Last of the 28mm Finnish Infantry

I'm starting to come to the end of my 28mm Finnish Continuation War / Lapland War project. These are the last 'infantry' figures, including the gunners for the captured Russian 45mm AT gun. 

Remaining on the project are four vehicles, a T-34/76, a T-26 and two Komsolets artillery tractors. The latter 3-D reprints to replace the under-scaled ones I've already finished. 

 

This is a captured 45mm Russian AT gun. The Finns received a batch of these from Germany. Ter German designation was PaK 184 (r). Finland also captured several in the continuation war. I've painted this in flat green without the characteristic Finnish camouflage, as a majority of the in-theater historical photos appear to show it being used this way. The gun and crew are by Great Escape Games from their Iron Cross figure range.

Five Finnish combat engineers. These are converted Great Escape Games German engineers. I've done some head swaps and cherry-picked the figures with the least amount of characteristically German kit that wasn't given to the Finns. Helmets of course were donated in huge quantities.  These could also fit in as 'tank hunters' easy enough as most are carrying bundle grenades and panzerfausts. One figure also has an anti-tank mine. These will be augmented by my already painted flamethrower team.

I needed an engineer squad so I can use this army for Chain of Command. The CoC support points include flamethrower teams, engineering squads for tasks such as mine clearing and barbed wire clearing as well as full engineering squads.

 

Finally, the last dregs of the 'dead lead' box. This handful of infantry figures comprises the absolute last of the unpainted Finnish infantry figures I had. I was saving these few in case I needed an odd crew for an AT-gun, etc. While I was painting the AT-gun crew and engineers I figured I'd take advantage of economy of scale and get these finished up.

Total figures for the project - 13 figures and the AT gun.

 

28mm WWII Finnish Infantry

 These are twelve 28mm WWII Finnish infantry that I recently completed painting and are ready to base up. They are a mix of Artisan and Warlord figures. The SMG-armed figures are Artisan while the others are Warlord figures. I painted these in two two-hour streams on my Twitch.tv channel. Total time four hours, or 20 minutes per figure. 

These figures will be used for both Continuation War and Lapland war using Iron Cross, Chain of Command or Bolt Action rules. I'm still unpacking from moving this summer, so my laser engraver is still out of commission. As soon as it's back on-line I'll be cutting up bases for everything that I've been painting recently and I'll have a giant basing party for all of these recent projects.

Next up on the painting table will be some Lugurian ancient infantry for Saga "Age of Hannibal"

The Last Nazis

These are the last figures I've painted to complete my 28mm late-war German army. The title is a bit of social engineering - a test to see what Google does with it.

Looking back through the blog, it appears that I started working on this army in February of 2014. A little over five years later I've finally painted the very last un-painted German 28mm lead from my stash. It's not often that I completely finish an army. Often I paint 'enough' figures then have a box full of dead lead to paint 'later'. This army has WAY more figures and vehicles painted than I ever could use in any single game, but the selection allows for many scenarios.

The only thing on my 'wish list' for the army would be an 88 and a prime mover half track to tow it. I'm waiting for the upcoming Rubicon boxed set for those.

The models are one Warlord and one Artisan motorcycle blister. The two will pair up with the one I painted earlier to make a Kradschützen patrol. 28mm motorcycles have their issues - mostly being fiddly to assemble and somewhat fragile. I've mounted these on round bases to help with both of these issues. Other than that they were straight forward to paint up.

Next up on the painting table some Crusades spear-armed foot for Saga. Long-term goals will be to clear out the un-painted Saga lead, finish up my British WWII army and then move on to French Napoleonics.

I'm counting this as six 28-mm figures painted for my annual painting totals.

28MM Luftwaffe Field Division Troops With Assault Rifles

These are the last unpainted infantry I had left for my late war German WWII army. They are 20 Luftwaffe Field Division infantry armed with the German late war assault rifle, the
STG-44. Geöring equipped his beloved field division troops with some of the best equipment available, including the STG-44.

The figures are a mix. Ten of them are from Warlord Games Veteran Grenadiers pack. The remaining ten are two blisters of Artisan Games German Assault Rifles in Assorted Headgear (discontinued). I really like the way the Artisan and Warlord figures mix. Unless you're very familiar with which poses are which, it's very hard to tell the two manufacturers apart.

All I have left to finish my WWII Germans is to finish painting two Hetzer assault guns and a single German motorcycle team. The latter may end up becoming a Finnish asset instead.

28mm German WWII Motorcycle and MG-42 Team

These are two more teams I've recently finished for my 28mm WWII skirmish army. I'm not 100% positive of the manufacturer of the motorcycle, but I believe it is from Artisan. The MG-42 team is from Warlord. I was afraid that during use the motorcycle and the sidecar would eventually break away from each other so I mounted them on a small base to hopefully increase the piece's durability.

While most of my German armor is in dunkelgelb, I opted for panzer grey for this piece. My thoughts are I may use it as a feldpolizei patrol, a scout or a messenger. Several of those are quite likely to have not re-painted the cycle in dunkelgelb.  The MG-42 team was based among some fairly substantial ground cover as I felt that made the most sense.

Next up on the painting table are some more British WWII weapons teams and infantry. My current push is to finish up my German WWII army which is about 90% done. After that the British, which are about 75% done will be finished. My reward for finishing these two will be starting either my American or Finnish WWII armies. Hopefully with those I'll be smart enough not to try to work on both at the same time.