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Hey dakka, just wondering a little about painting my US armoured division.

I notice with FoW and other historical games, the focus is generally on painting your army in 'historically accurate' paint schemes and uniforms. I find this a bit on the boring side... so just wondering, have any of you had any success painting your army differently than the usual? Seen anyone else's cool, non-historical paintjobs and want to talk about it? I'm all ears

I saw someone who painted his German force as a Hydra army led by the red skull, that amused me.

Frankly I'm a big fan of 'your models your paint scheme'

You'll always get some people who disagree over what shade yellow/green etc for the uniform, but as someone pointed out previously there was huge variation in uniform colour anyway.

So paint them how you want, as historical or ahistorical as you please.

Just please nothing like rainbow marines!

A pink and purple stripped Panther Kompanie won a BF GT a few years ago. hilarity ensued.

Some people are very uptight about this, I personally think there's a sliding scale of non-historical painting. For instance painting tanks in slightly a-historical camo schemes that still look believable is different to pink panthers, but either is fine by me.

Your models your army, but for me the research part of historical games is half the fun, and thus it would be a shame to research what equipment / resources could be available to a certain unit only to paint them bright pink.

About as wild as i get is painting a lot of ambush pattern German armour cause i really love the look when really much less complicated patterns where the norm.

However i suppose it also depends on the local group or people you play with as well, i attend a historical club not a general wargaming one and as such my opponents are more beardy and less likely to be amused by something non historical.

Couple things about this debate have always annoyed me:

First, people say half the fun is researching your unit and painting them in a unique way etc. That's all well and good for Germans and British who have list support for every division they had under the sun, but the other factions have to make do with mostly generic lists and generic paint jobs. For example, soviet players, there's little no variation in equipment or uniforms. This attitude is indicative of the separation between the brits and germans and the rest of FOW.

Second, people who say "I'm into history so non-historical paint jobs would bother me too much." I'm a post grad military history student, I eat breathe and sleep military history, but I also know Flames of War is a game and I would enjoy seeing some creative variance. Claiming to not like non-historical paint jobs has nothing to do with liking history or not, its to do with being a pedant or not.

 EmilCrane wrote:
Couple things about this debate have always annoyed me:

First, people say half the fun is researching your unit and painting them in a unique way etc. That's all well and good for Germans and British who have list support for every division they had under the sun, but the other factions have to make do with mostly generic lists and generic paint jobs. For example, soviet players, there's little no variation in equipment or uniforms. This attitude is indicative of the separation between the brits and germans and the rest of FOW.

Second, people who say "I'm into history so non-historical paint jobs would bother me too much." I'm a post grad military history student, I eat breathe and sleep military history, but I also know Flames of War is a game and I would enjoy seeing some creative variance. Claiming to not like non-historical paint jobs has nothing to do with liking history or not, its to do with being a pedant or not.

I don't really disagree with anything your saying, however i stand by my comment about how the group / clubs you plan to play with are likely to receive things, after all i know plenty of people who would be complete pedants about it. I know this after doing some T34s camo green, darker green and brown, people moaned slightly about it till i proved i think it was the 4th Tank Army used it right up till 44 as a standard. Also i rather enjoyed painting my Russian Infantry, shortages meant i could paint plenty of different coloured clothing (within reason) to mix things up a little.

I also am generally reminded when FOW players hark on to much about historical accuracy of the old saying that people in glass houses should not throw stones.

To me its not a question of historical accuracy, rather some consideration taken, would i really care if someone turned up with an allied army in splinter camo, not really but if they turned up with an army painted like cobra or in purple then it would break for me part of the immersion of wargaming i enjoy.

i would though still play them.

FoW isn't a historical game, it's a world war 2 themed game. A true historical game is much more tight when it comes to lists and things, FoW is a bit more light hearted about it. Which, is a good things to me.

Personally, I don't care how you paint your models. As long as you are proud and good with what you have done, if that's bare metal or the pupils of the eyes dotted in perfectly then so be it. I'm no person to judge. If you're Germans are painted bright pink, that's also perfectly fine. Makes them easier targets for my snipers

 EmilCrane wrote:
Couple things about this debate have always annoyed me:

First, people say half the fun is researching your unit and painting them in a unique way etc. That's all well and good for Germans and British who have list support for every division they had under the sun, but the other factions have to make do with mostly generic lists and generic paint jobs. For example, soviet players, there's little no variation in equipment or uniforms. This attitude is indicative of the separation between the brits and germans and the rest of FOW.

Second, people who say "I'm into history so non-historical paint jobs would bother me too much." I'm a post grad military history student, I eat breathe and sleep military history, but I also know Flames of War is a game and I would enjoy seeing some creative variance. Claiming to not like non-historical paint jobs has nothing to do with liking history or not, its to do with being a pedant or not.

