So to layout to the rules of the game (sourced from here jagdpanther-juni-begins) the challenge ran throughout June and was designed to clear some backlog of vehicles and ‘monsters’ from the local groups collective piles of shame. One of the key points was that no building / painting based stress was to be generated, is was in fact meant to be exercise in fun!

The ‘rule’ set is as follows (directly pulled from the organiser):

• The definition of “Armoured Fighting Vehicle (AFV)” is deliberately loose. Any time period (including fantasy and sci-fi) is fine. Despite the name, if you want to include a Mumak (with mahout and a howdah full of Haradrim archers), that’s fine.
• (We should probably say “at least 15mm”, to stop me just spraying my 6mm carrier platoon green, and calling them “done”. However, do as you wish here. It’s meant to be fun).
• The objective is to increase the number of painted AFVs in one’s own collection, while not increasing the backlog that existed at the end of May 2025. Hence a personal “win” is achieved by having a net positive number of AFVs newly finished during June 2025 (subtracting 1 for each AFV figure bought, printed or otherwise acquired during that month).
• Preparation (building, priming, whatever – just not actually finishing) before June 2025 is fine. (We’re not competing against each other, just ourselves, so there’s no need to establish a baseline).
• Did I mention that this is meant to be fun?

So, what did that mean for me?

The kick off at the start of the month I gathered some armour and monsters in various levels of build and paint that I thought would be nice to get done. The hopeful ‘what’ in list form looked like:

• 8th Army Cromwell Cruiser – In Box
• 8th Army Matilda – Primed
• Space Wolves Invictor Tactical Warsuit – On sprue (I even took it out of the box for the photo)
• Space Wolves Chaplain on a bike – Part built
• Space Wolves Astraeus Super-Heavy Tank – Printed and some base colours down
• Tyranid Psychophage – Part built

So I made some good early progress getting a few more bits of armour to a built, based and primed state. This all happened in a bit of a flurry as we don’t often get good enough weather but we happened to have a run of unreasonably warm weekends when I could get outside and have half a chance with priming some models with a black then white rattle can to give a very rough zenithal highlight.

Also included in the photos above is a previously printed and painted (and therefor not counted) Stuart M3A1 painted up for the British army 8th armoured division (Desert Rats).

The first model to reach a finished state last month was the Invictor Tactical warsuit which came out of the now ‘old’ space wolves combat patrol box from the shelf of shame. It has some additional bits from GreyTide Studios (this is a recurring theme, mainly as I have a tub full of printed parts!)

It received what I’m tactfully calling a ‘tactical loincloth’ as well as a shoulder skull as extra decorative armour. The Invictor only gets one pairing of weapon options with the incendium cannon being fitted here with twin ironhail autocannon being rear ‘holstered’

Next up to gain some colour was the chaplain on a bike, which came as an swap out option from the magazine for the librarian in terminator armour in the standard space marine combat patrol. I tried to head into painting this with a ‘how fast can I finish it’ mindset and for this I went with a citadel contrast paint appropriately called ‘Contrast – Space Wolves Grey’ to give a quick overall base with some free built in levels of shading. Looking online and discussing with those who have far more hobby / setting knowledge than me chaplains are often armoured in all black regardless of the Chapter they are attached to so having this several shades darker than the rest of my averagely painted wolves feel lore appropriate.

From then on was where the ‘do it quick’ aim fell down slightly moving onto gold trim, books, chains and purity seals all took me a fair amount of time. This mainly is down to my brush skills, most importantly the accuracy of brush strokes can often leave something to be desired and with my usual base coats and I can retouch any over paint back to Russ Grey but have made the mistake of trying to touch up contrast paints once before and know that its not possible on a small scale without it ending up patchy.

I have been periodically adding 3D printed parts from GreyTide Studios set called ‘Primal Hounds’.  For the Chaplin I resisted the temptation to heavily Wolf up the bike with my box of resin bits and instead stuck to a single Skull and Horn shoulder pad that is very similar to the much larger ones adoring the Brutalis Dreadnought which will come in a later post. Now I’ve followed the trope of ‘zoom and enhance’ on the image and unfortunately I now can’t help but see the car crash of paint that makes it up, but at a few feet tabletop distance it just about passes muster, honest!

