Winter Panthers for Tanks

Some time last year I mused on buying into Gale Force 9s new Tanks game as discussed here

Plastic Panthers

I played the first "Organised Play" campaign using mainly Cromwells (and for shame) Comets - something of an achievement as the campaign was supposed to be set in Normandy - I refer you to my earlier comments M'Lud, however the second campaign is late War Eastern Front and even I have limits so I needed some new toys.

I decided to get those Panthers painted, and in a fit of enthusiasm decided to try a whitewashed winter camouflage scheme - actually I initially undercoated them white then decided in a "sod that for a game of soldiers" moment to try a winter scheme as I was already half way there :-)

So here's the finished products. No decals (yet) but looking at pics there are many "real" vehicles where everything was over-painted anyway, so I may yet not bother.

So suitably inspired I'm now looking to expand my winter tanks collection, and I'm going to give this another read for inspiration.

Building an Impetus Army - Just in case Santa got the note!

I've been asked a couple of times by the guys in the shop about playing Impetus and choosing your armies, so I thought this would make an interesting post topic (I hope you agree!). What follows is a list of things I think you should think about before you start.

1. Scale
OK I know this seems stupid but "some" people (looking at you Mark) seem to forget that you really need an opponent. Make sure whatever you are buying is in the same scale as the local gaming group, unless you are ploughing a lonely solo furrow, it really helps if your toys are the same scale as your likely opponent. In my area this means 28mm for preference. There are several advantages here. 28mm is easily available, and although the individual figure cost is higher than 15mm and 20mm, you will use fewer figures per unit, so 28mm also tends to be cheaper. Lastly , if you are of "a certain age" they're still big enough to see :-)

2. Cost
The next thing you need to have in your mind is budget. Historical wargaming is not expensive compared to the Fantasy \ Sci Fi stuff around at the moment, and if you are used to paying GW'esque prices this is probably not such a problem. That said do a little bit of a costing per figure to give you a rough idea, and if its looking too rich, maybe think again as if you cant hit the playing points level, you probably wont get to play.... As a general rule historical infantry are about £1-£1.50 each in metal, cavalry between £3-£5. Plastics are cheaper

3. Time
One thing non historical gamers sometimes are surprised by is the size of historical armies. There are a few that can be built at low figure counts, but most are going to be 100+ infantry and at least a couple of dozen cavalry. That can be a significant painting time commitment.  Impetus isn't a "boutique" game with a few figures and simple rules. Building an Impetus army is a much bigger and challenging project. Of course it is worth the effort, but it is a lot of effort and will take you months not weeks to complete.

So that's part 1. If you are still interested I will look at what you should think about when choosing an actual army.

Cheers!

15mm Panther Expansion for Tanks - "Making your Mind Up!"

So started playing the new Tanks game - see earlier post, and thought you may be interested in the kits. The Panther\JagdPanther expansion is rather an interesting model which I think in some ways reinforced my initial feelings that this game is worth a look, but there are some questions about the direction it can \ will take.

For simplicity I'm going to call it the Battlefront (BF) model rather than Battlefront\GaleForce9 as otherwise my fingers will fall off, and Plastic Soldier Company (PSC) for a comparison.

The expansion itself is a rather large blister pack containing two sprues to allow you to build either a JagdPanther or a Panther.

You also get the relevant Tanks game cards for both and a hero commander card that is not available in the starter set, plus a couple of duplicate cards you already got in the starter but are useful anyway. Lastly there is a short assembly guide printed on the back of the full colour insert \ cover, showing a Panther Ausf A in Zimmerit anti magnetic paste - which is rather naughty as the model is actually an Ausf G and has no Zimmerit. In fact the image is a retread of the box art of BFs Panther Ausf A platoon - which is something I may come back to later.

Cost is somewhere between £5.50 and £7.00 depending on your source. For comparison a single Panther from PSC is £5.50 or four for £20.00 but of course you don't get the Tanks game cards.

