Weakening at the Knees – Week 2 of #FateOfFourGamers

Last time, the team started their painting challenge, we join them after another week to see what progress has been made.

Lee – pre-1973 Israeli Hubris

With a week-long family holiday to the old stomping ground of Plymouth coming up, I needed to get my first block done and dusted by the end of the weekend so I would have something to play Fez.  Thankfully the first week saw me ahead of schedule so I was in a good place, with the base coat and highlights done on the hull and turret, and the tracks started.

So, the first order of business was to paint the stowage, again basecoat and highlights only.

Spare Track Links – I figured that the Sinai desert wasn’t going to see a lot of rust!  I still painted the tracks German Camo Medium Brown, but largely covered it with Black Grey, leaving only a little showing in the recesses.  I then highlighted with a 50:50 mix of black grey and gunmetal. There were no trackpads showing to worry about.

Spare Road Wheels – The hubs of the road wheels had effectively already been painted when I did the turret so I just needed to pick out the rubber with some Black Grey

Jerry Cans and Ammo Cans – I belatedly realised that I should have shaved off the spare round boxes for the deleted smoke grenade launchers, so now they are .30 ammo cans!  I’ll try and remember to shave them off the next batch.
These and the jerry cans were painted US Olive Drab as I doubted they were repainted and the black and white period photos provided no clues.

I applied an undercoat of US Dark Green, followed by a base coat of Brown Violet and a highlight of Khaki.

Tarps and Bedrolls – I wanted a mix of tones for the various tarp and bedrolls that populated the bustles.  Basically a mix of Khaki through to Olive Drab tones.  All the rolls received a coat of US Dark Green, followed by Brown Violet on all but the deepest recesses.  Half the rolls received Khaki as a highlight, leaving them olive drab.  The other half had Khaki applied as a base coat over the Brown Violet, followed by a highlight of German Camo Beige, leaving them in a khaki overall tone.

Wooden Crates – nice and simple, this.  German Camo Medium Brown undercoat, Flat Earth base and a 50:50 mix of Flat Earth/Iraqi Sand highlight.

I picked out the vision blocks in Luftwaffe Blue, with a little dot of Sky Grey in the corner.

Finally, I painted on the markings using Ivory. I opted for an upward chevron, two bands on the barrel and a division mark on the mudguard (the latter would have been painted over before combat but they look cool).  I also painted a rectangle of US Olive Drab one the glacis plate and rear left mudguard and scribbled on some serial numbers.

I then applied a couple coats of Gloss Varnish.  This provides a good base to do the pin wash work with the holy elixir that is GW Nuln Oil.  As I was going to apply matt varnish in the following stages, I used the gloss version of Nuln OiI.  I applied this liberally over the tracks, engine deck (where it picks out all those lovely deck vents) and the canvas mantlet cover, then as a pin wash on the rest of the tank.

Once that was dry, I applied a couple coats of matt varnish, them drybrushed Iraqi Sand on the lower parts and uppermost surfaces for dust.

There! First batch; done!  Much like pre- October 1973 I can bask in my own awesomeness whilst the rest scurry around to do their first 30pts.

What can possibly go wrong…

Duncan – What am I doing?!

So after the mistake-laden first week, I was hoping to cruise into week 2 on a high of freshly painted Saka Infantry and eyeballing the next phase of the Project Pyramid; but as usual, life had different ideas…

On the painting side, things have actually been progressing well as I’ve managed to get all the Thunderbolt Company sprayed using the magic sauce that is GW Zandri Dust spray despite the English weather conspiring against me – and I’ve managed to lay down some basic colours on them as well so I think I’m still on track. I’ll put together a painting guide in full later but I think they are coming together nicely.

Magic is in this can
So much sand!
Hands, faces, arms and necks – arms and necks
Starting to actually look like figures

On the other hand, the catalogue of errors continued. I had got 2 boxes of IS-3s through and looking at the box the picture showed that there were 3 models in there and the text confirmed that my eyes did not deceive me and only 60% of the IS-3 punching power was in my sweaty palm. Much swearing ensued and another box was swiftly purchased and my list rejigged for 9 IS-3s rather than the original 10.

The offending article
An unspecified number of IS-3s
These are Shilkas, right? No, no they aren’t… wally

Last night we recorded the latest podcast and I decided to do some modelling as I extolled the virtues of Iron Cross and to my disbelief, there were 5 x IS-3s in a box. I then managed to drop one and smash a track so my 10 became 9 and another box was en route too… it’s all very confusing. The upshot of this all is I have a new juggled list and 9.5 x IS-3s and 4 x  ZSU57-2 assembled; you’d have thought after 20 odd years I’d be a bit better at this by now.

T-62 Battalion

  • T-62 HQ
  • 4 x T-62
  • 4 x T-62
  • 4 x ZSU-57-2
  • 9 x IS-3
  • 9 x AK47 assault rifle teams
    6 x RPG-7 AT teams
    2 x AT-3 “Sagger” teams
    1 x SA-7 “Grail”
  • 5 x PT-76
  • 3 x BM-21 Hail Battery
  • 3 x 152mm howitzer

Fez – Painting more tanks than makes sense

I know it’s not November, but I really have to give thanks for Vallejo Polyurethane – Primer Desert Tan Base and it’s ability to be sprayed through an airbrush. It has allowed me to skip the primer phase, and spray right over the bare plastic the main colour of the tanks. This itself took an evening, as I had so many hulls I needed to clean the brush twice to get them all covered!

It’s important when using this stuff too bare two things in mind – the first is to make sure you cover everything that you are going to paint later, regardless if it’s going to be that colour, as you won’t be able to paint over the bare plastic later! The second part is to leave it to dry for at least 12 hours, longer if you can, to really set before doing anything else with it, otherwise, you run the risk of the paint peeling or lifting.

Once dry, it’s flat black over the tracks, road wheels, hull Mg and saw. Then Gunmetal over the metallic parts and on with the chipping! This is done with simple Neutral Grey and some old blister packing sponge. The trick is not to overload the sponge with paint in order to get the sparse random scratch pattern.

Once this has dried, I applied large patches and lines of Sepia Wash on parts that I wanted to rust/streak/oil, and spread it downwards again using a sponge. This gives them a really well used and worn look, as well as breaking up the flat tan colour.

The last step I have yet to do is apply the platoon markings, and a final dry brush of a dust colour to tie the model together – but more on that next week, I’ve got another 22 Tanks to paint…..

Ben – more hobby!

So my belated AIW update. It’s been a tough month for me as after the end of my Italian EW army for Devizes, and then a Soviet army for the Entoyment Late War event (post coming soon), and then add to that the kids being off school,  I didn’t have much time left for the Israelis (poor form I know). I decided to make it as simple as possible and go do the smallest number of models, with this, I painted the Taran 5 platoon and the M155 artillery platoon.

To paint these I followed the guide from the old books and started with a base coat of Green Grey, which covers over a black undercoat really well.

 

Next month I will paint the bulk of the army with the 10 Ishermans.

Seen here, gathered around the watering hole…

This will leave the infantry, jeeps and planes for the last month. I’m going to try and grab a game with Fez once the Ishermans are done, even though I do fear the T-34 horde!

 

Thanks for reading

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