Winter is coming...to TANKS

After deliberating and pondering and much chewing of finger nails.I made the decision to try the winter wash look on my German Panther Tank for the TANKS game.

Bearing in mind that i was already happy with the look, it was a big step.
I hadn't ever tried to winter wash a model before and the whole experiment was very much a case of...fly or fall and could easily have resulted in the destruction of a model.

But....

Aside from possibly adding in some snow build up along the tracks and running gear (not sure if it actually needs it), i personally think the model looks done and pretty good.

For those not up to speed on the winter wash...let me explain......
Wavey flash back images with 40's music.....

Its winter 1944, the allies and Germans are duking it out in Europe. Tanks stalk each other across snow covered fields and towns....in dark greens and camouflage. Sadly this is well suited to the verdant greens of summer/autumn Europe.

As you can imagine..sitting atop a dark green tank in a field of white snow...is a bit of a give away.

So both the allied and axis forces tried to camouflage there tanks. In general the technique was to use a white wash paint. Water soluble and roughly applied with brushes, brooms, mops and rags.
The idea was that as winter wore on, the paint would wear away and save repainting again for the spring and summer.
A great idea....
Only, that winter wash...wore off a bit easier and tended to expose the paint underneath if it came into contact with pretty much anything....bushes, trees etc. So in many reference pics, the paint is either non existant or heavily worn.

And this is the look i wanted.
Wavy wooshey flash back to current times.

With this in mind i present my attempt...

Pre winter wash

Post wash

And thats..the job almost complete

TANKS! The germans are coming

So this...would appear to be post 101.
A mini milestone in many ways and a number synonymous with ww2.

But unlike a certain division, this ones looking at my one German tank for the TANKS game.
That tank is the Panther (i do have the jagdpanther hull, but for now its the panther that's on the go).

Although i have painted a fair few ww2 models over time...nothing has ever been of the German armoured variety. With their approach to camouflage, this provides a unique challenge and something new to try.

When i initially built and planned the model out, i was thinking about doing my Germans in a 'winter' theme. That means all the work of camo followed by plenty of white wash.
But like any good plan...this ones hitting a speed bump. That speed bump is liking the look and being uncertain about white washing a model that i am already fairly happy with.
The woes of a wargamer eh.

I guess a nights sleep might help guide the decision.
For now...here's some pics.

My Dirty Americans of the 3rd Armoured division

First off let me give a big shout out to @PaintmateTumblr over on twitter, without whom i would not have got these guys finished. The decals are very much appreciated!!!!

Despite the relatively fun and non historical nature of the tanks game. I wanted to keep some historical theme with my forces.
With this in mind and my use of the Super Pershing, my options were limited to either the American 3rd or 9th Armoured division with a time frame somewhere post 'Battle of the buldge/ardennes'.

I wanted a dirty, been through the mud and brush feel to my force, and it may be something i carry over to all my 'Tanks' forces. It gave me a different focus, a chance to use some rarely tried techniques and heck...it looked fun.

So here they are. A Super Pershing and pair of Sherman 76mm Tanks of the 3rd US Armoured Division.

GF9 Tanks update

So as far as i can, i have finished off my intended American force for the TANKS game by gf9.
They still need some decals and a final coat of varnish to seal everything up.
But for the moment they are as done as they can be.

Part of today's post is to show a little 'how to' on the weathering technique i use.
I was asked by a member of the Norfolk Wargamers fb group and promised to do the guide to show how easy it really is to do. So here goes.

You will need.
Tanks. Painted to a level you are happy with.
Q-tips/cotton buds.
Enamel paint thinner. I use Humbrol thinner
Black enamel paint. I use humbrol Enamel thinner.
Weathering powder. I use MIG pigments Dark Mud.
2 brushes, i use a cheap large brush and a battered old dry brush.

My intended victims

On a pallet, mix a 50/50 ratio of Black enamel paint and thinners. Mix plenty. Now plaint this all over your tank, get a good solid coat on all over the tank and give about 10 minutes to cure a little.
Something like this.

