Old Glory CD-363 Panzer III E

Hoody hoo! I'm back on the paint wagon after having to take some time of for family issues. Here you see my six new Panzer III Ausf. Es. The hatches on these were a complete bitch-- not too hard to glue open with the commander in the hatch, but basically impossible to model closed. The rear is sculpted round and irregularly, making it exceedingly difficult to fit into the hatch and glue flat. "Screw it," I said, and just left the hatches off. Also, I have photographed one of these bad boys with their puny cousin, the Panzer I Ausf. A.

Old Glory CD-319A Panzer IB

And here's the last of the early war panzers I have completed to date, the Panzer I Ausf. B, the I A's big brother. That takes me halfway through the 24 early war panzers I am currently planning on-- six Pz Is and six Pz IIs. And now I'm off to work on Panzer IIIs...

Old Glory CD-319 Panzer IA

Working backwards now, I finished up three Panzer I As. Nice little tanks, not a whole lot larger than my car. And not a whole lot more effective in combat, too! Well, maybe I shouldn't be too hard on the little guys-- here is one with a bunch of British POWs.

Ouch, look at the metal I left showing at the bottom of the bodies! That's where glue was holding them onto a stick for handling while painting. Never even saw it-- of course, until I post for everybody else to see. It's always something...

Old Glory CD-320A Panzer II C/A

Painted up some more Panzer IIs, hopefully this time a more correct model number. I'm guessing this denotes the Pz IIc through A? Kind of hard to coordinate the Old Glory product names, which lack capitalization anywhere I've looked, and the Panzer models a-c and A-C and more. Anyway, this is close enough for me right now.

Had a nice surprise when I went to take these pictures! A while back, I sat down with my camera, worked through all the settings to get some good pictures I was finally happy with, and saved them. Tonight, all the settings were blown away, forcing me to start from scratch again! It took me a bit, but I think I finally got everything back. Probably a good thing to force me to do it every now and then so that I somewhat remember what the heck I'm really doing...

Landmark Normandy Buildings

A while back, I determined to buy some pre-painted 15mm buildings for WW2. I had dithered back and forth for, really, years on exactly what I wanted to do for 15mm Napoleonics, and I thought this was a good opportunity to solve that problem as well. I had debated going with smaller scale figures to better match the groundscale of Field of Battle. Seriously painting up Flames of War figures kind of sinched it for me-- I'd go 15mm.

My first thought was that this was a chance to buy some of those really nice Crescent Root Studios buildings, only to find that they have been on an extended hiatus. I then bought some MBA buildings, having been pleased by some of their 25mm buildings. However, the 15mm just weren't satisfactory to me-- the two parts of the buildings flared out a bit and didn't sit well. So, I took a chance and looked at Landmark.

Well, really I was looking at Timecast, because I knew they had some high quality buildings. They had bought the Landmark line, which I took as a strong sign. The idea that they were all real buildings was appealing, and they seemed to have a positive rep on the net. I bought a pretty big set of them to get a discount, and am really pleased! I also have LNO 17 High Walls, which I forgot to photograph. I wasn't as crazy over them, they're just the wall, with nothing to sit on. But, now I've got a nice terrain mat, nice buildings...I've got to get the rest of my terrain up to snuff!

Quality Castings Hotchkiss H-39

Here's a sample Quality Castings/Battle Honors early war French Hotchkiss H-39 I got in my last order. It's alright, but a tad expensive for what you get, especially compared to Old Glory. The treads are just the loop, with no support, and had to be bent into shape by hand. They're consequently pretty irregular and don't sit quite flush. Plus, the hatches are molded shut (to be fair, it opens in the back and is thus more difficult to cast). However, Old Glory does not make an H-39, so there you go. Again, I did no markings. That will probably follow later. But, today, I have a painted, playable H-39. The details can come later if I have nothing better to do.