631 - Bolt Action: RAF Regiment Runaround

Hullo, All.

I finished this one at the same time as finishing up the Churchill from last week's post - another of my Lledo toy re-paints: in this case a utility van for my small RAF Regiment force. I also plan to re-purpose my 'spare' [painted] 4KSLI lorry for the Rock Apes, soon...

Painting-wise, this was mostly a no-brainer, but I actually painted it blue first and then also painted the 'chips' in the paint to show blue underneath, and I was very pleased with how it turned out.

I also hand-painted the roundels, which worked out fine.

Next up? Probably a brief battle report.

Cheerio,

- Drax.

630 - Warlord Games' Churchill AVRE (plus)

Hullo, All.

Some more recently completed units, and another one to tick off the ''done" list (more on this soon!).

AVRE

I won this Warlord Games Churchill kit last year and as someone whose primary British formation is an Armoured Division [Churchills generally went to the infantry divisions], I wasn't sure if I could find a use for it, but eventually I figured that I could use one either in Italy with my Perry troops or in support of my RAF boys. 

Or just - y'know - for fun.

Luckily the kit is designed to be pretty versatile, so with a bit of fudging it, and with my tongue firmly in my cheek, I managed to build it for three separate uses, vis.:

-- Churchill AVRE 
-- Churchill MkIV 'NA75' and 
-- Churchill MkV CS (95mm med. howitzer)

NA75

The AVRE and the CS variant share a (magnetised) turret into which the different main weapons can be inserted, whilst the NA75 variant has its own (basic) turret.

This is the MkV - 95mm howitzer version...

...with the same turret build as the AVRE...

...and this is how the weapons swap out.

I struggled a bit with the decals; partially because it's out of my familiarity, and partially because it needed to be a jack of all trades. Still, we just about got there, I reckon.

Here you can just make out the prow decals.

Some fun news soon, and a bit more RAF Regiment progress too.

Cheerio,

- D.

629 - Desert Rats M3 Lee

I got this beauty in the Warlord Games' New Year sale, and painted it up last month. 

It's a simply gorgeous model and a really nice sculpt. Should have a decent impact on the gaming table too, when I take my desert troops into the mid-war era.

As with all British vehicles in the desert campaigns, trying to get any consistent or incontrovertible guidance for patterns or insignia is like looking for rocking horse poo, so I lifted the pattern from a 'Grant' variant at Bovington and kept the insignia sparse and generic. 

After finishing, I went back and
added some light coloured
weathering into the track recesses.

The camo was time-consuming but surprisingly good fun to paint. I preferred it pre-weathering, to be honest, but I could not legitimately keep it too shiny! 

The pattern is brilliantly effective. Genius.

TTFN,

- Drax