby blog is a wee one. Here's to the next 10'000 - and maybe I'll do a giveaway or something. We shall see.

As the post title would indicate, I've both been working on my British Desert Camo Crusader tank platoon and have indeed completed painting them. (Again, minus the unit markings.) Am really happy with how they turned out and surprisingly enjoyed getting them to this finished state.

Center Command tank was from my last post. I stuck him in the picture for completion's sake.

Side view. As you can see, each tank has a different camo to represent the Adhoc attitudes taken by the troops in North Africa and how they applied their schemes. (In the background, next to the "Krackle" is a Relic Knights figure I've started on.)

From the little I've read thus far, British Mid War tanks didn't have too much in the way of a strict system for unit markings. This is going to make keeping these accurately marked a pain I think.

After these, I then went on to work on 8 feet of hedges for my game table using a tutorial that was highlighted (though also borrowed by) Cameron on his Rust and the City blog. Whilst my hedges look crap compared to his carefully crafted efforts, they'll do for some extra pieces to break up my boards. I still have to add some grass, etc and so will post pictures at a later date.

Lastly, (And I know it's considered a bit of a faux pas in the blogosphere) I would like to highlight some Ebay auctions I have going right now for some Warhammer 40K Space Marine stuff that I've decided I'll never get to. Trying to drum up funds for a new American Civil War project that I'm planning to tackle in the New Year after a very fun demo game of Regimental Fire & Fury with a NorCal Flames of War forum pal, Stewart. But more on that when we determine scenarios we want to concentrate on.

My current 5 auctions can be found here - http://www.ebay.com/sch/daiharries76/m.html and keep an eye for more Warhammer 40K stuff being put up on auction in the near future!

Tally Ho! (Desert Light Armour Platoon - Part 1)

I started work on my Flames of War 8th Army Light Armoured Platoon yesterday and pretty much finished up the platoon commander. The unit is comprised of a Command Crusader II tank and two Crusader III's. I tried to do a bit of research on camouflage schemes  and so forth as I wanted my force to be roughly based on troops that were present during the 2nd Battle for El Alamein and so went with the following scheme.

The lighting washed out some of the shading in these pics. That oil drum for example looks a lot more "rusted" in real life than this picture would otherwise have you believe. 

Poor commander only gets a pitiful 2-pounder to play with. This gun will barely bail a panzer III!

As with my previously shown armoured cars, these will get a little weathering once I've worked out correct markings for them and applied the decals. I painted this tank up entirely by hand, which is a bit silly what with my airbrush sat downstairs (just waiting for me to make this whole process easier and quicker), and so this one tank managed to take up most of my painting time yesterday - about 4-5 hours! The other two tanks from this platoon are both ready for highlights and so forth and I should have them done by hopefully Friday.

Next up, as a really quick side-project, I finally managed to get my rpg character's miniature done! Here is Pillip the Grippli - Priest of the Croak Mother. This mini is bloody small, like, a tad shorter than my 15mm Flames of War infantry figures! O_o So lots of careful application of paint required. Saying that, because he's so small, it only took me maybe an hour and a bit to get him finished? As he's a gaming mini (And our campaign storyline is almost over), I'm not putting all that much effort into him, but I think he looks pretty cool as is.

Lastly, I also started work on another random rpg mini. I let my wife choose it out of the 140-or-so random roleplay figs I have waiting for some colour and she picked out an old plastic 1980's  Heroquest playing piece, the "Chaos Sorcerer". So far I"m only managed to get basic colours on and highlight the skin some, so no pics as yet, but it was fun to get working on such an old silly sculpt. :) I'll post finished pics soon.