22 October, 2013

Quick Painting Update: DAK

 Hey guys a quick quick update, Over the past 2 weeks, I've been painting like a madman on my EW- MW Germans.   I have quickly blasted through the infantry and got them to a playable state:   In this case, Feldgrau, skin tones, steel, buff coloured helmets.   This is my pre-wash and then hyper detail phase, as seen below.


 Also got this parking lot of armour spray coated in the darker brown scheme.   You see either the very light coloured german desert stuff or the darker brown.  Figurd as my Desert Rats are already teh bright colour, to tone these guys down some.
 For fun, I washed and hyper detailed th HMG platoon.  As usual, all the interesting bits to see are on the back of the models: straps, equipment, etc.

The list I'll be using for Early war practice games is 1550 points (Historicon next year Pt Value)
Schutzen Kompanie HQ
2 units of Schutzen, with AT RIfle, Lt Mortar
1 unit of MG-34s, to be combat attached out if need be.
5 Panzer II Cs
2 units of 8-Rads
2 7.5cm Inf Guns
4 10.5 cm Arty

This is by no means the list I'm going to take to Historicon, as I think it will be a Kradschutzen Kompanie, but I can play around with the stuff I have assembled and in the case of infantry, in a playable state.
Expect a few Batreps up later this week, from RObK's Jock Column and ThunderST's Panhorde!



07 October, 2013

Never to early to start a new Army: DAK

Achtung, Was is Los?

Yep, its been pretty quiet for me on the hobby front since July's excellent trip to Historicon.  However, with next year's Historicon already being announced that it will be Early War 1500 points (maybe 1550), why not start EARLY and get stuff done?  Enter, the Deutsche Afrika Korps, or the DAK for short.  I've actually had a lot of these models for years, for when I wanted to make a Mid-War opposing force for my Desert Rats, but just never got around to it.. things like my Free French project came up, as well as the 21 Pzr army for Late War amongst other things.   The DAK is a great army in that most of the models can be used for both EW and MW.


 Iconic pic of an observer kfz250 from a 10.5cm battery

I'm going to try and document the building and painting of this army as much as I can, some for selfish reasons:  I can never remember what I use down the road, so if I document the steps and colours used, I can add units as I need them.  

I've been pretty busy assembling, see below, my towed 10.5cm arty behind my 2 objectives..



Pre-based, base-coated, awaiting Wash.
Whilst in this pic, we can see I have opted to do the grunt-work of Infantry first.  I always find the infantry is the toughest hurdle for me.    Above are 2 units of Schutzen, with added AT Rifles, Panzerknacker, Light Mortar, and either a pBz41 AT gun or Puppchen.   Add in combat attached MG-34s, and we get some beefy veteran platoons which can form the nucleus of pretty much any list.  I have yet to nail down the colour scheme for my Infantry, though for Basing, I followed the desert basing guide from the FoW site.   I still have to do a wash then highlight with the proper colours.  But for now, they are playable!  And thats what matters.

Catch you guys later this week with an update.. it may or may not have anything to do with FbB getting my order of Pzr IIs in earlier this weekend!

Matt Varnish


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