Small Scale Victory

Off the Bench: 15mm Germans

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2–3 minutes
Off the Bench: 15mm Germans

My club is pushing to start on 15mm Chain of Command. With the recent announcement of second edition, the hype train is definitely en route for me. Perfect timing to have completed some new tiny Germans, then!

This is a full reinforced platoon with quite a few options. Tanks, MMG, Panzershrecks and an additional section of infantry. I’m still missing the fancier side pieces like engineers but this is more than enough for a start and then some.

This was my first ever 15mm force and between this and my 10mm Napoleonic French I didn’t complete, I’ve learned something: if you’re going small, go simple.

The moment to moment painting just isn’t satisfying. It’s fast produces fast results but it isn’t as gratifying as painting 28mm miniatures. This project clicked for me once I realized how little time it took. In half an hour I was finishing whole sections (unbased). My process was quick and simple:

  1. Airbrush everything German Grey-Green
  2. Paint any blacks
  3. Paint any browns (all one brown)
  4. Paint any skin
  5. Paint any metal
  6. Thinned black wash

The skin tone needs some warmth to it, I’ll warn. Otherwise you need to go back and wash the skin since it won’t stand out.

That was it. Overall project estimate, including build time, was about 10 hours of actual work. To be fair there was dry time–I oil washed the tanks and the basing material is thinned glue so it takes ages to dry. As a project executed over a week while doing other things I’m very pleased.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not winning any awards. There’s a ton more one could do, yet I’m very pleased with where they’re at. This is more than enough for tabletop and it’ll look great stumbling down the crowded 15mm streets I have planned.

That’ll be one of the next projects. I still lack terrain so I need to get on that. More to come, I suppose. I’m glad I enjoyed this so much as I have a lot more to paint for 15mm: Americans, British, whole companies worth. Would have been awkward if I truly hated it!

One more backlog project down. Countless more to go.

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5 responses

  1. Pete S/ SP Avatar
    Pete S/ SP

    They look great. In the smaller scales painting for mass effect is certainly the way to go. As you say the painting might not be as satisfying as getting the highlight just right on a 28mm figure but the satisfaction of getting a painted unit finished makes up for it.

    Cheers,

    Pete.

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  2. tankfanboy Avatar
    tankfanboy

    That’s a pretty good result for just 10 hours of effort.
    I look forward to some battle reports, Chain of Command is a favourite of mine.

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  3. wolfredroses Avatar
    wolfredroses

    They look great, especially for how fast it went.
    If I may recommend something that worked well for me when painting my FoW Germans:
    Instead of the base colors you’d use if you were painting 28mm models, go instead with the colors you’d normally use for highlights.
    So, for the uniforms go with the intermediate green-grey rather than Feldgrau. use something like a London Grey instead of black, and a lighter flesh tone. This way, when you hit it with the black wash, you get instant highlights and it tones the colors down to what they would normally appear to be if unshaded on a larger mini.
    It has to do with the way the eye perceives colors and tones at smaller scales.

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  4. Shawn Metcalf Avatar
    Shawn Metcalf

    What was your approach to basing? I see some multi-figure and some single figure bases, and different sized single figure bases at that.

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    1. Sandro Teixeira Avatar
      Sandro Teixeira

      Howdy, Shawn.

      I tried to multibase teams together, leaving a few spare men hanging around to help track initial casualties while providing flexibility between different force structures so I can adapt at will with one force. A German section is:

      1x Junior Leader
      3x LMG Team members (one with a rifle)
      6x Riflemen

      This is ten total men. I chose to base the LMG team jointly, then three riflemen jointly, then three riflemen individually, then finally the leader individually.

      Honestly, I probably could have just based the teams as single bases entirely, with solely the Junior Leaders single based. Alternatively, I’ve seen many people single base fully–I just like the visual flair of multibasing too much to resist.

      You’ll also note the little dice trays on all the bases. Those are essential for the above concept. As men die in the multibases, I track their deaths with a dice.

      Thanks,

      Sandro

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