By Matt Varnish
Hey gang, Matt Varnish back with the next installment of my DAK Projekt. Now that we know Historicon 2014 is Mid War, I have settled on a nice list, which sadly does not use any of the models I had already painted! Lets dive straight in.
As you can see, it is armored cars supported by anti-tank assets, some Nebs and the FK-36(r) in the artillery/anti tank role. 32 inch range, 2 shot, AT 10 in an artillery slot? Bring on the captured Russian guns!
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| Courtesy Easy Army |
Last year's event, I saw SO MANY German infantry lists with Von Sauken, it was very repetitive... not this list! I have had surprising success in getting dug-in infantry out (not Russians though) but I can live with that weakness. The strengths should be self evident. Lets quickly examine how I painted my vehicles and guns:
As usual, behind the model are the paints used. 8-Rad sprayed BF German Armour (desert) which equals 70879 Green Brown, drybrushed up through 70914 Green Ochre and then Panzer Aces 340 Afrika Korp Highlight (if you can only get normal Vallejo, 70847 Dark Sand works too) Added black for tires to get to the below step:
I am going for the chipped-paint look. It couldn't be easier, just grab a chunk of the grey sponge from blisters or box sets, and use the sponge as if you were dry brushing, but you will be dabbing up and down to get the good chip look. For streaks, by all means, drag the sponge across. Here's what it looks like after about 60 seconds of dabbing: (sponge chunk in background, just keep cutting off the painted sections as you work your way down the piece of sponge)
For DAK, the factory undercoat would have been 70995 German Grey, but this works for desert brits too. The same technique can be used on the darker western allied vehicles, but with a light brown for dried mud effect
Here you can see the difference in tone the 3 layer dry brushing achieves. Do more paint chipping on areas like the handles and the fender section right under a hatch that would be all worn grey from crew getting in and out.
Now I can finish off crew with German field grey (830) German uniform (920) green grey (886) for caps and bread bags, and dark sand (847)for helmets and gas canisters. You can see this model is already black lined which leads me to...
Possibly the greatest invention: Sakura Color Products 'PIGMA' series pens and pen-brushes. For the classic 'Steve Maclaughlin' look you can rock the 05 gauge black pen, and then the 005 for really small work like the small panels and doors. You can see the thickness difference in the pic above.. the 005 is 1/5th of a millimetre wide, so very small. Since I needed a new 05, I went to get a replacement and saw the new Sakura 'PIGMA Brush' pen. Its exactly as advertised, its a 05 gauge brush but with a pen reservoir behind it. I bought a black and brown and LOVE it.
You can see the 005 gauge pen excels in doing the license plates on the back of this 7.5cm 8-rad. I use it for road signs, staff table maps, the real small stuff.
I am trying to 'finish' this army for a MW tournament April 13th, then will hyper detail for Historicon after working on some French Expeditionary Corps stuff out of Road to Rome (best Battlefield 1942 expansion BTW) so my next installment will be all my gun teams/crew/transports and brief rundown of how the list did.
Lets go brew up some Tommies!
*Note, you may have noticed the 8-rad command vehicle in one of the pic's above. I am using it to 'counts-as' a radio sdkz 250 because they drove around the desert with Enigma decoders! I think that is bad-ass, so its my HQ vehicle.. not exactly something you want 'leading from the front' or anything, but what can you do?
Matt Varnish, plays Flames of War up in Canada with the lads from www.dicedevils.com. Surprisingly, I don't even have a Canadian army............ yet!
