6th Panzer Division Winter 1941-42

The last few weeks have been quite busy for me with Xmas, work etc etc and aside from a few games I have had very little time for painting. I have repainted and painted some armour for Stalingrad project to add to my Panzergrenadier force. I was quite keen to do some vehicles with Panzer Grey.

My vehicle selection is based on the support list from the Winterstorm campaign from TFL written for Chain of Command. More German vehicles for mid-war were added to the arsenal in the most recent TFL Xmas Special. They are all 1/72 Plastic Soldier Company aside from the StuG which is Armourfast.

I went with vehicle markings for the 6th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht. This unit fought through the war mostly on the Eastern Front, and was heavily involved in Kursk and the attempt to lift the siege on Stalingrad.

The vehicles were airbrushed with VMC Panzer Grey and then highlighted with a second airbrush of 2/3 Panzer Grey with white. The details were painted after some stowage was added. I then painted them with Army Painter and the decals were applied. To seal the decals I added another coat of Army Painter then added the dirt and rust effects and finally sprayed them with matt varnish. I thought about doing some snow effects but decided against it as it limits their utility. I will sprinkle some snow on at game time.

Traveling through the forest

Sd.Kfz. 250/9 List 4

Marder III (Sd.Kfz. 139) List 6

StuG III Ausf.G (Sd.Kfz 142/1) List 8

Pz III Ausf. J (Sd.Kfz.141) List 5

Pz IV Ausf. F2 (Sd.Kfz. 161) List 7

I am quite pleased how they came out and they are a nice addition to my force. I am hoping no-one will be too offended (I suspect some will but that was not my intention for sure) by the swastika aerial identification flags but they certainly add to the model. 

2016 in Review

I have really enjoyed reading all the review posts on your blogs. 

It was really an enormous year for me in respect to the fact that I got rid of all my 28mm Napoleonics and successfully acquired a replacement 18 mm AB miniatures for an Allied and French Army. I have 3 divisions for each as well as a Spanish Division. I got in quite a lot of campaigning with CoC finishing off the Falaise Gap campaign and getting the Operation  Martlet campaign started. It says a lot for gamers in that my opponent for CoC lives in the state of Rhode Island but despite that, we have both been able to commute between the Massachusetts and RI to keep these campaigns going. Thank you Mike, you are a great gamer and a real gentleman. I suspect we will have more CoC gaming and I know Mike is just chomping at the bit to start a Sharpe Practice 2 campaign.

I also got in quite a lot of SAGA, especially in the second half of the year. This is really a great game and a lot of fun to play. I have been playing SAGA plus some other games with another great gamer Adam, with whom I have a fairly regular Thursday evening session. Another real gentlemen and there is nothing that he does not know about gaming in general. I sometimes wonder if he is acquainted with every ruleset known to man!

Gaming in Montreal has unfortunately slowed down although I must of spend at least 2 months there in 2016. We did get some gaming in July which was a lot of fun. Unfortunately many of my trips back and forth are during the week rather than the weekend which makes it a little difficult to set up games. But I am sure myself and Iannick will get together in the near future. I bought a portable gaming system (table and mat) from the Czech Republic a couple of months ago, I am hoping to convince my kids to take it up in their car when they return home to Montreal tomorrow. This will hopefully increase the options for gaming.

My biggest disappointment for the year was the failure of the Napoleonic variant of CoC to get off the ground. I invested quite a lot of time in this ruleset and although it needed a little work, I thought it was a great set of rules with excellent mechanisms of movement, firing and combat. It did need more work on Command and Control, I felt it was quite close but it appears the designer has chosen to pack it in.

Plans for 2017

I am sure I will continue more CoC gaming and hope to get some both some Winter and Jungle terrain gaming in. I have very nice Finnish, Soviet and German forces for the winter and I have commissioned an American force which I hope to see in the next couple of months. I also have a nice Japanese force and pretty well have completed a USMC force for the jungle. If I get the opportunity, I plan to start an Australian force to add to this WWII theatre.

Next up, is to become acquainted with Sharp Practice 2 ruleset, and maybe start a campaign. I have French and British Napoleonic forces in 28 mm all set to go as well as a pretty comprehensive British force for the French Indian Wars.

I am looking forward to David Brown's new ruleset for Napoleonics that should be out soon, I am just hoping that it has a good command and control core with simple mechanisms, this would make up for my disappointment with GBCoC. If I was a conspiracy theorist I think I might believe that the demise of GBCoC and this new Napoleonic set from TFL publishing was some how linked. I am also hoping to have a look at his ACW set that was just published, Pickett's Charge.

I would like to start another campaign for Thursday evenings, hint hint Adam! We had a great ACW campaign with Longstreet and a even better Dark Ages campaign with Dux Britaniarum.

And I suppose I should stop waxing poetic and go paint some figures for the Analogue Hobbies Challenge! I do have some figures partially painted but having great difficulty getting to the painting table.