The two sprues are interesting - both models share the same lower hull and running gear so you can only build one model and will have a pile of spare bits. If you were rather resourceful you could have a go with magnets or similar and have the upper hulls interchangeable if that's your thing. or you could build the Jagdpanther and use the spare turrets as emplacements - or you could bin them :-)

The other thing that initially puzzled me was that there was a lot of "spare" bits on one half of the sprue that were totally extraneous - extra ball mounted hull MGs, a spare cupola, different exhausts etc. None of these were needed and the cupola wouldn't fit the turret anyway as it already has one. So what were they for? Then it hit me. The sprue was actually a conglomeration of an older sprue that had been designed to be packaged with the resin models to replace at least some of the metal bits, and at a later date a new sprue has been added to replace the resin bits. They have probably included it because it contained some bits of stowage - spare wheels and tracks etc. I'm not sure what this says about the company and their design capability in that rather than including these in one sprue when at the design stage they decided to shunt the two together??? Given the number of bits on the extra sprue that are actually useful is rather small this seems a particularly wasteful approach. Why could they not get it all on one sprue? I suspect this has a lot to do with BF using "traditional" design rather than 3d CAD like PSC. I don't know if this is continuing with BFs more recent models or if they are \ have switched to CAD? Here's the old bit ringed in red so you can see what I mean. A close inspection shows one sprue dated 2012 and the other 2015.

Ok I can hear the exasperation building - get to the model!

So I stuck one together as a Panther. The instructions are clear and simple to follow, or rather would be if there were not so many extra and unusable parts on the sprues. The plastic is user friendly and assembly was fairly quick and pain free using side cutters to remove from the sprue, an ExActo knife  to clean them up and Humbrol Liquid Poly to glue the bits together. Parts fit nicely with the possible exception of the cupola hatch but that may just have been "finger trouble" on my part. It certainly looks the part. Although there is no mention on the packaging or instructions this is pretty clearly an Ausf G looking at the glacis, turret and exhausts. There is no Zimmerit which is a shame, but other than that it seems a nice model................... except the side skirts. I stuck them on and immediately the alarm bells rang. They just don't look right. If you take a glance at any of the skirted panthers around or in wartime photos it is instantly clear the skirts usually cover the top of the road-wheels and tyres. In this model they end above the wheels clearly leaving the tracks visible. I disapprove on principle. The JagdPanther is a breeze to build and looks rather nice.

This is of course very much a rivet counter \ trackhead thing, and if you didn't have it pointed out or don't really care it is probably not an issue. If you are you could always leave the skirts off I suppose, or build a new set out of plastic card but that's a lot of faff. I checked the Plastic Soldier Company Panther out and they seem to have got theirs better (or right?). Dimensions are a bit off - the Panther is a couple on mm too long and too high but that isn't a great problem - they certainly look the part.

So is this a deal breaker? Hardly. It's a nice model, and in comparison to the PSC one has fewer parts so less to screw up - particularly the much commented on two-part PSC tracks. The BF Panther has 15 parts if you exclude the skirts and extra stowage, the PSCF one has 23 (assuming I count them correctly). Zvezda, the undisputed Kings of Quick Build 1:100 (don't mention the Katyusha) are releasing a Panther soon and I would expect based on their previous performance that will be around 10 parts or less. On the plus side only BF will allow you to build a JagdPanther or a Panther G, which is something I suppose, but PSC will give you the parts for Ausf D, A & G.