After about 10 minutes, take a cotton bud, dip one end into neat enamel paint thinner and wipe over any area you don't want the black enamel paint, flip the bud over and use the dry end to gently wipe away the thinned paint. It may take a few passes over each area to get the look you want. But be patient, use fresh cotton buds regularly and eventually you will have something like this.

Next you want to crack open the pot of weathering powder and grab your drybrush. You will need to decide how 'dirty' you want your tanks before applying the powders, though they are fairly easy to remove.
Dab the drybrush into the powders and begin dabbing the loaded brush onto the areas you want to build up mud. the more you put the, thicker the mud. For light mud/dust you can dab a little onto the model and use your finger to smudge it around.
I tend to do the weathering stage whilst the enamel wash is still wet as this will help to fix the powder to the model, but you could wait and use hairspray or a proper fixative.
If you want to create streaks of mud, you can use a little water or white spirit to activate the powder pigments and spread them. I didn't on these models as i wanted a dirty 'been through the Normandy mud' look.
Once you have built up the powder and mud, you should have something like this.

Now all you need to do is leave the models over night and seal them with varnish to fix the powders to the model properly.
If you intend to add decals, the best way would be to add them before the weathering process is started, as it will make life a bit easier.
Alas i didn't have any decals, so my approach will be to add them then weather the decals once they have set.

I hope this helps, I am certainly no guide writer and far from the levels of any pro painters out there. But I am happy enough with the way these tanks turned out.

TANKS by gf9

So its been a while since i posted anything truly wargame related..besides a for sale post.

Mostly due to a complete lack of motivation and gaming, the rest...just sheer laziness.

But something has tickled my fancy...and that something is TANKS by Galeforce Nine.

Its been described as x-wing meets flames of war and it's no real surprise as Battlefront  (flames of war fame) are partly behind the game.
So yesterday armed with a couple of quid and a itch to scratch. I went off to Norwich to Final Reroll (store) and picked the game and an expansion up.

Those of you with sharp eyes will notice the low entry cost of the game. Those 2 sets cost a mere £22.50. RRP for the sets are £18 for the game and £7 for the expansion pack. In fact £36 the price of 2 starters could give you 2 'organised play' legal 100pt forces. Now that is cheap!.

But of course...cheap doesn't always mean good. So lets delve inside the packets of plasticrack and see if it's good quality.

Inside the box you will find the following, 2 Sherman tanks, 1 panther/jagd panther, a 22 page rulebook, tokens and a bundle of cards.Lets breakdown each component.
First off the gratuitous back of the box shot

Nothing fancy and as expected.

Now lets delve in.

First up the rulebook.
Its not a monstrous tome like many of the books out there, weighing in at a whopping 22 pages.!!!
Quality wise, its full colour, clearly printed with a mix of artistic pictures, a few real life pictures and lots of diagrams to explain the points the rules are making.
A decent book and i look forward to putting the rules through their paces, they do sound good fun!

Next up we have the cards.
There are several types. First off are the tank cards themselves. These contain everything you need to know about a basic naked tank. The 1st symbol is the initiative the defines the moving and shooting order. The second is firepower, the number of dice rolled for shooting (can be modified by range,movement and other modifiers). The 3rd is defence dice. This is your chance to cancel out hits on your tanks (again this can be modified through various means) and finally the health points or damage. There's a couple of ways to record this, either with tokens beside the tank, or if you want there are health dots on the card that you can mark as you play.
Around the edge of the card are various boxes for crew and this brings us to the next set of cards. Crewman.
A vehicle can only have as many crew cards as there are boxes available. A crewman can be anything from a driver through to gunner, loader, commander etc. There are also named 'character' crewman. So if you want to be Wittman or wardaddy you can. The only minor gripe i have here is that there appears to be no restriction on what tank (aside from nationality) that a character can man. So wittman in a stugg is viable if not a little meh.
In addition to crew there are also upgrades you can purchase. Some of these like some of the crew, are nation restricted, some are generic.
These allow you to further upgrade and improve an individual tank.
The upgrades feel very much like the ones from xwing and mean you have to decide between that much vaunted heroic commander and crew in an all singing all dancing super tank, or an extra tank.
The final set of cards are Critical hit cards.
Any to hit roll of 6, that goes uncancelled by defence, generates a critical hit. Aside from potential extra damage, you can also suffer effects like reduced movement or even a bailed out tank crew. All the details are listed there on the cards.
A couple of things to note here.
Tanks are only ever destroyed in the final phase of a turn. So even if your health is reduced to zero, you will still get to activate your tank...unless....you suffer a critical hit that causes the tank to be inoperable like bailed out. So you want those 6's up and at em.

