2.SS Panzergrenadiers

Today I shall display my work on my integral part of my 2.SS Panzergrenadierkompanie army. Without a doubt, these are the panzergrenadier infantrymen. Forming the 'core' of my panzergrenadierkompanie, they hold the center line and engage in bitter close assaults against the enemy.

Compared to other armies in Flames of War, the SS are expensive in terms of points, and thus less numerous. What they make up for the point cost, they make up in zeal and fanaticism. With each stand being an MG team, they also spit out attacks with a rate of fire of 3 when static. Thus, it is a no brainer that these guys are ace at defense and counter-attacks.

The last game I had with my army, one platoon of panzergrenadiers managed to seize a small village, held off an attack by an advancing 3 platoon of US infantrymen, before proceeding to counter attack and destroy 2 platoon, and leaving the third badly mauled, exposing the enemy's left flank. Meanwhile on the right flank, my other platoon of panzergrenadiers stopped an incoming 2 platoons of US infantry in its tracks before reinforcements arrived in the form of a Sherman platoon - and with combined artillery fire withered away my panzergrenadiers.... not before its platoon leader charged up (by himself, no less, as the rest of the platoon was KIA) to the incoming Sherman platoon and destroying one with a Panzerfaust. This gave me enough time for my Marder IIIs to get into position and to destroy two more Shermans, forcing the Allied commander to rethink his tactics.

Hard as nails with a vicious bite, these SS-Panzergrenadiers have won glory and respect in my games so far.


Painting them too, its a pure joy. Though I've tried my hand at pea-dot, I find it extremely difficult to get it right, so I might try pea-dot camo with the next platoon of SS-panzergrenadiers I may purchase. But for these guys, who were also the very first component of my army, were entirely painted in oak leaf camo - with a mix between spring/summer oak leaf and autumn oak leaf, to give them a Normandy/Market Garden era feel. The models are beautiful, and the dynamic plus static poses of the individual models made them very enjoyable to build and paint. Of course, as these were the first models for Flames of War that I painted, most of the techniques I learned were applied to the subsequent models, and as such my Flak 88 team for example, contain models with the same camo technique I utilized.

SS-Hauptsturmführer, company commander

Panzer IV H and a Workshop Objective

Today I present you the Panzer IV H - as one of the most common tanks used during WWII, they are incredibly versatile and well rounded. Efficient and trustworthy, they were the basis of quite a few modifications such as the StuG IV and Hummel, to name a few.

In Flames of War, these tanks present a well rounded armored component to any German army. Equipped with the 75mm KwK40, a Sherman must roll a 6+ on a D6 to survive a shot from the front, and a 5+ to be bailed out. Also equipped with two machine-guns (one hull-mounted, the other co-axial), it can also do some serious damage against infantry in an assault. I suppose then that it would come to no surprise that I own ten of these Panzer IV H (one for my panzergrenadierkompanie, and the other in my panzerkompanie along with Panthers).

The painting itself was rather simple - using the experience I had gained from painting Panthers, I stuck with my 3-color scheme to fit in with the rest of my army, though I made sure to leave out some of the dunkelgelb (the yellow/tan color) to be showing more, as opposed to my first batch of Panzer IVs that have a little more of a brown town, as opposed to the second batch ones pictured below.

What my initial batch of Panzer IVs didnt have, I added to these - mainly battle damage. I wanted the tanks to be more battle damage, and so I used the opportunity to remove the various pieces of schurzen spaced armor in the odd places to make them appear blown off and requiring repair. Overall, I'm quite happy with these, and they fit with my Panthers perfectly.

I've also added a picture of my finished Barkmann's workshop, that can also work as an objective point for when I'm not using Barkmann. The piece itself was quite daunting as it's a very complex model, and there's a lot of details - that someone would call it a painter's overload when there's so many tiny details, that you dont know where to begin. I felt that the camouflage drape would be the hardest to paint, and I wasnt quite sure what camouflage to use at first. Feeling that making yet another oak leaf drape would be rather boring, I went ahead and gave a shot at the Fallschirmjaeger's splinter camouflage. I added miniscule lines and I'm quite pleasantly surprised how that came out.

leFH 10.5s and 2nd Armored ?!

Lately I've been working on my SS Motorized Artillery Battery, consisting of leFH 10.5cm howitzers. Why do I need these when I already have two 1750 point armies (SS Panzerkompanie and SS Panzergrenadierkompanie) you ask? Well, because I thought they looked cool, nothing more. I was quite impressed with the individually sculpted bases that the Flak 88s had, and I was looking forward to these, and oh my, I'm not disappointed. They look *fantastic*.

So once more, using the Flak 88 painting scheme of mis-matched camo (the SS picking up whatever they could find after fighting in Kursk and being refitted in the south of France), I painted these in various camo smocks. Its a pity that Battlefront doesnt sell SS artillery crew in addition to the regular Heer artillery crew.

I've also decided to start working on my US 2nd Armored Division. I was quite undecided whether I wanted to paint the black camo stripes on my Shermans in case I wanted to play another US division, but in the end I feel that I had made a good choice to use the camo stripes. They really are quite unique, and I went with using a different basing, compared to my SS guys. I'm not quite decided on whether summer flock would look better or not. As it stands, the summer flock on my Waffen SS makes them look very rag tag and "camouflaged" with their oak leaves camo, while with the Shermans so far, the dead winter grass makes them stand out.

It certainly works to tell my German and US armies apart, but I think it works in making the Germans more rag tag and more "defensive", while the Americans being more aggressive and "newly arrived", compared to the 2.SS that have been fighting since Kursk. But I'll let the reader judge for himself.