Tag Archives: DAK

15mm Flames of War DAK Grenadier Zug – Battlefront Miniatures

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15mm Flames of War DAK Grenadier Zug - Battlefront Miniatures

Back to Flames of War/15mm WWII for a moment, and I’ve also managed to finish off the first of the three Grenadier Zug (Platoons) that I started back in the day. As with the 88s I showed off recently, these didn’t have much left to go on them, so I’m only counting them as one “figure” each, despite the 35 individual figures across the eight bases. (Don’t worry, I’ll be counting each and every one of the next ones that have most of their work to do!)

15mm Flames of War DAK Grenadier Zug - Battlefront Miniatures

Now, it’s been fucking forever since I’ve played FoW, so I may get the odd name wrong – but these two stands represent the platoon command as well as the light mortar attached as fire support.

15mm Flames of War DAK Grenadier Zug - Battlefront Miniatures

Next up, we have the six stands that represent the 3 squads or 6 sections that makes up the bulk of the platoon. For my particular DAK force, I wanted it to represent a “campaign” force, so the uniforms are a mixture of tones – representing new uniforms, old sunbleached and worn uniforms, bits of uniform purloined from the attached Luftwaffe – not to mention captured apparel from the Commonwealth troops that the DAK spent their time engaged with. One thing I do remember about when I was building and conceiving of this army was one report that described the amount of captured and rag-tag gear the DAK were wearing in terms of it “looking like two Commonwealth Armies chasing back and forth across the north of Africa.”

15mm Flames of War DAK Grenadier Zug - Battlefront Miniatures

That mental image stuck with me and I wanted to reflect it with my army looking very much like that – so the models are a mix of the early types available (all metal, at the time) to give each stand and unit a more diverse look with more sculpt variation. This gives it a more interesting look and makes it more of an interesting paint project, but at the cost of being a lot more painful to paint – as I found out.

Ah well, on we soldier…

edit – I’ve just noticed something else that I’d completely forgotten – and so it’s not evident in the pictures either. Three of the infantry stands are in “combat” poses, while the other three are in “deployment” poses – the three “combat” stands are supposed to be in front, while the others would be behind them. Such small details that even I’d forgotten them!

15mm Flames of War DAK Luftwaffe Flakartillerie 88mm – Battlefront Miniatures (Mechanismo May)

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15mm Flames of War DAK Luftwaffe Flakartillerie 88mm - Battlefront Miniatures

Continuing the recent reawakening of my old DAK Army project, I got out my pair of 88’s to give them the final touches that I hadn’t gotten to back in the day. Where the Univeral Carriers from the other day had quite a lot left to do on them, these artillery pieces and their crew were much closer to what I’m happy to call a finally completed state.

15mm Flames of War DAK Luftwaffe Flakartillerie 88mm - Battlefront Miniatures

This (and some infantry stands that will be shown here soon that were in a similar state of almost-completion) led me to a fundamental question – one that would be silly to a non-wargamer or painter, but one that many of us really will intrinsically understand – how many models do I count these as? I mean, these artilley pieces have six crew plus the actual artillery piece. Do they count as one? Or Seven? The individually-based figures that I’m using for markers count as one each, and they are literally the same figures as these crewmen in some cases. After pondering the question for several days, I came up with an answer that satisfies me.

15mm Flames of War DAK Luftwaffe Flakartillerie 88mm - Battlefront Miniatures

If a multi-based piece requires very little work to complete, it’s one. If I have to do a substantial amount on it, especially to each of the models, then it’s however many are on the base. I’ll worry about cavalry another once I start painting a bunch of them. /handball problem into the future. So for my “counting” purposes, these two pieces are two completed models.

As far as paint choices go, I found that the crewmen of the 88s in the DAK were drawn from Luftwaffe troops, and so they got the slightly lighter tones of the Luftwaffe uniforms compared to the other elements of my DAK. This also leads to the two stands being much more uniform, as the rest of the DAK infantry have a much more rag-tag appearance that I’ll discuss when I show my completed units later on.

15mm Flames of War DAK Luftwaffe Flakartillerie 88mm - Battlefront Miniatures

These two stands are not the only part of this unit, as I have a few more pieces to come in the future. A pair of transport vehicles, as well as the artillery pieces’ road wheels as a pair of entirely-decorative bases to go alongside the transports.

15mm Flames of War DAK Luftwaffe Flakartillerie 88mm - Battlefront Miniatures

I also designed just the slightest bit of interactivity to go between the two stands. One stand having a crewman shouting off to the side, while the other with a crewman aligned to be waving in response. Little touches like that (and the road-wheel thing that I’ll finish at some stage) keep it all interesting to me.