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Easter Eggs for Hitler

One of my goals for 2016 is to complete a Mid-War US Rifle Company in time for the Mid-War FoWSA tournament on July 6th. My list will be a 1700pt US Rifle Company from the North Africa book. I've been documenting my progress as I've been painting and assembling each unit.

The Field Artillery Battery with M2A1 105mm Howitzers is completed. I used a the Battlefront box set for this unit. It includes 1 Command Carbine Team, 1 Staff Team, 1 Observer Carbine Team, 1 Jeep, and 4 M2A1 105mm Howitzers.

This was a really fun build. The box set was priced very high ($75). But, it is a critical component of virtually any US Army list in the game, so there is no avoiding it.

The set came with pre-styled bases for the howitzers and the staff team. It was a nice perk and added some realism to the unit.


For the Observer team, I found a fallen tree limb from my backyard, cut it to size and glued it to the base. In 15mm, the twig becomes a thick log to serve as improvised cover. More foliage will be added later.

The crews and howitzers were glued to the bases. The crews needed to be shoehorned into the pre-made round pits since the metal bases weren't exactly round. Putty was used to fill the gaps.


The jeep painted up nicely. I really love the WWII jeeps and wish for an all-Jeep list.


As mentioned in a previous post, I found an old photo of an artillery crew who painted "Easter Eggs for Hitler" on their 105mm ammunition boxes. I wanted to incorporate that in this project. The ammo boxes on the model were too small for me to paint the message freehand. So, I cut up some decals into individual letters and arranged them accordingly. This is really delicate work and wholly unnecessary. But, I guess there is some hint of obsessive madness to my hobbying.


Does anyone else try any crazy, unnecessary modifications to their figs? Does it slow you down or is the creative impulse more important to you than speed?

 Here is my overall progress so far.


 Completed units
Rifle Company HQ 
Rifle Platoon (1 command team, 1 bazooka team, 9 rifle teams)
Rifle Platoon (1 command team, 1 bazooka team, 9 rifle teams)
5 M4 Sherman tanks
Parachute Rifle Platoon
Field Artillery Battery (w/ M2A1 105mm Howitzers)

In progress
Weapons Platoon
Anti-Tank platoon
Mortar Platoon

Next up on the workbench...
Weapons Platoon

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