I think the comparison with Zvezda is quite interesting because Tanks is aiming at that hybrid wargame \ boardgame slot, Zvezda's Art of Tactic  (AoT) game is squarely in that slot too, but unlike Tanks,  AoTs models are designed from the outset as gaming pieces in a board game style rather than reusing traditional wargaming models as BF has, and it shows. Less pieces, easy to assemble (mostly) and significantly cheaper. They also originally came with the cards required to play AoT but have now moved to downloads. I think this is the nub of my concerns for Tanks. BF have always been behind the trend as far as plastics have been concerned. They are improving rapidly, but most of their product is still tied to traditional hand made masters with the models cast in resin and metal (or plastic). At the same time PSC are ahead of the game with 3d CAD design and all plastic kits from the outset. That suggests BF lack the flexibility and footwork to release anything new for Tanks very soon as they have already exhausted the available models in the initial release and announced follow up. Games such as X-Wing, which Tanks openly admits to trying to mimic, have identifiable release schedules that help keep the game fresh and the punters coming back for more. I'm not sure Tanks can deliver that because it is tied into using "re-purposed" BF Flames of War models, which may suggest this is not going to be a game with long legs. Similarly reusing images from previous Bf Flames of War releases may be ok, but when the image isn't what is in the box there has to be a question asked - particularly as they have a similar but correct Ausf G image available to them.

So to sum up, the Tanks Panther expansion has quite a lot going for it, but some issues. If the comparison was simply as a model of a Panther tank PSC may well shade it, including on price. As an expansion for the Tanks game there is much to recommend in the BF model. In the end you pays your money and take your pick. As I have three of these already due to splitting starter sets and buying the expansion (yes I didn't think it through), AND my WW2 German armour collection reads PzI, PzII, PzIII, PzIV, MAUS I think I will get a few more (and leave the skirts off)

and lastly, I decided to give the whole "magnetise the hulls so I could swap them around" idea a go. I diligently made a spacer using a couple of ex GW slotta bases and stuck them in strategic places.

It worked well enough at first glance but on reflection I decided these models are going to get a lot of handling and it wouldn't take much to overstress the spacers, so I gave up and glued everything :-(  

Tank-Wing err X-Tracks err Battlefront\GaleForce9s new Tank Skirmish game

Which is called Tanks!

This is probably the first problem as it seems they have chosen a name that will cause most search engines to explode with a million results none of which will be what you are looking for. Anyway on impulse I bought a copy and was very pleasantly surprised. I was going to write a full Blog about contents and play-style etc but to to be honest Rollingcrits got there before me and sums it up pretty well in his blog here  rollingcrits .

So I will have a quick muse instead. The game is very close to X-Wing in a number of ways, in fact so close one could be forgiven for thinking this was just X-Wing but with tanks instead of TIE fighters. I'm sure that at Battlefront\GF9s HQ bunker buried deep within The Shire that a meeting took place where someone said "That X-Wing game is raking in the ££\$$ - wish we had something like that". From the outset this game is aimed at pretty much the same market -"Organised Play" tournaments. There are a number of differences \ issues that could or should be mentioned however in any comparison.

First, and possibly crucially, this game uses the Flames of War plastic 15mm 1:100 tanks. To digress a moment FoW was very late getting into plastics - Plastic Soldier Company stole a head start and in my opinion still hold it. Much of FoW production is still resin and metal with plastics bulking the range out. The quality of the FoW \ Tanks kits is excellent, but the range of plastic kits available is limited and all the current ones are used in this game. The omissions are noticeable - no Tiger or Churchill for instance. It is (in my opinion) highly unlikely that the parent company will produce any kits for Tanks separate to the FoW range due to cost implications inherent in plastic tooling, so new additions to the game after the first two release waves are unlikely, at least until FoW get back to refreshing their WW2 range which may well be some time as they seem to be concentrating on Team Yankee at the moment.

The second issue with Tanks when compared to Darth and his game is that the Tanks models are unassembled and unpainted, where X-Wing are not. The kits are actually easy to put together as far as I have seen, but unlike the Zvezda "Art of Tactic" models they're not really "quick build" either - you need glue and a little more skill and effort. I suspect that may put some players off - particularly the younger target groups. I mentioned these were FoW kits - actually there is one main difference. These sprues are colour coded to something like the base colours of each faction - so for instance the Germans are a sand yellow, USA olive green etc rather than the standard grey plastic used for most FoW models. That's a good idea as it takes some of the painting burden away from the casual or new player as sides are easily identified, but it also pretty much excludes their resin and metal kits from being released as part of this game in their current format. Further the Tanks! kits don't come with decals or magnets even though the "parent" ones do.

