Inevitably given my recent addition of 1940 British I thought I might as well add a few more Germans to be able to use them against the British or the early war Russians. Certainly made a change with no having to think up a camouflage scheme for them!

Panzer I's:

Panzer II's:
Panzer III's:
Panzer IV's:
Half-tracks for Panzer Grenadiers:
As with the initial British purchase I think I haven't really got enough especially as three spare Stug III's I was going to use are later versions that don't really look right for a 1940 army (even for me who isn't fussy about the difference between various models of the same tank) but as the Germans are more expensive it will probably be enough for a defensive orientated force and I do have a lot of infantry!

Having done some early war British for Rommel of course I then decided I hadn't quite got enough and needed to add some more as usual!

Three more A14 Cruiser tanks:

Six more infantry bases:
Three Churchill tanks for the late war version of the army:

Yet another example of mission creep here. I ordered something from Wayland Games and it wasn't quite enough to get 'free' postage. So, looking around I saw that they had some of the Victrix 12mm Late War British infantry in stock. Having already got Americans if I bought them I could just replace all my American infantry with British ones, use the same vehicles and play as British! Sounds good!

Once they arrive I think well I'd like to have a few Churchills and maybe some proper artillery. So I order some from Pendraken. I finally start painting the infantry.

Then when arranging my next Rommel game Andy mentions he has done some 1940 Germans and wouldn't mind using them some time. I'd only need to add a few more tanks and I could use the British as Early War as well! So I say okay next game I'll use Early War British and off goes another order to Pendraken. I'd better get on with the painting.

An Infantry Brigade:

Supporting Matilda's and Royal Artillery:An Armoured Brigade of Cruiser Mk IV's:Plus some 'Cavalry' in Vickers Light Tanks, some Motorised Infantry and more Royal Artillery:Finally some Army Level Heavy Artillery:
I like the way the tanks especially have come out, the earlier tanks have a charm all of their own. The infantry are very nice little models with loads of detail which I certainly didn't really do justice to but then with such small drab figures in a darkish room it makes little difference.

The last additions to my forces for 2020 are some more tanks for my Early War Soviets for Rommel. Andy found a whole load of scenarios on the web for Barbarossa which required a few tanks I didn't already have. All of these are from Pendraken.

BT7 tanks:

A couple of BA6 armoured cars:Finally the HUGE T-35 tank, sadly not as efficient in the rules as it looks:

For an upcoming game against Andy I realised that I didn't quite have enough Soviet armour for the scenario we planned to play. As a result a quick order to Pendraken was required providing the following extras for the next game.
Two T-34/85 in case I want to use the Late War list sometime and two SU-76:

Having really enjoyed Andy and I's Rommel games I thought I'd invest in a 10 mm Mid-War Russian army. The infantry and artillery are all from Minifigs while the vehicles are Pendraken.

A Soviet Rifle Division with supporting artillery and KV-1 tanks:

A small Tank Brigade with T-34's, T-26's and motorised infantry:

A larger Tank Brigade with added T-34's and a couple of SU-152:

A Motor Rifle Brigade supported by more KV-1's:

Finally, army level artillery support in the form of two Katyusha's and four 152 mm Howitzers:

The whole force comes to around 115 points in Rommel which is easily enough for all the scenario based games we play.

I think they will play differently to the Allies or Germans, it is quite hard to combine Russian infantry and armour in the rules due to their organisation and in the Mid-War period the armour have green crews which isn't great. It is also possible to downgrade the infantry to conscript or poor as well.

Where they are strong though is in artillery with a massive 10 elements of guns 6 of which are army level and can support anyone. This gives a huge 32 points of artillery support to throw into combats (the Allies and Germans would do well to have 10 available usually) though it will have to be used carefully as the Soviets can only use most of their artillery support in the first phase of their own move.

Given that I'm not bothered about the difference between the various models of T-34's it will be easy to change the army to Late War (replace the KV-1's with T34/85) or Early War (add a lot more T-26's).

Having realised I needed three elements for a Rommel German army I had to recruit a few more things to make up the numbers.

In theory all I needed was three trucks for motorised infantry plus maybe three more half-tracks for Panzergrenadiers.

I sourced the appropriate Pendraken items from a second hand website, Colonel Bill's, and added them to the basket. Then I noticed Bill's had some Tigers as well so three of them were also added. Finally I saw that there was also six Panzer III's so into the basket they went as well!

I thought I'd go for a different camo pattern for these new ones, partly so I could tell the two Kampfgruppes apart easily on the table.

The Tigers:

Panzer III's:

The Infantry:

I'm pleased with the way these came out and they have already had a couple of games.

Having finished the Americans in 10 mm and decided I should try being the Germans for a change I ordered an army from Pendraken and Minifigs.

