German Stosstruppen and French Casualties

Just a quick update of my first tranche of figures for Curt’s AnalogueHobbies 2013 Painting Challenge for anyone who missed them when Curt posted them on his excellent blog.

There’s a 1918-vintage polygot selection of German Stosstruppen with MP18 Bergmann sub-machine guns, a German sniper, a couple of German Mauser Tankgewehr M1918 13.2mm anti-tank rifles and part of a “ditched” crew of an A7V tank, all in 25/28mm. These are effectively some of the “odds and ends” I’ve had around which I just wanted to get done before the main event. Think of them as a canapé with light champagne before the French arrive proper!

I played around with a couple of things here. The green-stuff German camouflage cloak on the spotter for the double-based anti-tank rifle is improvised, but not completely unrealistic I hope. I used something similar on some German snipers in 2012, and I thought it fairly likely that the Mauser Tankgewehr M1918 would have selected their targets with similar sniper-like stalking skills – at least as far as their huge weapon would have allowed them.

The camouflage cape on the sniper matches the terrain colours of our gaming boards and the improvised painted-on camouflage on German helmets in 1918.

The German tank crew figures are from Old Glory. This is the only manufacturer (to my knowledge) making 25/28mm German tank crews with their distinctive overalls. As sculpts go they fit size and dimensions-wise perfectly with Great War Miniatures figures. They’re quite reasonable sculpts and the images on the Old Glory site don’t really do the figures justice. They paint up very easily, and the officer has some super facial details. As many of the A7V tank crews transferred from other units, I’ve painted him in the uniform of a JägerSturmBataillon officer in some rather jazzy regimentals.

Et les Francais? Ah, well, I wanted to test Horizon Bleu on a couple of casualty figures first – mixing Vallejo Neutral Gray with Vallejo Mirage Blue seems to give a reasonable result, adding black and white to shade and highlight. So there are a couple of fallen Poilu on the bases as well, each scratch-built from a generic casualty figure.

Let me know what you think to my attempts at Horizon Bleu! I have already tinkered around with what you see here to add a little more highlighting. 

More, later in the week.....