Little Tanks & Tiny People

As promised in my last post , here are my 15mm German tanks. I left most in their dunkelgelb basecoat, although the gelb I used may be slightly dunkler than the actual colour was. As a side note, I used Vallejo English Uniform for this, which is perhaps a little ironic.   The Panther and Maus are inspired by the paint job on the Panther at the Tank Museum at Bovington. At the end of the war, tanks were no longer painted in the factory but were shipped to the units in their red oxide primer. They were then camouflaged by the crews, who sometimes left some of the primer uncovered. Panther and Maus P zKpfw V Panther ( Gale Force Nine) P zKpfw VIII Maus ( Gale Force Nine) Base coat: Hull Red 70.985 Camo: Desert Yellow 70.977 and White 70.951 Tracks and tools: Black 70.950, Gunmetal Grey 70.863, Flat Earth 70.983 Wash: Umber Wash 73.203 Dirt Drybrush: Flat Earth 70.983 followed by Bonewhite 72.034 Tiger, Panzer IV and StuG III PzKpfw VI Tiger (Zvezda) PzKpfw IV  (Zvezda) St...

Back in 2020 , I painted up some tiny 15 mm or 1:100 scale tanks. If I may say so, I think I’ve gotten a bit better at painting in the last four years, so I thought it was time to redo them. I couldn’t resist buying some extra as well, of course. I’ll start with the Allies, the Germans will follow in the next post. Brits (NW Europe) British Cromwells (Gale ForceNine) British Sherman Firefly (Gale Force Nine) I used a much more acurate green than last time. As you can tell, the yellow diamonds aren't perfectly symmetrical because I did them by hand. Base coat: Refractive Green 70.890 Drybrush: Khaki 70.988 Tracks and tools: Black 70.950, Gunmetal Grey 70.863, Flat Earth 70.983 Wash: Umber Wash 73.203 Chipping: Khaki 70.988 and Gunmetal Grey 70.863 Dirt Drybrush: Flat Earth 70.983 followed by Bonewhite 72.034 Brits (N Africa) M3 Lee's (Zvezda) These M3's are technically American Lees, not British Grants, but I don't mind. I really dig the camo. Matilda II (Z...

As promised last time, here are the auxiliary archers for my steadily growing Roman army. They are a mix of Zvezda minis from the RomanAuxiliary Infantry box that I also used to make my auxiliary infantry , and archers from Hät’s Imperial Roman Auxiliaries box. The figures differ a little in style, with the Hät minis looking slightly more cartoony. But they are all about the same size and work pretty well together. Especially when painted the same colour scheme. The Zvezda archers come in two nearly identical poses. The three poses offered by Hät, on the other hand, are much more varied. Together, I think they make a nice varied looking unit.   All figures are clearly supposed to represent archers from the eastern part of the Empire, wearing conical helmets and long tunics. I therefore decided to paint their tunics in a different colour then my regular auxiliary infantry, to make them look as their own separate unit. The tunics were painted Citadel Morghast Bone with a horizont...

I had a couple days off last week and spent a good portion of that time painting up three bases worth of Zvezda auxiliary infantry , 21 minis in total. Like the legionaries I painted earlier , these auxiliarii have excellent sculpts and come in a nice variety of poses. These auxiliarii seem to have been recruited in the northern provinces of the Empire. For one, they are wearing trousers under their tunics, a very un-Roman fashion statement but pretty useful in colder climates. Secondly, the minis are noticeably taller than their legionary counterparts, although I doubt that was intentional on Zvezda’s part. Although noticeable, the size difference isn’t that great to be annoying when the minis are placed side by side. For painting these figures I used pretty much the exact same recipe as for my legionaries , only substituting Citadel Caliban Green for the red I used on the tunics and shields. I really liked the step-by-step picture I made last time, so I made one again: And after basi...

This is my first post in about a month, but not because I’ve been twiddling my thumbs. I’ve been working on a teeny tiny Roman army! I’ve wanted to assemble a Roman army for quite a while, but the tedium of painting dozens and dozens of near identical figures has always stopped me. About a month ago, I bit the bullet and decided that I would build an army for Basic Impetus published by the aptly named Dadi & Piombo. The armies needed for this game are relatively small and you can use miniatures in whatever scale you like. Another cool aspect of Basic Impetus is that it uses multibasing, so you can create very personalised and impressive looking armies.   Scale wise, I chose the somewhat uncommon 1:72. Uncommon for wargaming, that is, because it’s probably the most common scale for model kits. Firstly, size and detail wise it sits nicely in between 15mm and 28mm scale, striking the perfect balance between aesthetics and the amount of time it takes to build a decently sized ar...

A while ago I bought the starter set for GaleForce Nine ’s game Tanks, a skirmish game that uses these tiny 1:100 scale tanks. The starter set comes with three models (a Panther and two Shermans) and over the last few months I have slowly been adding a couple more. I didn’t document the building and painting of these little tanks, but I can at least show the finished product. I decided I wanted a German and a British force. To start with the German tanks - because I think they turned out the best - I painted three vehicles in the famous Hinterhalt Tarnung (ambush camouflage). From left to right (on the first picture) these are the Panther that came with the starter set, a Panzer IV Ausf. H made by Zvezda and a StuG III Ausf. G made by the Plastic Soldier Company . The decals are by  Victrix and are meant for their 1:144 scale vehicles. I think they look pretty good on these 1:100 vehicles as well, though. StuG III Ausf. G, PzKpfw  IV Ausf. H and PzKpfw V Panther. I also boug...

This was my first experience with a Zvezda kit. The parts go together well enough, but I did need a bit of filler to fill in some gaps. The instructions took some getting used to, though, particularly when it came to the sails and rigging. Nitpicks aside, it is a great looking kit. And the only one of its kind, so hats off to Zvezda for making it. A note on the scale: the box says it's scale 1:72, although my Italeri 1:72 Greek hoplites seem to be a little on the large side for it. You are given the option of building the trireme with its keel in place, so you can display it on a stand (which is included), or you can build it waterline up. I chose the latter and glued it to a 5 mm sheet of polystyrene. The sheet measures 50 x 25 cm, which is too narrow to display the ship with its oars extended. I therefore chose to shorten the oars as if they were retracted during sailing. I painted the polystyrene sheet with different shades of blue and then painted on a coat of Vallejo Water ...