German infantry from Minifigs, largely chosen as they work out a fair bit cheaper than the Pendraken ones:

Everything else was from Pendraken. Artillery support including the Nebelwerfer:

Motorised Infantry and Panzer Grenadiers:

Infantry support from some Stug IV's:

Panzer IV H for the majority of the tanks:

Finally some Panthers to add a cutting edge:

As with all my 10 mm WW2 stuff these didn't take long to paint at all. I've always found it hard trying to paint later war German camouflage schemes, people produce wonderful looking results with an airbrush but a) I don't have an airbrush and b) If I had I'm not sure it would work on 10 mm models.

As a result I went for a relatively simple striped pattern (following 15 minutes 'research' on Google images) which has come out okay and gives me another army to use against Andy and two armies if I want to play solo games or introduce someone else to Rommel.

With the upcoming anniversary of the D-Day landings Andy and I are planning on refighting the Rommel 'Juno' scenario on June 6th. 

I'll be using my own Allied tanks and (probably) Andy's British infantry. There were however a few tanks I don't have for the scenario (3 x Centaurs and some Sextons) so I put an order in to Pendraken to make up the numbers. 

First up three Centaurs:

Next a couple of Sextons:

Of course I felt I needed to add some D-Day flavour to the game so three Sherman DD tanks I didn't really need were next:

Finally I've always liked the Sherman 'Crab' so into the basket that went as well:

All are nice models and paint up quickly. Of course it is yet another example of the temptations of morphing armies, originally the army was just going to be an American one, now it has a few British tanks there is the possibility to add some Churchills and British Infantry......

The first of the Salute purchases makes an appearance in the form of the Pendraken 10mm 155mm American heavy artillery:

These are certainly impressive beasts though not as big as the Pershing's!

I also made three supply line markers from a truck and a couple of jeeps:

As usual I paid my annual visit to Salute today.

Over the years I have come to like Salute less and less, the endless queue to get in (though to be fair this has been sorted now really), the rather depressing interior of the Excel centre and the way every year there seems to be more and more fantasy/sci-fi and less historical traders means that if it was not such an easy trip for me (around 30 minutes!) I probably wouldn't go!

I think SELWEG and Warfare are much better shows personally, more historical orientated and in nicer venues.

So, having dragged myself there what did I end up bringing home? Firstly a unit of 12 TYW Cuirassiers from 1st Corps which cost me £23 after a 10% collect from show discount, quite a bit cheaper than the other manufacturers I looked at. The figures look nice enough, somewhat 'old style' but I think they will paint up nicely:

Since I was pleased with the 10mm Americans I did earlier I thought I'd add a few more elements to give me around 100pts for Rommel.

First up were three M5 Stuarts. By the late war these tanks were used in a recon role and, while very poorly armoured, have an interesting ability in Rommel to potentially allow a group including them to fire first. They also add a bit of variety which is somewhat lacking in the American army!


Next up were three M4 Sherman's. These can be used either in an armoured combat command or attached to an infantry regimental combat team so are quite versatile in Rommel.


Finally I painted up another three half tracks to give me nine in total.


In total the army now composes around 110pts which should be enough for most scenarios. The only other potential additions are Pershing's or M36 Tank Destroyers.

The temptation now of course is to start on an appropriate German force for Normandy in 1944. The 10mm armies are not that expensive to buy and very easy to paint up. For now however they will be able to take on Andy's Germans with their first game scheduled for Monday!

Having enjoyed the recent 10mm Late War game of Rommel Andy and I played I remembered that I had some 10mm WW2 Americans and Japanese I'd painted a long time ago for Peter Pig's PBI.

A short search uncovered a box file with some painted Japanese and Americans together with a few bags of unpainted US Infantry, all from Minifigs if I remember rightly.

Looking through what was usable for a Late War American force in Rommel there were enough infantry figures and four Shermans so with some additions it would make a viable army.

Having initially forgotten that the ones I had were from Minifigs I ordered the rest of the force from Pendraken, adding two more Shermans, 3 M18 Hellcats, 6 M3 Halftracks and some artillery.

One of the joys of WW2 at the smaller scales is that they don't take much effort to paint up so once the reinforcements arrived they were quickly painted and based on a 4cm frontage. The stars were transfers from Pendraken which seem a bit small to me while the serial numbers for the Shermans came from some transfers I got with my 28mm Bren Carrier.

First up are the M18 Hellcats:
 The Infantry with a couple of 105mm Howitzers as support:
 Armoured Infantry in M3 Half Tracks:
 The four old Shermans rebased with the two new ones:
 A Priest to provide artillery support to the Shermans:

All I need to do now is make some labels up for them. While the magnetic ones I used for the 3mm desert armies worked well I think I will just use paper ones and blu tack for these as, unlike the desert armies, I won't want to change them between Early War and Mid War.

I also picked up a gridded fields cloth so our next battle won't have to be played out on the desert mat unlike last time!