German Tanks

American Tanks

British Tanks

Russian Tanks

Crew/upgrade cards (just a selection of them)

Critical hit cards

Also in the box you will find some terrain and tokens.
There's a couple of woods and buildings (with a rules reminder written on them for quick reference). There's also a mix of damage, identity, destroyed, objective etc tokens. All are printed on very thick card that borders on being more like wood. Great print quality and sure to survive the day to day gaming use.

I also picked up a Pershing/super Pershing expansion pack.
Within the box there was the tanks sprues, some more crew and upgrade cards including another named character and a pair of tank cards for either the Pershing or super Pershing tank.
The quality is in line with the boxed game.

My only gripe and it is only minor, is in regards to the instructions for the models. The sprues come with a plethora of options and extras. Indeed in relation to the Sherman kit, you can make the American Sherman 75 and 76mm variant, the British firefly and i think the British Sherman V.
With so many parts, it can be a little difficult to match the explode component diagram up with the actual sprue parts.
Its nothing major, but a little clearer would have been nice, especially for the less experienced modeller.

So that pretty much sums it up. I am hoping to get some games in soon and will give my thoughts on the mechanics in due course. I am also hoping to take part in an 'Organised Play' event over the coming months which is pretty much a 3 mission league tournament.

What? why are you all looking at me like that. It's not like i forgot something is it..

what do you mean models?
Pft ok then,....jeez you lot crack the whip.

As mentioned above, there are a multitude of options on the sprues. Indeed, out the core box you can make 2 complete Sherman's and make the turrets for 2 more. So you could make a pair of 75mm Sherman's and turrets to switch out to 76's.
The German sprue is equally well packed. You can make the panther and if you don't glue the upper hull to the lower, swap out the panthers upper with the jagd panther very easily.
The Pershing box isn't quiet as nice as unlike the Sherman sprues, there aren't enough turret parts to make both the Pershing/super Pershing turrets.Although it may be possible if you magnetise the upper and lower turret halves. But I'm not 100% sure.

Mould quality is good, though you need to take care with things like the hull machine guns, turret machine guns and the likes as they are easily snapped if you rush.
There are minimum mould lines on the kits and they go together very easily with no big gaps etc.
Detail is decent and at 15mm i have seen a lot worse for more money. Sure there are better quality kits, but not for the price your paying.
On a side not. The kits from plastic soldier company are probably slightly better, however they are also slightly smaller in scale.

I know...less waffle, more plastic. So here you go.

Panther/Jagd Panther

2 Sherman 76's and a super Pershing

So my final thoughts.
For the price, your getting a lot of game for your money. There's plenty of early options in the kits included. If your already a flames of war gamer, then the inclusion of cards for British and Russian tanks is a very nice touch, allowing for 4 nations of play fairly quickly.
The models are decent quality, the expansions good value for money and the rules look to be fun and interesting.
I believe the intention of GF9 here was to make a fun x-wing style game, to introduce people to a more 'historical' type of game. If that is the case then i believe they have succeeded well and produced what looks to be a solid beer and pretzels ww2 tank game that should benefit from the popularity of the likes of 'World of Tanks' 'War Thunder' and recent movies like Fury. 

Have fun, keep rolling and may your dice forever roll 1's.
Like mine :(