Lastly, it's not Star Wars. OK everyone knows a bit about tanks but it doesn't have the sex appeal of Star Wars. Given two other similar games, both with much better \ high profile settings (D&D and Star Trek Attack Wing) have both failed to gain traction in this market, why should Tanks succeed?

On the plus side the other components such as stat cards an damage counters are of high quality.

So to sum up, its a plagiarised version of a successful game with inferior models to X-Wing, with quite limited room for expansions, so why play it?

Because it works and seems quite a lot of fun. The mechanics are built on the tried and tested X-Wing ones, so they have a solid track record (pun), with some local rules that work rather well such as speed and shooting. The games are short and usually seem balanced, which is nice. Price point is good too - the starter set contains sprues to build 2 Shermans and either a Panther or JagdPanther, plus rules cards and counters for about £16-£17, with the expansions around £6-£7 each. That's not earth shattering at all - in fact from some angles its a bargain! All in all I'm rather happy with Tanks and would recommend it as long as you can live with the abstractions. Give it a try :-)

 

15mm WW2 German Heavy Metal - err plastic. Zvezda's Ferdinand

I like Zvezda's "Art of Tactic" range. They offer nice models at a very reasonable price. I was therefore quite interested when the latest batch included a Ferdinand Tank Destroyer.

This follows the earlier pattern with one (or in this case 2) sprues.

In theory this is a snap together kit but I always glue mine. As usual the instructions consist of a diagram on the back of the box, but unusually this one didn't come with the Art of Tactic data card - not sure if this is a packing error but I dont use them anyway so no loss.

Putting it together was child's play - really nice kit with only 10 parts. Detail is very good too.

And the finished result

Not out a ruler to it yet but it certainly looks the part. As with all Zvezda AoT kits there is no capability to have the commanders hatch open, and there are no decals provided, but given the price was £4.00 including p&p that's no loss. I would suggest taking the extra time to drill the end of the muzzle brake out as it looks much better.  For the TrackHeads out there this is the early Ferdinand with no hull MG.

Great model at a very reasonable price

Chinese update

Bit of an update on those Chinese Nationalists I mentioned in earlier posts. I've painted up the armoured element of the Early War army, a Sdkfz 222, some T26s and a BA10. There is also a troop of Shermans but these are for a later period of the war so will get done another time.

First up the T26s. Initially I tried a three colour scheme that had been used on some Chinese Vickers 6 tonners, but I gave up because a) it looked too much like the Japanese who would be the opposition, and b) I couldnt find any record of it being used on the T26s. In the end I went with a simple Russian green which they would have been delivered in in 1938, with plenty of mud, as T-26s seemed particularly prone to spreading the stuff around. There is no record of them being repainted and it looks like the Chinese just used them pretty much as delivered.

The BA10 is another Russian import, again in a simple green scheme

Lastly the Sdkfz 222. There are some photos that show these retained their German Grey , so again a non fussy result.

Everything will need another coat of matt but they are looking ok for now

More Gruntz - Polish Flyswatter

Just a quick update. My New Vistula Legion troops for Gruntz have been a bit on the back burner, mainly because other "stuff" keeps getting in the way. I'm still planning to expand both my Poles and Crusties for use in Gruntz, when I get some organisation done.

One quick addition to the NVL is this MANPADS (anti aircraft missile) team. As with the others these are from Oddzial Osmy from Poland purchased from Fighting 15s and theyre great little figures. These are the first I painted from scratch myself, the rest of the Detachment were a lucky ebay win but I think I managed to get them looking pretty similar.

I'm hoping they will provide some much needed light AA capability. Actually in Gruntz because of how the game mechanics work they will also provide an additional light anti tank capability - something I am a bit lacking in as well - assuming there are no air threats, so a nice force multiplier.

