21 Italian Tanks & Sporadic Biplanes - Painting

 I must admit that one of the main attractions of this army list, apart from its utter lack of subtlety and debatable balance, was the relative ease for which it would be painted up. I have always found tanks of 15mm scale quick and relatively easy to paint up, which was lucky as I'd actually end up having three weeks in which to get the entire force ready from boxes to battlefield.

 Painting followed my usual techniques for this scale. 15mm benefits from fairly high contrast styles of painting and shading. I know i won't win any awards but I find basic colour shaded by ink washes a quick, easy and effective technique.

I did however pioneer a couple of things I have had yet to try out. The first was use of Model Mates Rust Effect and the second, weathering powders from the Dust Effects set by Combo.   
I used the Rust Effect on the command tank only, applied to spare track pieces that my company commander had attached to his tank for added protection. In models depicting tanks from other theaters I would be tempted to add the rust effect to the tracks of each tank, however because in the desert the moving pieces are in contact with the desert floor they are steady sandpapered they do not corrode unless left at rest for very extended period of time. 



The Rust Effect is very easy to use, simply brushed on like paint. the immediate effect isn't seen really until it dries. Generally it seems that the thicker on you paint it on the brighter the rust colour is when it dries. One thing to note is that you do need to paint the surface you are rusting with their "original" colour before rusting up. Another thing to note it this product is water based, so is more forgiving than some of the other products out there which are much harder to alter or remove.

Lastly it was time to use the weathering powders. Now this is an area that I've been researching for some time but had up until late not been brave enough to use. I mean come on, you use them last, once the models are complete and cock ups at this stage can potentially wipe out hours of work. Never the less, I'd see some impressive results, especially with desert vehicles, giving them a really nice dusty look which can't really be replicated fully by other means. So on it went. I simply brushed on the powder directly the the models with and old worn brush and worked it until each tank looked suitable dusty using archive photos as reference. (Which makes for some very dusty tanks!) Overall i'm pleased with the result, however in experimenting with fixing down the powder using varnish, found that the varnish actually washes the dust away and spoils the effect. So i have forgone varnishing and fixing the entire force. The dust seems to stay in place in any case and I'll just have to add more dust if it turns out to rub off over time. (It hasn't at time of writing after several weeks and a weekend tournament of use). I will endevour to find a way to fix it at some point and would welcome suggestions.

Next up: The tournament weekend itself! Sturm Uber Dunkirchen!

21 Italian Tanks & Sporadic Biplanes - Construction

Last year me and my partner in crime Al went along to our first Flames of War tournament Sturm Uber Deutsland held up in Nottingham by the Reluctant Conscripts gaming group. Al took a nicely balanced British infantry list and I put together a list that allowed me to field a German armoured train. Much fun was had by all and neither of us finished last, so when Al mentioned they were running another tournament we decided to go along.

Over the past few years Al has been buying me Italian M14/41 medium tanks with a view of us getting a few early war desert games in one day. Well this tournament was the perfect motivation to get that army built and painted. It also helped narrow down the list I wanted to run. Namely Italians! A quick flick through the various Italian army lists produced an intriguing opportunity. 21 M14/41 tanks supported by nothing but some Fiat Falco biplanes!

 Unfortunately Battlefront seemed to have run out of M4/41 tanks world wide. However Skytrek came to rescue and had some of the old Command Decision versions in stock. There were no photos on the web of the two compared so I thought I'd post a few in case someone else finds this useful in the future. The Skytrek versions are dated and don't sit that brilliantly next to the Battlefront version, but split the platoons by manufacturer and they were fine on the gaming table. (Skytrek left; BF Right.)

In fact as you'll see in the next post the two sit better next to each other once painted up. One day i intend to replace the Skytrek models with Battlefront ones, but it isn't on my priority list.

Both models construction was pretty easy. As always the BF versions did require some attention of the file to cut away excess resin in the track wells on either side.

One thing to note with the Skytrek kits is they do not come with tank commanders, so i used spares that came with the BF kits. The BF kits themselves don't come with AA MGs which is a bit of a pain as I ended up raiding some Plastic Soldier Company German half track kits for spare MG34s to use. Although this isn't historically accurate at 15mm scale the difference isn't noticeable and in fact I'm not actually sure anyone even makes the appropriate Italian versions.

The Biplanes were definitely fiddly in putting together but ultimately worth it. The Battlefront set comes with everything you need including magnets, flight stands and decals for all three planes.

So what would the army be like to use on the gaming table? Well in early war their main gun is pretty average but can take on most other tanks. The Italians seemed to have a policy of literally covering these things in machine guns and that coupled with the high explosive rounds from the main gun means gun teams, infantry and unarmoured vehicles wouldn't last very long in their sights. These tanks also have pretty good armour so could potential take quite a bit of punishment. Their only real downside are their crews. The Italian national special rule means that you only find out the skill level and motivation after deployment and this can vary from the worst levels in the game to just above average. This makes me wonder if perhaps they are slightly over pointed as the points costings don't seem to take into account the widely variable nature of their crews. The biplanes are decent enough air support, although you can only access the sporadic level of support with them, so on paper at least they are more likely to sit out the game without turning up to help than play an active role in the battle. However this seems to be true of most air support options for a lot of armies in early war so generally on par.

Next up: Painting the army.

Citadel Technical - Agrellan Earth

I know, it doesn't sound very interesting. However as I seem to have been the one of first in my local gaming community to try using his stuff I thought I'd post a couple of pictures up and share my thoughts after this trail run with the stuff.

So what is it exactly? Well literally paint of a light brown colour designed to crack as it dries to create the parched cracked earth effect you get in such lovely places a Somalia, Chad, Yemen or the bottom of British reservoirs in the height of summer.

So i grabbed my Steel Legion sentinel walkers and slapped on the paint and waited....

This is the type of effect you get after it has dried. I must admit it does look pretty good. The photo doesn't do it justice. However one thing that i learnt very quickly is this stuff is incredibly fragile. Even light brushing over this with varnish to seal it managed to flake off some bits. I also note that after the varnish dried it lost the very dry-dust effect it had previously so I think these bases will need further going over with weathering powders to get that dusty effect back.

All in all though it is a interesting product with lots of potential uses for all sorts of flaking effects. Worth it, but handle with care!

Finally I managed to get down to a open 40K gaming day at Shadow Games in Rugby recently with my Imperial Guard force. Played an excellent game against a Space Wolves force alongside an allied army of Chaos Demons. The picture here shows the last stand of my guys to some giant power armoured guy riding a huge wolf! It didn't end well for my guys and their APC friend...