502 Schwere Panzer Abteilung Progress

I'm finally getting back to (and hopefully finishing up) my 502. Schwere Panzer Abtiluing army that I detailed in a couple of previous blog entries (here and here).  I'd originally got this one going for a 1675 point tournament last year that I wasn't able to attend because of work and other life issues, so they've been sitting around collecting dust begging for a paint job ever since.  Next month there's a 1500 point Eastern Front tournament, so I decided to pull out the army and give it another go.

The 1500 point version of the list is very modest.  Three Tiger I E, one Sd Kfz 9 recovery half track, a grenadier platoon (command panzerknacker SMG plus eight rifle MG teams), and three 15cm NW41.  Not a lot to put on the table, but hey, it should be entertaining.  I'm ultimately going with a winter whitewash scheme on the vehicles, and I'm waiting on some modulation pants for the whitewash.  While I'm waiting, I went ahead and started putting down the gray base coat as that will be visible as the winter paint was done in sections for this unit.

I'm going ahead and hitting the support equipment with the same modulation scheme as the main units.  First up are the nebelwerfers:

The Sd Kfz 9 is still a huge beast:

Finally various half-tracks and staff cars:

I'm running this as a 1942 Schwere Panzerkompanie.  The unit represented is actually painted up in early 1943 schemes, but the organization of the unit seemed to still follow the 1942 pattern based on my research until they were fully re-equipped later in the year.  While I can't use it with my current point values, I'm going ahead and working up a couple of Panzer III Ausf N.  The first photo is the base coat.

I'm using Ammo of MIG modulation paints on this starting with a base, highlight and shine.  These will be toned down with a filter - likely before the whitewash is applied.  So far the Panzer III is coming out pretty good:

Of course, the centerpiece of this army is the Tigers.  I've done a lot of modification on at least two of them.  As mentioned in previous blogs, this unit still had some initial production vehicles, and they required quite a bit of modification.  Even the normal miniature required deletion of some stowage. Below is the base coat for the Tigers.  The Ammo of MIG base coat went on without any issues.

I then went through and modulated the Tigers (everything is modulated, but some of the photos didn't come out - look for the results in a future blog).  Both the highlight and shine coats were a little thicker than I'd grown accustomed to, and required both thinning and more frequent tip cleaning on the airbrush.  The end result is looking pretty good so far, though:

Again, the filter will tame down the highlights a bit and then I can go into the whitewash.  The tracks are modulated as well:

I already have the infantry and gun crews painted and partially based.  I need to order some Battlefoam to get this army moving.  Hopefully it'll arrive in time for the tournament or I'll have to improvise.