Dust Warfare: Silent Death

These Steel Guards models have always been some of my favorites. Mutilated veterans given a chance to fight again for the glory of their Motherland. Encased in the heaviest of armor and given the most powerful "infantry" weapons they would go and avenge themselves.  Some people like these models others don't.  I think they are awesome.  This is the Steel Guards sniper team and they are armed with man portable semi-automatic cannons.

Target sighted and annihilated.

Hope you enjoyed.  I did have a bit of trouble with the white balance on the last image, but I think it turned out okay.

Dust Warfare: KV-3 Heavy Walker

Here is the Soviet heavy walker KV-3.  Along with the Wotan it is one of my favorite units in the game, both visually and in use.  It's a hard hitting and survivable unit, and it looks good doing it.  As usual with the Dust kits they come pre-built.  However you will spend the time you would have been putting it together to fill, file, and clean all of the mould and seam lines.  Kinda a pain really.  A lot of it would be easier if you built it yourself. The primer that it comes pre-coated with usually works out well though.

Also, they don't include any decals other than some stenciled markings, which I paint over anyway... So, I got some Soviet markings and lettering/numbering from my favorite hobby shop Section 8.  Below you can see the version with the dual 152mm cannons because if one is good two will be better.

"Matrioshka"

I used AK washes and grimes for the weathering. Had to buy more of their white spirit since other thinners don't seem to cut it for the streak marks.

I kind of regret not putting a star on the front, as I had with the KV-47 Aero.

I did not add any extra stowage as I do with my German walkers.

Though this scheme is simpler than my German camo, it does involve color modulation.  So, it takes about as long as painting the camouflage.

Here is the other version, with dual heavy Gatling cannons.
"Babushka"

"For the Motherland!"
This picture also shows off the texture I added to the front portion of the hull.  I gave it a cast look with some Tamyia Mr. Surfacer. It's great stuff.

"Repaired April 1947"

Hope you enjoyed the view.  You may notice these pictures are a bit better quality than the earlier posts this year. This is because I finally got a daylight worklamp and added it to the photo setup.  This shows the colors much better with little to no retouching on Aviary. Before I had to tweak the contrast, saturation, and brightness to get a decent turnout. This had varying results. The new lamp is great, so expect much nicer photos going forward.

Just check out this reshot picture of the Panther from my last post and I think you can see the difference this light really makes. Brings out the truer colors and details much nicer.

Scale: Panther Ausf. G

Here we have another scale model which I have modeled with my Dust Warfare axis in mind.  This time a 1/48 Tamiya Panther Ausf. G.  Or rather a Panzerkampfwagen V Panther Ausführung G.  I still have another one of these to build along with a Tiger II, but they are out of production.  Unfortunately this scale did not prove popular enough with many modelers.  There are no rules for this tank in game, nor have I tried to make any up as of yet, but surely I will at some point.

The main thing I have done to try and make this take look a little less typical is add the Infrared scope, which was an early form of night vision.  I got this off of one of my Axis walkers and tweaked it to fit as seen.

I used a hot piece of wire to melt a couple of dents into the frontal armor.  It bulges up the edges quite nicely.

This kit comes with a die cast metal lower hull, which gives it a nice heft when assembled.  It also includes a braided string to assemble to tow cables and allow them to lay more naturally.

One thing on the kit I was not happy with was the exhaust guards, the plastic was just too thick.  To remedy this I used them as a form and shaped my own from thin sheet copper.  This allowed them to be thinner, but also dent them up a bit.

I assembled the tracks with the wheels all unglued for painting and got them spot on the first time around.  Unfortunately I ended up dropping them.  I dropped one and it took some time to fix.  Once it was done I promptly knocked the other off the work table so it too could explode.  They just would not line up right the next few times I put them together.  It took a couple of hours of work to fix them. Only about 30 minutes for original assembly.  I was ready to throw the whole thing against a wall.

Here you can see some kill markings and the IR scope.

The scope is based on real German wartime technology, which was actually mounted on Panthers, though not as above.  I figure in Dust they have the 1 above the gun with screens inside that the crew can share.  Here you can see the real thing, an infrarot-scheinwerfer.  

The tank is called Die Barenjager or "The Bear Hunter." As in Russian bears, this tank fights on the eastern front.

Here's the commander, who is part of a set of resin commanders I got from Verlinden.  I added the radio headset and binoculars.  I actually painted the hat and pants in flecktarn, though it is hard to see here.  The MG has been updated to an MG44 with a gunshield.

Dust Warfare: Frontoviki

More Soviet infantry this week.  Again these were painted in late 2014, I just never took pictures.  These guys are a Soviet Battle Squad.  Frontline infantry, but they come with some decent firepower in the form of their 2 machine guns.  They are not Red Guards like the last unit I posted, so they are equipped a bit differenty.  Most noticeably their armor looks different, but also they wear a simpler and more utilitarian looking uniform.  I went with a Soviet styled amoeba camoflage for their coveralls and Russian Green for their helmets and armor.  I started chipping the armor with sponges on this squad and went back and did it on the Red Thunder.  I still need to do so to my Axis units as well.  

