Back with more Skaven, this time a bit more bulky than usual! These are Stormfiends, combinations of Skaven technology and their ability to make really big rats!
These are quite imposing models, and it’s been a while since I’ve painted something this big that wasn’t a vehicle. I quite enjoyed painting the skin as a result and while I still kept things fairly loose and rough, there are a few more steps on these than I did on the other Skaven models.
These little brain rats on their backs are very creepy!
There is also a lot more armour on these than on anything I’ve painted for the army, so I really got to push the mottled brass look I’ve been doing. This was done as per all the other models but I think shows off the effect in a bit more detail.
Remaining for the army are a few characters, but also two big monsters which will require me to apply some of the learnings I got from painting these models. Should be fun!
After quite the foray into historical subjects, it’s time to get back to my Skaven project! This time the last block of infantry I’m planning on painting for this version of the army: the elite Stormvermin. From now on it’s characters and monsters! Not to say that I won’t paint more infantry in the future however.
I still think of these as the “new” plastics, but they’re fairly old now. Still, very cool models and I really enjoyed painting them. Nothing new from a colour scheme point of view, but to befit their elite status I decided to have all the cloth on them as the teal colour rather than the mix of cream (read dirty white) and teal I have on the rest of the infantry.
I also spent longer on these than I did for the rest of the infantry. They got a few extra highlights to make them pop a bit.
As a nod to the Old World I painted their fur white, which marked out the Stormvermin that served as the bodyguards to the Grey Seers in the old Warhammer setting.
Finishing these has motivated me to keep going on the army, so barring other distractions there should more posts on them soon!
Back this time with the other half of the army! The 2ème DB being an armoured division, it couldn’t go without some transports and armour support! I tried where possible to base these on real vehicles, although limitations in reference photos and the model kits meant I had to get a little creative in some places. I also had limited suitable decals for the division so did a lot of the marking painting by hand which was an interesting challenge! It looks a little rough in places but I just tell myself a lot of the originals were hand painted too so let’s say it’s appropriate! The divisional insigna is from decals by Company B, which I was glad to find as I was not looking forward to having to paint those by hand! The other decals are from the kits themselves.
My goal was to represent elements from the 9th company of the RMT (Régiment de Marche du Tchad), known as “La Nueve” due to the large proportion of spanish revolutionaries in it. The half-tracks are painted as elements of the 9th company and the M8 as part of the support company of the 3rd battalion (that the 9th is part of). The M10 tank destroyer is painted as the Siroco, part of the RBFM (Régiment Blindé de Fusillers Marins), a tank destroyer regiment crewed by gunners from the french navy.
Half-Tracks
BruneteSantanderGuadalajara
The half-tracks of La Nueve were generally named after important events of the Spanish civil war, and the names you see above all appeared on half-tracks of the company. I read that the soldiers of the company were allowed to paint the spanish republican flag on their half tracks, and interpreted that as a replacement for the French flag usually found on the half-track doors, but I have no idea if that’s correct and if they were all consistent or not. After painting these I found a photo in one of my reference books that had the flag on the side of the bonnet instead of the door, so that may have been more correct, but I quite like the look of them on the doors so wasn’t too worried! These models are by Warlord Games/Italeri.
M8 HMC
“Porthos” I had no reference images of, but I had some from others of the division so took a gamble on what it might have looked like! Porthos, and as you might expect Aramis and Athos made up the M8s of the 3rd Battalion of the RMT and therefore presumably would have supported La Nueve.
The model is a resin and metal kit by Warlord Games.
M10 Tank Destroyer
Siroco is probably one of the more famous vehicles of the divisions, famous enough that this Rubicon Models kit came with decals for it! I still used the Company B emblem to keep everything unified, and still had to paint the tactical markings (the yellow Y over blue background) by hand as there were no decals for that in the kit.
The kit did not come with crew member models, so I took a spare Warlord Games US soldier model I had and built him to fit in the turret. Presumably the rest of the crew are down below for some reason! You’ll notice this crewman’s helmet has crossed red anchors instead of the yellow anchor present on all the others. This is the emblem of the RBFM.
Painting-wise, all these vehicles were done in the same manner:
Undercoat with Vallejo US Olive Drab primer
Basecoat non-green areas (stowage, crew etc.)
Paint on non-decal markings
Gloss Varnish
Decals
Gloss varnish
Oil wash all over with Abteiling 502 Dark Mud
Dot Abteilung 502 Copper Oxide Blue in random places
Wipe all that in a downwards manner with a brush wet in solvent to achieve the streaking effect
Apply thinned down Abteilung 502 Starship Filth in random-ish spots around vents and fuel caps
AK Wet Mud all over the tracks area
Matte Varnish all over
I thoroughly enjoyed painting these models, the Free French markings are quite cool looking and considering at the end of the day these are otherwise just plain green tanks make them stand out quite a bit from “regular” US or British versions of the same vehicles.
Anyway that concludes my foray into the 2ème DB for now! Not to say that I won’t be going back to them, there are many more vehicles of theirs I’d like to do up at some time in the future!
After a brief interlude in antiquity, back to World War 2 and Bolt Action, with an army that’s been in the works for a while but never got finished, my take on the 2ème Division Blindée, or Division Leclerc for some, an armoured division of American-equipped Free French troops.
If you read the previous post on the army you’ll realise that these don’t match those very well, and indeed I had a change of heart with regards to their colour, taking inspiration from the very good videos by Sonic Sledgehammer over on YouTube. From that original post, the bazooka team and the mortar team were repainted to match the newer scheme.
The infantry in the photo above are all I’ll need for the 1000pt army list I devised for the army. To follow on are the vehicles. As these are for an armoured division, I have half tracks for all of the squads and some tank support as well.
First up, we have a lieutenant and bodyguard, both armed with Thompsons.
A ten-man rifle squad, with BAR and NCO with Thompson.
A nine-man rifle squad, with BAR and NCO with Thompson.
A six-man mortar squad, most of the time I envision the mortar team splitting off from the rest of the squad who will be manning the machine guns on the half-track.
A bazooka team.
You might have noticed yellow anchors on the helmets of the non-netting covered helmets, and blue patches on most of the jackets. The Osprey book I have on the division has them marking their helmets with a yellow anchor, symbol of French colonial troops. I found a photo of American helmets painted with the same anchor (although in use by other French troops).
The blue mark represents a pin with the emblem of the division often worn by the troops. Both of these I added to make them look a little bit different to regular American soldiers!
I also tried to vary the skin tones I used, as the division had many soldiers from North Africa in its ranks as well as Republican Spaniards that had fled after the civil war.
These were a lot of fun to paint, I found myself quite motivated when I started a got through all of them 5 models at a time, which wound up being a nice batch size. The basing was a bit of fun too, I found these packs of tufts by Vallejo at my local game store and got 4 different types that I randomly scattered on the bases. I found the result looked quite swampy so I added puddles with a product by AK called … “Puddles”! They worked out nicely I think so I’ll be using that on other models.
Unless I get wildly distracted (which is a very real risk let’s be honest!) the next post should be the vehicles to match the army.
In the meantime however, this is not the end of this post! A few weeks back I played a 2000 point game of Bolt Action with some friends and thought I’d share photos. The game had a small force of Germans backed by a couple of Tigers take on a coalition of Russians and British Paratroopers, a very historical scenario as you might imagine.
The game was played on the Normandy board I’ve been working on for a while, you can see the layout above.
The allies ended up taking the win, the game ending with just the two Tigers left on the german side, Although as you saw above, one of them ended up at point blank range of the IS-2, so who knows how that would have gone!
Lair of the Lagomorph 