One of the pitfalls (and there are many) of having access to 3D printers and the internet of files is that £300+ giant resin Games Workshop models become within reach at a smaller price for similar proxies. The GW resin version is designed as part of the new generation of floating tanks with what I personally can’t un-see as many landing gears along the base of the models. These are used as the ‘repulsor’ technology in lore, this proxy has been remixed to include classic Rhino style tracks instead which I personally prefer and comes with the added benefit of being significantly more stable on the table than a flight stand!

As is obvious from the patchwork pre primer colour this has been an on and off again project to print in parts over what I think is the better part of a year and a half.

Moving onto something more in keeping with the original “Jagdpanther Juni” sentiment we finally come to some models based in our reality and history (Not that I will be around to experience the 41st Millennium nor do I think I would want to be!) my aim for these is to assign them to the Rats and the early war efforts in Africa.

Now the question is if Jeeps, Bren Carriers, Stuarts, Matildas and Cromwells all had roles in this particular campaign is one I do not know the answer too but I have no doubt that anyone ‘in the know’ will let me know if they did!

I’ve decided to paint up my WW2 collection as the 8th Army desert Rats and as such these tanks got a desert finish. This was achieved with a zenithal prime and then coats of Dark Sand from Vallejo, Sepia wash and then a dry brush of a lighter brown with Vallejo’s Iraqi Sand.

Following that it was into the picking out the details like tracks, running gear, and various bits of stowage on the models in appropriate colours. For these and the basis of the paint schemes I have been using the Colours of War book for guidance as well as a collection of YouTube videos.

The final part was to apply some waterslide decals I picked up from Warlord games. Both front track covers got a Regiment Number and Divisional Rats symbol (I think the wrong way round…) and the turrets also got a common symbol in this case a triangle (from the square, triangle, circle available) defining them as part of the same squadron, again I don’t believe this is historically accurate but here we are!

So almost against the better guidance of the challenge (in my defence the files had been sliced and already on the printer USB) I printed two more vehicles in the form of a Bren Carrier and a SAS Jeep to add my growing Desert Rats collection (I should do a post on that…)

I think I got the scaling slightly wrong in part compounded by the fact that they are models from different designers with the Jeep being more what I understand is ‘heroic scale’ but for games amongst anyone I am likely to play I would hope it wouldn’t be to much of an issue (if nothing else it is a bigger target for lines of sight)

These were only primed very late in the month and busy life and booked weekends (forging Knives another post maybe!) has meant they were almost destined from inception to not make the cut this month.

As eluded to in my previous post I have been making my way through the Aeldari combat patrol. I now have all the standard patrol built plus the optional Wraithguard which are a magazine optional swap out. The Wraithlord certainly meets the ‘vehicle’ definition if nothing else due to its size and comparison to the warsuit or dreadnought, more in question are the Wraithguard which are also artificial robotic constructs with the soul of an elite Aeldari warrior, but slightly smaller in stature as well as the windriders.

Although a ‘failure’ to reach a tabletop painted level in the scope of the challange the fact they were clipped, cleaned, built, based and (mostly) primed is an overall win for working through the backlog trying to catch up with hachettes relentless subscription delivery schedule.

So the progress count is 4 from the backlog of which:

• 8th Army
  • Cruiser boxed to tabletop painted
  • Matilda primed to tabletop painted
• 40k
  • Invictor Warsuit boxed to tabletop painted
  • Chaplin on a bike built to tabletop painted

Unfortunately the ‘negative’ count Vs the challenge is 2 with the Bren Carrier and SAS Jeep being printed but only reaching base shading and primer coat respectively.

The super heavy tank didn’t get moved and continues to gather dust on the shelf of shame unfortunately. The Psychophage did get built fully, based and primed but only really as part of a wider batch of doing bits so I can’t really claim any specific progress on that!

So the final tally is only 2 models net up on the challenge which given the length of this post shows it really got away from me! Onto next month!