Utter rubbish. The Soviets used many different camo schemes throughout the war both uniform and vehicle and there is a huge variation of Soviet Uniforms to choose from. As a military history student I find it hard to understand that you are not aware of the massive amounts of information on ALL nations that is avalible for only a very small effort.

 Aldramelech wrote:


Utter rubbish. The Soviets used many different camo schemes throughout the war both uniform and vehicle and there is a huge variation of Soviet Uniforms to choose from. As a military history student I find it hard to understand that you are not aware of the massive amounts of information on ALL nations that is avalible for only a very small effort.

yes I am aware that there was some variation, but its not as much compared to the brits and germans

It all depends really. With the Germans there was a huge variety of Camo schemes anyway so you can pretty much do what you see fit within reason.

If however we are talking about tanks painted pink then no. I’m not a pedant or rivet counter and I don’t care if a particular variant of tank is used in a game set 3 weeks before it was technically available, but I still think you should keep to the spirit of the period, even if you don’t stick to the exact rules.

If you are playing Allies in western Europe I expect you to paint your tanks some shade of green. It doesn’t have to be exactly match the ‘official’ colors but you should at least try.

I think if you did 2 forces to fight against each other, say pink/purple vs blue/yellow for instance, then you've got a whole alternate reality thing going on, and could look cool and certainly unusual. Maybe add some crystal terrain growing amongst the trees, that sort of thing.

I'm certainly inspired to get a box of PSC Panthers (whilst painting a lot of US armour as accurately as I can) at some point and go barmy with colour anyway, just to try it out, nice idea

However, for an army to play against others in tourneys and the like, I think you need to, as above, try and get it right. One side garishly painted on an otherwise historically accurate board would just look daft.

From what I've seen, the whole 'Why can't I paint my stuff in completely non-historical colors' is something only present in FoW (imagi-nation stuff not included).

Which makes sense because it seems that FoW is usually the stepping stone of Fantasy/SciFi players who can normally paint their minis any color under the sun.

Although my brother inlaw and I agree the 101st ss Mr blobby heavy panzer division has a nice ring to it

Your models, so paint them how you want. You paid for them, do what ya like... its your hobby.

This is a very personal hobby, so do what you want. I do and I couldnt give a monkeys what other people think.




However just dont bring them near me... I have heart palpitations when I see people using grey Panthers and ankled booted Germans in 1940. Dont even get me started on whether my 38ts have the right number of rivets...

To me, its a historical game, so I paint them historically. I want to try and capture the correct look of the period, otherwise I may as well just play 40k (and thats never gonna happen while i still breathe...). Im very passionate about WW2 and those involved. For me, the stuy and recreation of the period tips my hat to those guys who did for real and bleed and died. So out of respect, I try and get things as right as possible.

Thats just my view and opinion, and its the one I stand by. Of course, you do what you want. As you should.



I do have to agree with Aldramalech, there is plenty of variation in the Soviet army. Just cos FOW dont show it, dont mean it didnt happen. There is also uniform variation (and to be honest, the British for example have bugger all variety... They all wear the same in the infantry!), from NKVD Rifle troops to Naval Infantry to airborne troops... Lots to choose from if you look.

I do wonder if the desire to not do historical stuff, is out of an apathy with the research involved to get it right... I can understand that as its not everyones kettle of fish. My other hobby is military history, having lectured on a War Studies course at a University, so for me the correct look is important.

If I want pink vehicles I will do a Slaneesh army or maybe 1970s SAS for the desert in Pink Panthers...

My thoughts:

It isn't necessary for the scheme to be perfectly historical, however, an attempt should be made to make them look realistic to the faction and time period, so painting your early war army in a late war scheme is okay IMO (though it is in a grey zone for me in terms of how okay it is, its very close to "this is not okay" territory), however painting your ww2 DAK army in Gulf War 1 style Chocolate Chip ("Desert-6") camo, is not.

In my case, my Fallschirmjaeger have their trousers painted luftwaffe blue rather than the grey-green or whatever it was supposed tobe, because I want to emphasize that they are luftwaffe personnel rather than heer, because it looks good on the tabletop, and because they WERE actually issued blue trousers, they just (generally) didn't wear them in the field.

My rule of thumb: If it was realistically possible/plausible for something to occur, then it shouldn't be off limits (especially in regards to FoW where there are lots of things in game that could have been possible but never actually happened, etc.). Using my FJ for example, it is conceivably possible that in some instance, a majority (or even all) of a company of FJ took to the field wearing their blue trousers rather than their usual fare, they had it issued to them after all, perhaps late war the proper grey/green trousers were in short supply in some areas and this particular company had to wear their dress trousers to battle as a result. Or maybe allied paratroopers crashed their christmas party... who the hell knows.

