Detailing Tanks

Hey everyone, today I thought I'd share just a few of my thoughts on detailing tanks/vehicles in Flames of War. These are just the basic effects I try to apply to every tank regardless of nationality, and my thought process behind them.

First, I use the details on the tanks as a chance to apply some contrasting colors to the overall scheme. One of the easiest ways to do this is painting rusted metal effects on exhaust pipes, damaged areas of the hull, or anywhere else that metal may have been exposed to moisture. The best color to use for this is some sort of reddish-brown color. Battlefront recommends using Cavalry Brown, but I tend to mix up a slightly darker version of that:

 Rear of a Sturmtiger.

Tactics: King Tigers

King Tigers.  The undisputed 1-on-1 masters of tank warfare in FoW (Battlefront just posted pictures of the Jagdtiger as I write this, so stay tuned).  Plus, the models are cool as ice.  However we all know that FoW requires a combined-arms, coordinated approach, and King Tigers are usually too expensive and too unwieldy to justify including in a competitive list. Although they can probably win any tank duel they come across, trained artillery can bombard them out of the game (AT 4 on bombardments...just don't roll a 1, right?), and my local meta is centered on infantry-heavy lists. But I didn't re-paint these mean cats just to have them sit on a shelf!

King Tigers

Initially, I was not too enthused with Devil's Charge.  I had already settled on my new American force, and the German lists seemed to give me little to work with, at least without having to expand my model collection.  However, when I got the book I was intrigued at the possibility of using FT King Tigers.  I eventually realized that I still wasn't enthused with the German lists, but the pictures of the big cats thundering down the battlefield sparked my imagination.  I love Battlefront's King Tiger models, and mine don't see the table as often as I wish they would.  So I decided that they would be next on my re-painting queue (those who have read my earlier posts know that I'm re-painting all of my German armor).

I hadn't laid eyes on these King Tigers in over a year, and I had assembled them about 3 years ago! My painting/modelling skills have come a long way since then.  I started by airbrushing the basecoat (Vallejo Air Dark Yellow) over the existing paint scheme (see the earlier posts on the Panthers and Desert Tiger for an idea of what the old scheme was like).