3 and a Firefly

I've zipped through the armour paint on two of these as I used the cheap and nasty GW spray gun.

Not knowing much about it's use, I think I thinned down the paint too much resulting in a puddling effect which required three thin brush coats to improve things.

This post is really to comment on the quality of the Shermans in the Open Fire box.

Frankly, they are very poor.

A great deal of fiddling is required to avoid the right hand track being decidedly knock-kneed and there are serious gaps everywhere.

The tanks in the new (ebay) box look much better.

Oh! And there are no decals in the box. How mean can you get!

A British Sherman

 The first of the British Shermans is nearly in action.

The decals will have to wait till I've painted them all.

The green paint I eventually bought from GW.

Loren Forest is the equivalent of Russian Uniform.

Though I've tipped with metal the outer edge of the tracks, I believe this may be incorrect.

I think I've read, somewhere, that British tanks had all rubber tracks.

Won 3 boxes on ebay.

A Sherman Armoured Platoon, a Panzer 4J Platoon and a British Rifle Company.

Now feel I have to make good use of all those paints, you see!

(Germans about to blow the tracks off, no matter what they are made of.)

Books and paints

A rarity. Text only.
I did send for the full size rule book collection which, as well as the large rule book, includes the 'Hobby' book (as suspected, very basic) and the 'Forces' book which gives points values and is therefore essential. Actually, all three useful though the 'Hobby' book is probably the least so.

I'd bought a package pf paints before that which comprised the basic Quartermasters Paint Set, German SS Paint Set, British Paint Set, US Paint Set, German Armour Paint Set and Soviet Paint Set. 42 pots of paint in all (many repeats) but damn it, not one of them is the correct colour for British tanks! British Armour or Russian Uniform has to be bought separately.

3 Shermans and a Firefly are made up but cannot take the field in black.

Flames of War Reinforcements

Reinforcements have arrived fairly quickly due to rather casual painting.

Having realised I'm not going to get things correct without a great deal of study and itching to get back to Middle-Earth, I'm doing a hurried, tabletop paint job on these troops.*

PS Maggie did the grass!


*I'm tempted to send for the larger rule book package which includes a painting guide but I'm fairly sure it won't help much. I think it may be a start-up guide rather than containing detail of troop uniforms and equipment. However, it may have some decent photos.