28mm Volksgrenadiers, Western Front 1944

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Next on the list: A big old platoon of Volksgrenadiers for Western Europe 1944. Here are some test figures. All Empress figures; lovely. I emailled them to the gentleman I paint these for and hope he gives them the thumbs up.



Hope you like them too!

[Ash]

Very nicely done. Great bases as well.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Very nicely done. Great bases as well.

Cheers!

Got the thumbs-up now, so I guess it's time to paint the other 73 guys (platoon of 4 big sections, plus some tank riders, MMG, medium mortar, Panzerschreck teams and artillery crews), starting with a whoooole lot of little zig-zag Zeltbahn 31 jackets, trousers and ponchos.

[bluewillow]

Fantastic brushwork

[Ragnar]

Agreed, lovely work.

[arshak]

Very nicely painted (as always). But I have in mind some PzGrenadiers of yours in 15mm seen somewhere, are you going to play WWII in two scales or you just gave up the smaller for the larger one?

[Battle Brush Sigur]

@bluewillow: thanks very much!

@Ragnar: Cheers! Slightly unhappy with the photos, but that's okay.

@arshak: Well, these here I paint for a gentleman abroad. My own collection I actually started with 28mm (well, technically with 1/72nd and 1/35th, but that was just scale modelling) Warlord figures I got one christmas for myself just because. Funnily enough, these are the figures I use to this day, when I got into 28mm WW2 again for Chain of Command after many years of playing Chain of Command in 15mm. For a good while I went off 28mm WW2 (after I got those Warlord Germans and a whole bunch of lovely Black Tree Design Russians) due to the problems of how vehicles scale compared to infantry. But in 2022 I was asked if I wanted to play a CoC campaign in 28mm (game reports here: http://tabletopstories.net/language/en/?s=29%2C+let%27s+go), so I got the Germans out again and rather enjoyed it. So I got a bunch more Germans, a bunch more Russians, made terrain ( https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=142905.msg1824090#msg1824090 ), and so on. It's pretty fun. Not the most sensible figure size, but fun. It's been a while since I played with my 15mm WW2 figures. Most of that stuff I got for Africa 1941 (British, Australians, Italian army, Bersaglieri), which we played a fair few times, and a platoon of Panzergrenadiers for Normandy 1944, which probably were the ones you saw. The plan was to play the Kampfgruppe von Luck campaign, but that never materialized. I also got 6mm Desert British and Normandy Germans by GHQ and Baccus for ...I Ain't Been Shot, Mum I suppose, or maybe Blitzkrieg Commander. But those are unpainted anyway, so...

[Paratrooper 42]

Makes me feel cold just looking at them, and I mean that in a good way  .  Lovely painting

[Battle Brush Sigur]

@Paratrooper42: Thanks very much! Yeah, the goal to make the whole thing look like it's just not much fun being there. Comes a lot with the figures as well though. It's funny, but with Hicks sculpts (or maybe it's just the topic) I tend to go a bit more 'abstract' or rather not as 'neat' as say on a nice, chunky Artizan figure. These dudes work a lot via the bases, beardy faces, sunken cheeks and so on.

Anyway, here's a WIP shot of some of the chaps:


...and you can bet I accidently put two of the very few duplicates in this collection front and centre! Oh well. 67 figures in total; I split them up into 3.5 batches and not get them done too fast, otherwise things would get less pretty. Right now I'm halfway through the last 1.5 batches and then some general cleaning-up, bases and such. Still loving the faces on these guys.

[CapnJim]

I like those fellers.  They look the business! 

[Ash]

What Jim said. These really are turning out superbly well, looking forward to seeing them all finished.

[batu]

Do you have a special technique for highlighting and shading camouflage?

[Battle Brush Sigur]

@CapnJim: Thanks very much!

@Ash: Cheers!

@batu: Hm, not really. Paint on the little angular shapes, then paint a little lighter shade of that colour on elevated bits. It's all very basic.

Heyhey, happy Sunday evening. Here's some pictures of Volksgrenadiers. Four sections of 10 guys each (one of 12), with Panzerschreck teams or a medium mortar team (these will see action in Bolt Action I was told) each...









...and then three more LMG teams deployed, two MMG teams (one on the move; something you don't see very often) along with two officers and some more mortar team pictures.









After the first photo I still tried to get rid of the little snow crumbs which came off, but soon I just stopped, because it just didn't make any sense. Stuff went everywhere. Anyway, hope you like them!

[Roo]

Wow….

[CapnJim]

Yep.  It's safe to say I do like them...I bet they'll look good on his game table...