AHWPC update 9/1/12

Well, I have managed slow but steady progress since my last update; I have painted and added the front Machine-gunner and rear passenger fired AA MG to each half track.

Look at little closer and you will now see their numbers have grown to 23. I have got the 3 Command halftracks done to the same standard now, the only difference being the command halftracks have their stowage done, but are absent the front machine-gunner!

They are starting to look useable now, and as such have had a couple of outings for me to try them out.

The first was against Mike, fielding my commando force in Hold the Line. I think its fair to say I overwhelmed his forces. Mike held on till his Shermans turned up from reserve hoping they would turn the tide, but once they got involved in a fire fight with my Panzer IVs, they quickly left the field... So things seemed to go well.

Next game was against Paul and his Brit paras, in a Breakthrough. Things seemed to go OK to start with, and luck certainly seemed on my side for first half of game, but from the half way point things quickly started to fall apart as I made poor tactical decisions at the same time the balance of luck shifted. I could have hung on perhaps and kept contesting the objective until my last PzGr platoon arrived, but by then I had grown somewhat demoralised and it was getting late too, so I capitulated that game.

But I learnt and awful lot more that game! :-)

I didnt take any in game pics as I didnt want to steal Curts thunder when I finally get these ready to deploy.

So a couple of games in the week too was very enjoyable, but dented my painting time severely!

After that saturday morning I had to work then saturday arvo I had a 'forest' of logs to cut up with chainsaw for fire wood so that just about buggered me for the rest of the day. Then sunday was my daughters 6th birthday, so again not much painting over the weekend.

But I am now pressing on with painting the passenger teams - 4 figures for each half track, and going to add the stowage.

Here's the 4 panzergrenadier team members for each halftrack. The only thing that puzzles me slightly is the guy with his head turned to one side is holding a U-shaped tube of something across his knees, and I can't figure out what its meant to be, to enable me to paint it the correct colour! Anybody any ideas, answers on a postcard to... (comments below would be great!)

The last days of Maelstroms January sale are running out so I grabbed a set of PSC Panthers on pre-order, and a few Total Battle Miniatures buildings.

Looking forward to more FoW soon! :-)

Quick post update - I've realised while trimming out the figures from the other sprues tonight, that the guy looking sideways is holding an MP40 submachinegun. But the barrel is so fine in the plastic, I've knocked it off while trimming and not realised... oh well, he's now holding a 'utility piece of iron'...