Likewise, it is possible for late war camo patterns and uniform items to pop up in early/mid war as well (albeit in limited quantities), given that production for these things usually began well before they achieved widespread use, and prototypes, etc. were generally field tested beforehand, etc. The people that piss me off the most are the people that think that at say... New Years day 1944, the entire German army suddenly started wearing the M44 field jacket instead of the M43/42/41 jacket... No, those uniform items continued to persist as supplies ran short, production was delayed, etc. etc. etc.

With the Germans in particular they where hampered by all sorts of logistical issues, so you have allot of leeway. Some older equipment was still painted in Tank Grey in 1944, just because there was only so much Dunkelgelb paint to go round.

For example my 88 flak guns are painted grey because they get used in both mid and late war games and it's not historically an issue for them to be so. Same with my 3 Ton Trucks.

German infantry also has allot of flexibility just because 'field grey' is a technically meaningless term. The color of German uniforms depended largely on the dyes available at any given time, which of course varied considerably over the course of the war.

Below is a picture of various German field jackets over the course of the war. As you can see they vary considerably. From green/greys to almost brown.



There was allot of variation in American uniforms as well. The 41 uniform was technically out before even d-day, but many units worse them till almost the end of the war.

But... Those tunics are 70 years old...

The dyes will have been effected by time and how they have beed stored, so those are unlikely to be the original colours.

A better guide is to use the colour pictures from the war as a guide rather than original items that will have faded over time;



As you can see in this picture there is generally a common colouration among the clothing items, likely issued together from the same stocks, providing some units with a degree of uniformality, but there will always be variation in colour and styles... Older soldiers would keep older items of clothing until it wore out.

There was some variation in German dyes, but not as much as you would expect as they used a quite stable compound on the whole, I used some original dye a few years back to dye some tunics and the colour works quite well. Of course, the colour also depends on the material used too...

The Soviet army had far more dye variation as they had no set dyes.

While the Germans had set dyes and paints (the RAL colours) there was no Soviet standardisation of dyes or paint. So colours would vary dependant on manufacture.

Once the Germans begin to factory paint their vehicles camo schemes, the colours become more standardised between those produced in Germany and those in Czechoslovakia (which tended to use old Czech Army colours on occasion).

As regards grey painted vehicles, post the 1943 regulations, they certainly did exist, but were limited generally to artillery and softskins. Through 1943 you do still see grey AFVs but they become rarer as crews would repaint with the new colours. Vehicles produced in 1943, such as the Panther, would not be seen in grey.

The closest thing that i do is paint my EW vehicles grey.Everything else is painted in the normal middlestone color,except my camo is not the best.But the Ew vehicles are used in my LW forces.example Armored Cars.

Friend of mine is working on a "weird war" russian army. Walking t34s etc. All as count as stand ins for standard FoW units. I really like stuff like that. Cool idea, cool execution ... though not working for me if i want to play Flames of War.

That being said i wouldnt play against say ... pink germans. If i want to play the rainbow or weird walkers i look for someone to play 40k or Warmahordes.

 Dakkamite wrote:
Hey dakka, just wondering a little about painting my US armoured division.

I notice with FoW and other historical games, the focus is generally on painting your army in 'historically accurate' paint schemes and uniforms. I find this a bit on the boring side... so just wondering, have any of you had any success painting your army differently than the usual? Seen anyone else's cool, non-historical paintjobs and want to talk about it? I'm all ears

My forces are "inspired" by historical paint schemes, but are not entirely accurate. I got into the game with a large horde of British forces for North Africa. So most everything else I've added I've painted in desert colors for consistency, even for my EW european forces, or my LW armoured car companies just to have things consistent and not have to buy multiples of the same units to paint in different colors. My LW Airborne and Irish Guards are armor are in historical colors since none of the minis crossover with my desert forces.

Historical games are usually played by folks who are more interested in the history and historical colors tend to be the norm, but that doesn't mean you can't paint your army however you want to paint it. Don't know if you play in any official FoW tournies or not or if the officially sponsored stuff has rules for historical paint jobs or not. I've seen some alternatively painted armies that looked a little odd on the table, but in no way made the game unplayable somehow. So do what you will with your minis. After all you are the one who paid for the minis, so the decision is yours.

Don't be surprised if someone complains as there are people who expect and somewhat demand that their opponents paint their minis the way *they* prefer. Luckily you don't have to do what they say.

Skriker

I try to paint my historicals in a "period correct" manner, but for me it is more a representation than a "rivet counting" exercise.

If my opponent has pink panthers, or late war tanks in early war colors (primer anyone?) it doesn't get under my skin at all. Unpainted models I can do without.