Chinese T26 - the tank not the menu code for sweet & sour

I've made a start on the T-26s for the Chinese Nationalist army. The models are Minairons and come 5 to a box for a very reasonable £17.00 - I got mine from the Plastic Soldier Company

The models themselves are very simple - two track units and upper and lower hull, with a choice of the single turreted A version or replacing that with the twin MG armed turrets of the B. The kit also includes a commander for the A version, and a hatch that can be open or closed. The kit has the early cylindrical turret with no rear turret MG, which marks them out as Model 1933s.

Assembly is simple and trouble free. The plastic is a different composition to others I have seen in kits of this nature, and for want of a better word "softer" without reaching the "bendy" stage some of the early Zvezda snap together Art of Tactic, but it seems to take normal Liquid Poly glue well enough.

Detail is adequate if not great, particularly around the running gear and sprockets which are basically smooth. As you can see in the pic the join between the upper and lower hull is not quite perfect on this one, but when painted I expect this to be invisible. Proportionally this looks very good, particularly the two turreted version. They come with an optional tank commander but as with the actual tank the detailing is "soft" and not as sharp as we have come to expect

I liked these little models, and I understand they were one of the first (if not the first) Minairons did. I also have some of their Pz IA and they have certainly improved, but the T26 is still acceptable if a little plain.  

This is kit with its 2 versions is a great because it adds another plastic (ie cheap) option to the gamer wanting to build an SCW or Early WW2 army. Given we already have the later conical turreted T26 from Zvezda and their flamethrower version we are starting to get spoiled for choice.

All the twos - Zvezda's SdKfz222 armoured car in 15mm

I have a new painting commission - 15mm WW2 Nationalist Chinese. I'm really looking forward to it too, as it is such a strange mix of vehicles and troop types.

One of the first up is a SdKfz 222 armoured car. I knew Zvezda did one in their "Art of Tactic" range and I thought this was a good opportunity to have a look at the kit. I did this with a bit of trepidation - while Art of Tactic models are usually described as quick builds, they sometimes are rather complicated, for example the Katyusha kit requires some fairly nimble fingers, and I had also read a few comments on TMP that suggested it was a bit of a challenging kit.

The kit is as usual for AoT reasonably priced at £3 or there abouts. It comes in 18 parts - which is quite high for AoT.

Suitably forewarned and with my trusty bottle of Liquid Poly AND a glass of whisky & ginger at the ready, I got stuck in, and..................

I think the guys on TMP must have been having a bad day. The kit went together quickly and easily, with no problems. I didn't particularly rush it but the whole thing took maybe 15-20 minutes and I was watching an episode of Grimm at the same time. All the parts were clean, well detailed and came off the sprue easily. I was very careful when removing stuff from the sprue not to damage any of the sharp edges and to clean the areas where they had connected to the sprue, but other than that it went together with remarkable ease. There was one tense moment right at the end when I was trying to get the hull top plate to seat properly with the sides, but when I lined it up right it clicked into place and stayed there, and almost no visible gap between the hull top and sides.

Overall detail is excellent, The only issue is the usual one with AoT kits - you cant model the turret hatch open, so no commander. In fact I would say this is the best 15mm version of the 222 I have seen, better even that the 1:72 scale ones available. I'm certainly going to pick up a couple for my 15mm Blitzkrieg era Germans. They say a picture paints a thousand words, so here's a close up which to me says only one - "beautiful"

Back from Vappa - York Wargames Show

No pics this time, just a bit of a report on my visit to the Vapnartak show in York last weekend.

Since "Vappa" moved out of the atmospheric, but poorly lit Medieval Merchant Adventurers Hall to the vast glass and chrome racecourse, the show has been constantly on the up and up.

I liked the Merchant Adventurers Hall as a building and a concept - we hear so much about "Guilds" if you play any of the fantasy\medieval role playing games, or even Medieval wargames, but to actually visit a guild hall helps put it into perspective. As a venue for a trade show it was far from ideal because the lighting inside was limited, and space was at a premium.

