Chain of Command Germans

I finally got round to finishing off my Early War Germans. The plan is to use these with Chain of Command etc and they've been languishing due to a lot of external distractions... work [booo!]., dog walking [ok when it isn't raining and the café in the park is open] and World of Tanks.

If you haven't come across this yet I can only advise you to stay away... like some kind of wargaming-crack it will sap your willpower and absorb hours of your life that you used to spend painting! [...must have one more game... I need the experience to upgrade my Hetzer!]

Anyway... back to the infantry...

These were a bit of an experiment...I used the PSC spray undercoat to try and minimise the painting time and then dipped them in a tin of the Army Painter Shade stuff.

The verdict is a bit mixed: the undercoat spray is very good... the colour looks right to an occasional WW2 gamer like me and it did save a lot of time.  The dip was more of a mixed batch.... it's a good, quick way to shade figures [unless they fall in the tin as happened to one poor infantryman... covered in sludgey brown stuff!].

 

My main concern is the shineyness of the figures. Normally I'd wash them with some of my dwindling supply of GW brown ink [the good one... before they changed all their washes.  I picked up several bottles cheap at the model shop in Dorking a couple of years ago]  The ink leaves the figures well shaded but without too much glare.

 

The Army Painter Shade however seems to leave a very shiney surface over everything... the shading is fine but they are a bit too toy soldiery for me.  I think a matt varnish may help but my GW varnish is satin.  If anyone can suggest a decent Matt varnish I'd be grateful!