WW2 Germans - the full set

 More than a year after picking up some new 10mm tanks from Red3 at the PAW show in Plymouth, I've finally finished the daunting project of re-doing my WW2 10mm German forces, all with a coherent, hand-painted 3-tone cammo scheme.  

I've also uploaded all of these to the 10mm Gallery on my website: 

Puma, from Arrowhead - a stunningly detailed multi-part metal kit

Dragon King Tiger, with Arrowhead tank riders. I left their faces un-inked to make them pop a little more at this small scale. 

Arrowhead Tiger 1's - another stunning model

Pendraken Wirbelwind

Pendraken (I think?) Quad AA 

Pithead Diana. I know they were only used in the desert, but I ordered this one by accident and hey, one 'might' have been cobbled together and saved for later...? 

Nashorn from Minifigs. 

Arrowhead StuG with tank riders

Front view. 

Theree StuGs. From left to right, Arrowhead new kit, Pendraken old casting with Arrowhead barrel, Arrowhead now-discontinued one-piece model 

Old & new Arrowhead StuGs

Red3 PzIV  Really clean two piece casting (turret and "the rest")

Arrowhead PzIV with no Shurzen

Butlers Printed Models Steyr truck. A lot of printing lines on these which the cammo just about hides at wargaming distances.

Dragon pre-paint JagdTiger. The barrel melted when I was stripping the old paint job, so I bodged together a rather unappealing substitute.

Arrowhead 88. Something like 2.3 million pieces in this kit - but worth it!

Arrowhead and Pendraken 88's side by side

Pendraken Pak40. Crew could be anyones - I  mixed them up 

Pithead (I think?) 105mm infantry support gun

Slightly enhanced Dragon pre-paint Panther

Spinning StuG

The rest of the Germans are on this blog already

And, finally, a video of these and more photos and turntable clips as well:

10mm Paras - US Rebased & British 17pdrs

 Entering the home stretch of the rebasing and replacing of my 10mm WW2 forces now, and leaving me with "only" (laughs maniacally...) a load of German late war 3-tone cammo tanks to do it's the turn of the US paras to be rebased, and also for three Pendraken 17pdr guns to come to the aid of my British Paras and British Army troops. 

I now have two Para-crewed 17pdrs and one "British Khaki dudes" one 

I'm not sure why I didn't have any of these before to be honest - I seem to have loads of 6pdrs though

The sloped front plate is really distinctive. 

I also managed to get plenty of the para crew in red berets, which Podcast listeners will be pleased to hear no doubt. 

These are mostly Arrowhead Paras, although the guys with mohicans are Pendraken "pathfinder" figures.

 As with my rant about berets, I am still puzzled as to why there aren't more mohican-sporting figures in the Pendraken range ! ! 

These are now quite old - I have pictures of them on their previous basing dating back to at least 2009

These are on 40x30 bases, so sort of mini-FOW sized really 

I also based some figures up as spotters and a recce platoon  - and there are some prome HMG teams too to round out the force. 

10mm WW2 - The Allies

The "refurbish and replace" campaign for my WW2 Blitzkrieg Commander collection is now gathering pace. 

Or, put another way, painting stripes on German tanks is a right PITA so I have given myself a break and instead managed to bash out the entire allied contingent in a week or so as they have no cammo at all!

The end result is a force containing models and figures from Pithead, Pendraken, Victrix, Butlers Printed Models, Minifigs and Arrowhead, all of which have been painted in a fetching and thankfully simple Bronze Green + drybrush scheme and based using my new basing system of stained sand on mdf bases. 

There are loads more photos of these models on the Madaxeman website as well as a whole page of the Germans too

(I did cheat a little by using the Vallejo German Track colour, but hopefully no-one will notice....)

Victrix Shermans

Victrix, Pithead and then Pendraken Shermans

Arrowhead Cromwell

British Para support units 

Arrowhead infantry with Pithead motorcyclists added in

Pendraken Priest and Sherman Flail

Minifigs Bren Carriers

Recce units from a variety of sources

Pithead British Para Jeep

Butlers Printed Models British trucks and Quad tractor

Staghound from Pithead

Churchill Crocodile from Arrowhead

Pithead Artillery Observer up a ladder strapped to a truck (!)

There are loads more photos of these models on the Madaxeman website as well as a whole page of the Germans too
   

10mm WW2 - the refurbishment project begins

Almost exactly a year ago, at the PAW show in Plymouth I picked up a handful of 10mm WW2 AFV's from a company I'd not seen before - Red 3 Miniatures - kicking off a long-thought-about plan to replace my eclectic and randomly painted collection of WW2 10mm stuff for BKC. 

A year later, some more purchases from a variety of companies and some eBay sales to clear out the old stuff and the new toys are finally starting to make it onto the table, and also to appear in the rather neglected 10mm Photo Gallery on Madaxeman.com as well. 

Here's a Red 3 Hanomag - a really crisp casting with well designed separate crew who are cast in 2 strips and just slot into the back of the cab. The gunner is cast as a 3rd drop-in piece tother with his gun and mantlet making this a very robust bit of kit

Top down view

I now have a half-dozen of these, and some Engineering variants are no doubt going to be ordered soon too - but I'm waiting to see if any more variants get released so I can put in a bigger order. 

The numbers are from Pendraken. I know they may well not make sense as s system, but they are all different and they look cool to me so that's basically OK I reckon! 

250's for Recce, one is a 250/11 with 28mm gun, but could easily be the 250/9 with 37mm I think. 

The crew and gun drops in as one pre-cast unit, but I've added an extra perching Arrowhead Minis tank rider crewman for more variety 

This is an old Pendraken StuG, originally an infantry support version with a short barrel gun but I managed to mislay the barrel when I stripped the old model down for a repaint so ended up adding in a rather large Arrowhead Minis long barrel gun, as their StuG's come with two barrels with different mantlets. 

The guys on the back are Arrowhead tank riders. Huge variety, really detailed castings

Here you can see the variety of poses and weapons. 

Butlers Printed Models resin print Opel Blitz. 

Opel Blitz Command from Red 3, and Butlers standard Opel Blitz

Repainted Takara kit of a Marder. 

StuG and a Takara pre-painted Panther.  I might end up repainting it to better match the cammo on the rest of the force, but it's pleasingly close to what I've managed to do myself. 

There will be more of these to come in the next few months and weeks !