Staff Tiger Project

Tigers Marsch Staff Project A few of our staff decided to paint a Tiger Company from the Tigers Marsch box set. They choose a variety of themes for their forces and we decided to show you the results. Each force consists of five Tigers I E tanks.

Kyran Henry

Schwere Panzerabteilung 505 The main reason I selected the 505 was due to them having a very impressive background and, lets face it, they have one of the coolest emblems.

I just used the 101.Schwere SS Panzerabeitullung from Atlantik Wall to field them. By the end of the war the battalion hand achieved a staggering 900 enemy tank kills and over 1000 guns destroyed.

Colour Scheme: As with most German vehicles at the time they started with a yellow base. I then used an airbrush to apply the first two layers of camo (brown and green) Then when doing a bit of research I found a great colour plate of a 505 Tiger with a grey camo so I decided to try that as the final camo and I was very happy with the out come.

Mark Hazell

101.Schwere SS Panzerabteilung – 2 Kompanie I went for the 101.Schwere SS Panzerabteilung – 2 Kompanie (as I want to add Wittmann in the future)

I decided to paint them with a hard edged camo, thus I did by hand (rather than an airbrush like I normally would). The base colour was Panther Yellow (FWP365) and was highlighted up in stages by adding Crusader Sand (FWP363) to the mix. I then used the panel fading technique.

The tigers were great fun to paint – you have to be patient while putting them together as they are a little bit fiddly but once together it was all good!

Blake Coster

2nd Kompanie of the 101 SS-Schwere Panzerabteilung I chose to base my Tigers on the 2nd Kompanie of the 101 SS-Schwere Panzerabteilung that serve with distinction in the battles for Normandy in the summer of 1944.

This unit was raised in 1943 and attached to the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, where it was sent west in the April of 1944 to counter the ever increasing threat of invasion by the Allies. Famously lead by the renowned German tank ace Oberstrumfüher Michael Wittmann, the 2nd Kompanie fought bravely in and around the battles for Normandy against a vastly superior numerical force.

After weeks of heavy fighting, the 2nd Kompanie was withdrawn from the frontline in September 1944 after suffering heavy casualties including the loss of Wittmann himself on the 8th of August 1944, the 101 SS Schwere Panzer Abteilung was re-equipped with the new King Tiger and redesignated Schwere SS Panzer Abteilung 501.

Colour Scheme: Following the standard German practice of the time, I used Dunkelgelb (Panther Yellow) as the base colour for the Tigers and irregular stripe in both Olivgrün (Tankovy Green) and Rotbraun (Oxide Red) for the camouflage pattern.

After conducting some research via the Internet and using some of the great reference books here at Battlefront, I was able to acquire some excellent reference pictures that I used as a visual reference for the camouflage while working the Tigers.

Along with the german painting guide section featured in Atlantik Wall for such things as tool handles, I also found our painting guide The Art of War useful in completing this project. Since I am still relatively new to Flames Of War, I’ve only painted a handful of miniatures before in this scale.  But I saw the Tigers as a challenge with all the extra detail that made each tank unique and wanted to do them justice with my limited experience in painting in this scale.  Due to the size of the force, my bias toward German armor of the period and historical value of this unit represents it was a perfect fit for my first Flames Of War army.  I am now currently working on adding Wittmann’s Tiger plus a couple of support options to help compliment my Tigers Marsch.

Adam Wells

Schwere Panzerabteilung 505 For my theme I went for the same as Kyrans (505), wasn’t really to sure what to use a for colour scheme, I just went for green and brown camo over Dunkelgelb. This was my first attempt at painting miniatures!

Casey Davies

101. Schwere SS-Panzerabteilung Ideally I would have liked to paint my ‘Tigers Marsch’ from a Tiger Battalion supporting 2. SS ‘Das Reich’, except that there were no such Battalions in Normandy. Since 101. Schwere SS-Panzerabteilung was fighting around Caen with 12. ‘Hitlerjugend’ SS-Panzerdivision it seamed appropriate to paint them as 101, and if I want to use them in a game, to change my division to 12. SS for the day.

I Painted the Tigers pretty much the same as the rest of my SS army, even though the tigers came from a different unit. Starting with Panther Yellow (FWP365) for the basecoat, a coat of thinned black paint as an ink wash followed by 3 light drybrushes of Panther Yellow. I then Airbrushed Army Green (FWP342) and Tan Leather (FWP384) over the top and then did a final light drybrush of a 50/50 Panther Yellow/Dry Dust (FWP364) sand to blend the camo back in a bit.

I had a bit of fun with weathering the tank. Where chunks of the Zimmerit had been knocked off I started with Oxide Red (FWP382), followed by an ink wash to represent the exposed undercoat.

I then went over parts of the exposed metal with Panzer Grey (FWP303) and a 50/50 mix of Panzer Grey/Dark Gunmetal (FWP480). Lastly I started experimenting with weathering pastels around the edges of the damaged sections to show the burnt residue from being hit.

Another useful thing that worked for me was to get some 280 grit sand paper and thin some of the front guards down a little bit. This helped the models where I wanted to damaged the mudguards, making it easier to bend the guards and make a better finish. See Jeremy's Tigers...