The new racecourse venue is much better. Lots of space, and well lit. Actually when I say lots of space, it is still a bit too crowded for my liking, but that may be because it is so popular :-)

This year was the first year for a while that I had not been in any of the competitions, so I had the experience of having to queue to get in with the rest of the unwashed, but on the plus side it did mean we set out at the more civilised time of 8:30am rather than the usual 6:30. Vappa is split over a number of floors - the racecourse building is unsurprisingly long and narrow, with most of the traders and demo tables on the ground and first floors, and the competitions higher up. There was a good selection of traders and the demos were also of high quality, and I would safely say Vappa is now the best show in the North East of England by quite a margin.

Now to the crucial question - what did I buy :0)???

Surprisingly little. Partly because finances had taken an unexpected hit over the run up when our hot water system needed some urgent repairs, but mostly I would like to say due to a most uncharacteristic attack of self restraint. I did pick up a box of Wargames Factory Woodland Indians to add to the expanding Muskets & Tomahawks collection, a canoe from Coritani to move them around, and some civilians to run away screaming on first sight of them. Other than that I bought an X-Wing Miniatures starter set - I've been sharing one with my "oppo" Paul but it was a bit of a faff so we now have 2 between us. And thats it! I managed to dodge any number of potential impulse purchases, D&D Attack Wing (and Star Trek), Malifaux, even some modern 28mm that was calling seductively from Empress Miniatures. This last one is mopt so much a dodge as a postponement - as soon as Two Fat Lardies bring out their modern version of Chain of Command I will be there like a shot. Other than that I tried to buy some cabin furniture from 1st Corps but they had sold out.

I also got to sit down and talk to Martin Goddard from Peter Pig about his new version of the PBI rules that was due for release this week, and played a turn or two. They seemed quite interesting, and I would recommend having a look it you want something a bit less full on than FoW. I dont think I will be heading off to play them yet, but maybe once the lead & plastic mountain is back under control I may give them a try.

All the best
 

Gruntz - Polish air support

Air support has arrived too. I liked the near future vibe, and I think its reasonable to assume in the future we will keep the current trend for stretching the service life of aircraft by refitting avionics etc. With that in mind I did a bit of googling. It seems Poland is currently looking for a new attack helicopter, with the Eurocopter Tigre, Mangusta and Apache all in the running. I ruled out the Apache, too instantly recognisable, that left the Tigre or Mangusta. I have a couple of Mangusta models in 1:100 that I picked up from a partwork a few years ago, and currently there is a partwork magazine on sale in Italy that includes a 1:100 (15mm) Tigre in German colours, so I ordered one on ebay, and some Polish aircraft decals from Pendraken. Not 100% certain which will win out yet, and I'm trying to avoid doing a full repaint but we will have to see. Here's the Tigre - still in German markings but should be pretty easy to swap for Polish. I suppose I could mess about replacing the rotors with some tilt fan engines but I don't know if it would be worth the trouble, and if I leave it as it is I can always use it to double up for a real Tigre should we decide to do some ultra modern games in future.

Vehicles are still an issue. I have some Old Crow models that I really like and will fit the APC and Scout roles, but I'm still short a tank. The Old Crow Sabre looks like an option, but I may be tempted to try and use something different like a wheeled chassis.

Gruntz Campaign - New Vistula Legion

We have been planning a little sci fi campaign using the Gruntz rules for a little while, hopefully to kick start in the New Year. I had originally intended to use GZGs "Crustie" aliens in 15mm , but was also hankering after something a little more mainstream - in fact I was pricing up some GZG Colonial Militia for the Christmas sale, when while browsing through ebay I spotted a lot of about 60 painted Oddzial Osmy (O8) miniatures New Vistula Legion, and made a pretty low bid. Much to my surprise, I won. The figures duly arrived, and I was rather impressed.

Here's the group shot of the platoon

O8 are a Polish manufacturer more well known for their 3mm scale Pico Armour, but they also have a small but comprehensive New Vistula Legion sci fi range, which as the name suggests, are a near future \ sci fi Polish faction. A quick look confirms that they are inspired by the modern 21st Century Polish infantry - they have similar helmets and equipment. The assault rifles could easily be modernised versions of the Radom rifle the Poles are adopting, however the SAW is pure Aliens "Smartgun" . The figures themselves are beautiful; nicely proportioned and posed, with some very nice detail.