I've got 2 continual complaints on the Dust infantry models.  One is the soft plastic and the other is a lack of detail in most of the facial sculpts that makes them a bit difficult to paint.  I do enjoy the overall look of most of the units though, so I am more than happy to deal with these two, perceived flaws.

Sergei says shoot that way.

Unfortunately, this could be my last post on the blog.  It takes a lot of extra time to take so many photos and I've had less time for the hobby in general.  It's been a nice ride anyway.

Dust Warfare: Red Thunder

A couple of months ago I finally decided to paint some of my Soviet infantry.  The first thing I had to do was look at some historical references.  A few google image searches gave me an idea of what I was looking for and I went out and expanded my collection of Vallejo paints.  

This unit mostly focuses on its two rocket launchers in game and you can use them to engage light to medium vehicles rather well.  That's not to say they can't handle infantry.  The guys with the machine guns all have underslung grenade launchers adding a few extra dice to that punch.  As with my Germans I added stocks to the guns.  I just feel it makes them seem a bit more realistic.  Something to note with these models is that they come with equipment on their belts and backs.  This was a nice change from the earlier Axis and Allied models who did not have anything on them.  I had to add it to my Axis troops.

I changed up the basing from my Germans a bit and went for more of the patchy style that was featured on the Ta-152 model's stand.

Let's hear some love for the Dust universe.  It's got a pretty cool storyline and a killer aesthetic which really drew me in.  The folks in my usual game group don't play the game but I recently found some people in my area who do play.  I even went with them to a small tournament in Toronto where my distinct lack of play experience really showed.  Oh well. 

EDIT:  I've got posts ready to get through May of this year.  So be ready for an actual update schedule.  *GASP* I know.  Expect the first and third Wednesdays of every month.  Perhaps more If I post what I am actually working on in real time.  Though I may just keep tacking the posts onto the end of the queue.

Scale: Focke-Wulf Ta 152 H1

Here is the kit I have been working on for the last 2-3 weeks.  It is a Dragon Models 1/48 Focke-Wulf Ta 152 H1 from I think 1988-89, making it as old or older than I am.  I've been trying to get back into Dust and have been playing my fair share of War Thunder on my computer.  So, I decided to get some actual Luftwaffe aircraft to add to my Axis army.  I stopped into Section 8 Hobbies here in Buffalo and picked up this Ta as well as a Me 262.  This kit was used, and so some of the parts were clipped from the sprue, other than that it was like new.  The only problem I had was some really old masking tape on the fuselage which was quite hard to remove.  The camo scheme and colors are not fully based on any historical squadron but rather what I thought would look nice on the model.

It was interesting to get back into scale modelling as opposed to wargames models.  Building this kit was much more of a challenge than I have faced recently, everything is much more precise.  That's not a bad thing, just a different experience.  With so many more subtle details cleanup is more demanding and so is the painting.  This model took a lot more time than any of those for my Imperial Guard or Dust forces, though it may be just a bit more rewarding too.

  The base represents the new styling I will use for my future Dust units,  I felt the total grass was less visually interesting that it could be and so made it a bit patchy with dirt beneath.  I haven't worked out what the rules for this model, but there are some similar weapons for other units.  Let me know what you think!  More after the break.

KV47 AERO

A New Year, a new blog post.  I was pretty lax on updating this blog through the latter half of 2013. Furthermore, I was pretty lax in painting and hobby work.  I was spending my free time doing other things. I started playing some more video games, playing airsoft, and in the last month or two I started playing Magic The Gathering for the first time in a few years.  This year I am going to do my best to update this blog at least every two weeks and have something new to present in every blog post. With the new IG codex due to drop in the next few months I feel I will have plenty of motivation to finish working on my Guard army this year.

Anyway, a few months ago I went to Millennium Games for an X-Wing tournament and had decided beforehand that I wanted to start collecting an SSU army for Dust: Warfare.  When I got there I saw that all of the Dust stuff was on clearance since sales were not doing that great.  For me, this is sad since I love the miniatures and it's a pretty solid tabletop game.  However, it also meant that the models were 50% off...  I ended up winning the X-Wing tourney and spent my store credit on a KV47 Aero kit and a few squads of infantry.

I finished painting this model in I think November.  But with hunting season and other stuff going on I would get home and not feel like taking photos at all.  I have been sick the last few days and had some free time, so today I set up the camera and finally took some pictures.  I've been using Flickr to host the pictures for the blog since they allow up to 1TB of free storage and the in-site photo editor, Aviary, is rather nice indeed.

