Ewok’s Desert War

I had a bit of a flurry and threw a few vehicles together over the last few days

This will be brief! Haven’t done a great deal more, but I did find time to prep and prime a bunch of DAK and LRDG minis from Offensive Miniatures and Artisan respectively.

Finished my Priest for the desert rats, quite pleased with it.

Having been on a guided tour of Warlord Games, I was presented with a free sprue of Italians. So naturally I ended up buying a starter army to keep it company, they were 15% off. I then experienced a major lapse in impulse control and now have a lot more things to build!

I also picked up a few more British units and some more LRDG guys. I plan to paint their uniforms in a variety of shades as they are a pretty rag tag bunch. I’ll keep the 8th Army troop uniforms a little more er… uniform?

It’s a little publicised story about the Alpini in North Africa, but several platoons of the Alpini were attached to the Arditi x, the Italian special forces, and saw some desert action. The reason it’s overlooked by the history books is that I made it up. They looked cool on the box and one of them was painted desert style.

Apparently they spent most of their time in the Alps bothering the French. But they look cool.

Finished my Italian artillery unit and established a paint scheme for my Bersaglieri. Quite happy with the results.

Helmet and breeches – Barren Dune

Tunic- Wasteland Clay

Puttees- Tundra Taupe

Boots and belt- Leather Brown

Rifle-Vallejo Flat Brown and German Camo Black Brown

Having binged Rogue Heroes over the weekend I decided to tackle some of the allied vehicles.

I started with a Warlord Games Valentine II , it was a surprisingly crisp and detailed resin print. Very easy to put together.

Next up was a Rubicon Valentine, after some initial confusion with the instructions it went together pretty well.

The metal models (with no instructions) were a very challenging building exercise. No doubt there will be historical inaccuracies all over the place. I don’t care, I think they look cool .

I wanted to get an idea of how the trenches would look on the table with other bits I had printed. It’s only on a 3×3 for the featured pictures. It will be more spread out when it finally hits a 6×4 table.

I have been printing various bits of terrain for a desert board. I already have a few sandy rocks with palm trees.

I have printed a few ruined buildings, rocks and trenches. The idea to have a fairly sparse flat map, but still with enough cover to avoid a hosefest.

I first painted the sandbags with an ochre craft paint, overly bright, but I knew what sort of grimy wash was going to go over it.

Next I painted the wood panelling using a makeup brush. This covered quickly and efficiently. I used a dark brown craft paint

For the floor I used an AK texture paint. This gave a pleasing dried mud and sand texture.

I am trying to keep these trenches fairly biome agnostic so I can use them with non- desert maps too.

Having got everything with one layer of paint it was time to make a wash. I mixed agrarax earthshade, black and brown paint with some flow medium. I’d like to wax lyrical about a special recipe giving a perfect blend. But no, it was kind of grayish. I only used this on the sandbags, I have other things I want to try with the trench interiors. It proved to be decent layer of unifying grubbiness.

After the wash I added a bit of basing materials, again trying to keep it generic. Next step is drybrushing.

All in all they came together quite nicely. For fast and dirty generic fortifications I am quite happy with the results.

Every project has to start somewhere, so I went with the German vehicles first.

I spray primed with Hycote grey plastic primer, which gave a pleasing Matt finish. Most German vehicles arrived in North Africa with a factory grey finish so it’s as good a primer colour as anything.

I then added a base coat of Vallejo dunkelgelb, arguably a bit of a darker tone, but paint usedin the field was pretty much all scrounged, so I am giving myself a pass.The paint I am using is meant to be an air paint. I applied it with a brush , I diluted the paint and applied gently. This reduces visible brushstrokes, but does take more coats.It is pretty much a glazing technique.

Looks ok I think.

The Opel Blitz still has a way to go. It’s had a little soft tone slapped on but there’s still drybrushing, decals and weathering to add.

I did something slightly different with the wood panelling. I painted them a mixture of browns first then I glazed over the wood with the Dunkelgelb, trying for a painted wood effect, just trying to differentiate it from the paint on the cab.

Rather than just building everything and then priming it or finishing one individual model I am flitting between building, priming and painting different models. Too much of one activity can be mentally taxing, especially building models.

This helps me be more productive. YMMV.

I decided to switch over to some terrain, mostly due my ADHD being dialled at to eleven at the moment, but I did manage to put together another Opel Blitz and a Marder III