A brand new American (?) army...

I've been AWOL for a couple of weeks - the painting journey has been ongoing but she's also been slow going. 

But I have been making progress on my force for the Flames of War event at this years annual club competition. The genesis of the whole thing was a pair of M8 Greyhounds, messing about in my collection of Germans. 

I was given these by Blogger Pooch at some stage in the dim dark past when rthe 4e Bulge book dropped: 

They've been sitting around painted for a while and I'd never really thought about whether or not the 150 Panzerbrigade force in the Bulge book was worth trying. Given we're taking on an infantry-forward, armour limited set of restrictions on the list build, now seemed like the time! 

So I decided to crack on and paint a couple of new infantry platoons and give my only other late-war German infantry a bit of a facelift!  First off, a platoon of Fallschirmjager:

 

They're a mix of Assault Rifle and Rifle FJ so they can run in DDay and in Berlin just as easily. I didn't feel like painting umpteen different platoons so just munged all this together. 

 

Then I zhuzhed my old tank rider platoon and gave it a repaint and rebase. They've been knocked around a bit over the years but they came up well:

 

 

In this list, they'll be playing the part of a platoon of Volksgrenadiers, mostly to get a couple more cheap Panzerfausts on the park. Then, the only artillery support I'm taking for the event, some 12cm mortars: 

 

 I didn't have room for an OP so I'm either going to have to hang them out in the wind or use the M8s to do a bit of sneaky spotting. Finally, I'll be taking some *cough* M7 Priests *cough:   

 

 I'll be running all the 150 Panzerbrigade nonsense for the event. It's had one test game so far and when some Finns took a look at the M8s and wondered what those Americans were doing there, I was sold!

 

Next Time

More FJ I hope. Then the army will be done and I can go back to working on my EW Germans!   

Kleine Panzertruppe!

 My EW Germans press on! I've finished painting all the tanks (well, I think I have a spare Panzer I that'll get painted for use in my Leichte Pionier Kompanie and a couple of Panzer IIs that, if I can find a third one, will get repainted for some LW Berlin stupidity) and so, aside from crew for the SPGs, this army is close to done! I'm pretty happy with how it's come out and especially with the brown stripes. It's a little bit over the top but it shows up, which I think is the most important thing! 

Leichte Panzers first - I've always enjoyed the mix of Panzer I and Panzer II and the new v4 book offering up the option of Panzer 38(t) and Panzer I has me also weirdly enthused. These platoons, along with the 4-tank HQ, are there to be a hard-to-stop assault force given that they're not really that much chop as anti-tank weapons! 

 

The 8-rads aren't in the core list at this stage, they're just too pricey but then they are nearly tanks after all.  

Mittlere Panzers second - I wasn't going to leave a platoon of Panzer IIIs out - they're iconic, provide some more mid-range AT and can see off many of the things they're likely to run into in the wild. 

 

Self Propelled Guns - the Panzerjagers are just necessary in EW given the paucity of affordable mid-range AT otherwise. I've done a bit of foliaging as they are, after all, ambush weapons! 

 

I've definitely been hit or miss with the army building in V4 (love the freedom, miss some of the more difficult choices and hilarious builds) but I do appreciate being able to get my Entes into this list. One, for some artillery support and two, because it's still AT7 and FP 1+!  

Un-self Propelled Gun? Yeah.  Gotta have the requisite 88. This one (and it's pair, still in the box) are cobbled together from a pair of BF scenic objectives and a bunch of old gun crews. They're Luftwaffe (because of the lack of gun shield, among other things) and they're pointed just perfectly to slot into the army. 

 

 I think I've cracked the marking plan but that's a whole pile of effort I'm not ready for yet so that'll happen some time in the next couple of weeks alongside the gun crews. Probably once I book in a game to get them on the table! 

Next Time

Some club day goodness. Not sure what that'll be at this stage.