The KV47 Aero is transported in game by a helicopter, which was also included in the kit.  I did not yet paint it, but it will probably be the next Dust model I work on.  I painted all of the greens with my Badger Anthem airbrush using a Russian Green paint set made by Vallejo which I picked up at Section 8 Hobbies.  It includes 5 different shades of green which I used to do a lot of color modulation on the surfaces of this model. More after the break.

PzAufklL. I-C "Hans" (Early Production)

I finally got around to finding my memory card today and so I charged up the camera and took some pictures of the walker I finished last week.  This is the early production Hans that comes in the Dust starter set which I split with one of my friends.  I primed this walker at the same time as I did the medium panzer walker and as such I did not have my new airbrush and did not attempt any color modulation.

Even still I don't think any of the colors turned out looking flat or too uninteresting.  For the chipping I mostly used a blister pack sponge piece to dab and a brush to add scratches and larger scuffs.  After that is a rather light highlight to look like the edge of chipped paint. I used a lot of AK Interactive weathering products for this model.  A couple of filters, the brown wash for DAK vehicles, and three of the streaking grimes. After the clear coat I add some MIG Productions pigments for a dusty finish.  Especially on the feet and lower legs.

Here's the front of the model.  The only thing I am unhappy with in these pictures is how the color of the grass shows up as really quite yellow.

More after the break.

On the Workbench

It has been some time since I have updated the blog,  but that is not to say that I have been idle with regards to the hobby.  I just sort of lost steam with the battle reports, as I usually do.  From now on I will probably condense the reports into a single tournament summary post.  Once in a while highlighting a very good or close game with its own battle report.

The primary reason I got into this hobby is the building and painting aspect.  Being able to play with all of my models is really an excellent bonus to that and has become a larger part of my enjoyment. That being said I'd rather not turn the blog into a chore by trying to force myself into writing bat-reps and just write about what I do each week.

Several weeks ago I finally got around to painting some more Dust Warfare stuff.  First up is the first walker I have painted the Medium Panzer Walker.  I recently found out about a relatively new hobby shop a few blocks from where we game every week.  They don't carry much in the way of wargaming but they have begun to stock some Games-Workshop products.  They have an awesome collection of scale kits and a wide array of paints and weathering products.  I picked up the DAK weathering kit from AK Interactive, it includes a wash, a streaking grime, and a filter.  I watched a few weathering tutorials and ended up with what you see here. The filter helps modulate the base colors, the wash helps bring out the details, and the streaking grime adds streaks of washed down grime.  I also started using a fine sponge to add the chipping and then paint some some finer scratches here and there.

Dust Warfare: Update

So, got two more games of Dust in last week.  One was 150pts against Andy's Axis.  We played an objective based game,  by the end I had a handful of troops left and held on of my objectives, the bridge.  My dice were not with me again and I could not do much harm, whereas Andy shot me all over the place.  We caught a lot of things we missed in our first game like blitzkrieg is only for move orders.  We used medics and engineers properly,  radios issuing orders out of control range and a few other minor things.  They sorta came out over the course of the game and we were both still sorta learning as we went.  Andy read up on the rules beforehand while I was working on the table.  The second game was also 150pts but we did a 1v1v1 game with Andy, Kevin, and I deploying on an edge each.  We played objectives again, but it saw that you can just kill everything and win in these smaller games.  Speaking of killing, it's something that my dice actually allowed this game. This game was really fun with units and walkers dying spectacularly left and right.  Turn 2 I believe it was, had my Ludwig maim Kevin's light walker then his other light blew up the Ludwig and my Battle Grenadiers reacted and blew up the light walker.  Meanwhile some of Kevin's Rangers grenaded Andy's Lothar to death.  This left my untouched Hans and Kevin's light walker with 1 hit left as the only two vehicles left.  In the end I had part of a command squad and some grenadiers holding the bridge and Andy had 2 partial squads left and finished me off.  I think he had 6-7 models left in the end and he won it.

All in all my original opinions of Dust remain.  Though the things we forgot are really important and really added to the game in a great way.  Reactions are great and really useful at times.  I can't wait to play again.

On the hobby side I got my three camo colors for my walkers.  There they are, flammable and everything.  I really like Tamyia for airbrushing, especially when using the Tamiya thinner.  You can really thin them down and they still cover extremely well.  I would say they are much better suited to the airbrush than regular painting where they sometimes pull off with additional brushstrokes.

Here we see the disassembled walkers have received their first coat, they look like they belong in a desert at this point, but I'm going for a camo scheme I really liked on some German tanks I've seen.

Next I added the brown to everything, I was really liking where it was going at this point and all was going well.

This continued as I finished with the dark green.  Here's a pic of the Ludwig.

And one of the Hans.

Still a lot of work to do on these two, but I had the time to use the airbrush and had to do so today.  They need all of the metal and details picked out, weathering and damage done, and finally some decals.  I may get those from the dust game website.  I have finished painting the Kommandotrupp as well as a squad of Laser Grenadiers, one of the Battle Grenadier squads is also base colored.  Just took a break from them to do the airbrushing.  Some pictures of them later on.

Thanks for stopping by.

Dust Warfare: First Impressions

All this talk of Dust: Warfare has got me interested.  So,  I decided to start it up.  I began by ordering an Axis medium Panzer Walker.  So,  I talked a couple friends into starting it with me and one of them started by ordering the rule book.  First impressions on the background, models, and the rules all seem rather positive on our end. I did decide to modify the base models somewhat considering the time saved on construction and priming.

So, once we read a little bit from the book I started getting a list together.  To start we chose to make 150 point armies.  Below you will see my first platoon which is of the Sturmgrenadiere variety, the jack of all trades for axis platoons.  All this was purchased for under $100 through amazon.  Nice!

First up we have the command section, the Kommandotrupp squad.  There's the officer, a radioman, machine-gunner, rifleman, and an engineer.  You can see the universal modification that I made, adding stocks to all of the StG 47 rifles.  I also lowered the angle at which the officer is holding his rifle.

Next up is the first of two Battle Grenadier squads.  They are the basic troops of the German forces.  Not much to modify on this first one.  Just the stocks and lowering the Panzershreck  on the guy second from the right so that he is looking over it.  I also made some leg swaps for better posing.

Here we have the second Battle Grenadier squad.  Made some more leg swaps and switched the Panzerfaust in the sergeant's hand for his StG 47.  On all of the troops who are shooting their rifles, I cut off the  fronts of their necks and glued them so that they appear to be looking down their rifle sights.  I then had to fill in the back of their necks with some greenstuff.

This squad is a Laser Grenadier squad, there was not much to do here so to break it up I changed up one of the guys.  The leader, in the center, used to have his left arm positioned on the laser rifle, similarly to the troops on either side.  So  I cut this arm and hand loose and made it so he, like all the other squad leaders, is pointing forward.

The last of the troops are Heavy Recon Grenadiers.  Pretty intimidating in their heavy armor.  This squad did not take too much either.  I had to strengthen the combat knives with super glue since the plastic is sorta soft.  I also re-positioned the guy on the right so he is not leaning so far forward.  He looked like he was slipping onto his face before if you ask me.

Lastly we have the Medium Panzer Walker.  First we have the Ludwig, which is armed with 2 8.8cm guns.  You can see the front piece of spaced armor, the gun-shield I added, and the antenna.

Here's a view of the side, where you can see some of the stowage, and the spaced armor covering the engine compartment.

Here is the rear, again showing the spaced armor as well as a rack of Jerry cans.

On this side I added some steps for climbing  into the vehicle.

Second we have the Lothar, which has a pair of rocket launchers.

Lastly there is the Luthor, armed with a claw and a Flak Cannon.  All three of them look pretty cool in my opinion, and I cannot wait to check them out in game.  The model had minimal flash and did not take too long to clean up.  Some of the parts did not have adequate glue and broke, so I had to re-glue them.

This picture shows a test of the camouflage pattern I was trying out for the infantry.  It's based on late war German camo patterns.  I decided I liked the way it looked, but I switched the base color from German Fieldgrey to Catachan Green.  I was originally going to paint them as Afrika Korps, but the models are wearing heavier clothes and gloves not really suited to North Africa.

Having decided to use this type of camo I decided to do a full test model using the officer.  His hat and trousers are German Fieldgrey from Vallejo, his armor is a dark green from Tamiya, and his camo smock is as shown above.

On his chest and left shoulder is the Balkenkreuz, a stylized version of the Iron Cross and symbol of the Wehrmacht.

His right shoulderpad displays his rank of Oberleutnant, or 1st Lieutenant.

I am very happy with my decision to start this game so far.  I like the models, they had little flash and very little cleaning.  The only dislike I had was the softness of the plastic.  It means that thin things like rifles and knives are easy to bend and most of them came warped.  You should go through and add thin bands of super glue to harden them and position them as they should be.  Other than that all that I really had to do was glue the torsos and the heads.  I chose to do more because of the time saved due to pre-assembly and in all it still took less time than if you would have had to clip sprues, clean flash, and glue everything together.      They're in 1/48 scale meaning there's a load of historical kits out there waiting to be used and converted or whatever.  I like the WW2 setting and I think that they did a good job in how they got rid of the Nazis.  Stuff has to be PC these days...

  Sunday night, I will be facing my friends Allies, or my other friend's Axis.  My brother is still undecided but we're trying to swing him to play the SSU.

Look for another table post Sunday or Monday if I get enough done, then a review of how I felt about finally playing Dust.