Here's one of the fire-teams, which are currently deploying as five men with a SAW attached

The ebay seller said they were painted - and they pretty much were, and whoever did them had a good technique - far better than me nowadays. I wasn't too happy with the armour plates and helmets which had been left black - either by design or because he had got fed up with them (we have all been there) so I quickly painted them with green armour and gave the guns a little grey highlight to brighten them up a bit.

The bases were interesting. They came based, or rather stuck to what I initially assumed were very thin steel disks as they were magnetic (bonus). On closer examination the stuff they are based on is not steel at all but something flexible but magnetic. As the figures were all individual and I needed some doubles for specialists etc I peeled some of them off the bases planning to put them on 2p coins (cheaper than washers and still ferrous!). As soon as I started I realised the 2ps were going to be far to thick in relation to the other infantry and would look odd. I was about to order some 2 cm steel disks when I thought - why not try plain magnetic paper? I had some stiff magnetic paper I had used to hold figures in boxes. I dug some out and cut 2p sized discs of it, based the figures up and they look fine. The sand & pva helps give the magnetic paper rigidity.

In our Gruntz campaign these are going to be my core infantry. I'm going for reasonably mid to low tech, so no energy weapons, just projectile weapons and missiles, but the troops themselves being seasoned. Here's my heavy weapon teams, an anti tank missile. HMG and mortar.

Gruntz has a lot of scope for Specialists that can add some additional capabilities to your troops, and also some sci fi flavour. Here's the NVL Medic, Commander, and ECM Specialist Teams.

"My" NVL will also be using a fair amount of recce and scout units. This is a pair of recce specialist teams and a Sniper team.

Lastly there is a squad of Long Range Recce Patrol \ Spetznaz types. These have very high skills \ morale but are lightly equipped.

More Plastic Goodness - Zvezda A13 Cruiser Tank in 1:100

Mark - aka Geordie in Exile seems to enjoy winding me up.

Earlier this week he forwarded an email from PSC announcing they had the Zvezda Art of Tactic A13s available, along with some comment along the lines of "I may have to start looking at 15mm". This was something of a red rag to a bull as I had been extolling the virtues of the new generation of cheap 15mm to him for years but apparently to no avail. Maybe the emails all got sent to his "spam" folder?

As it happens I was waiting for this particular little model to land here in the UK. Zvezda's release schedule is still dominated by the requirements of their "Art of Tactic" game, rather than the requirements of us wargamers. Art of Tactic is a crossover board game with units represented by plastic models. The problem is that they use 1:72 for infantry and guns, 1:100 for tanks and vehicles, and 1:144 for aircraft (or 1:200 for larger aircraft), all priced at around £3.00 for a unit. This is something of a "curates egg". We get good quality 1:100 (15mm) tanks at a very reasonable price, but for us there is also the disappointment in knowing that the guns will never arrive in the "right" scale. The other interesting point is that Zvezda have been rather random in their releases, because they are concentrating on the Art of Tactic game rather than looking at the wider wargames market, they're producing models the mainstream wargaming companies would not look at in plastic, and the A13 is one of those.

OK the pedants will immediately cry out "thats not a Crusader!" and of course they would be right. However given the confused situation of British Cruiser Tank naming, I can understand how Zvezda  may get the Cruiser Tank Mk IV (A13 MkII) confused with Cruiser Tank MkVI (A15). It is a Mk IV, but you could make it a IVA with a minimum of work (cut the coax Vickers and replace with a slimmer Besa) or at this scale just not bother!

The kit itself is very simple and consists of 2 sprues with a total of 7 parts (plus the flag bit that is only used in Art of Tactic). The plastic is a little bit softer than what you would get from Airfix or PSC - I suspect this is to allow the "snap fit" to work.

Initially with Zvezda I didn't glue them, but last week my cat Otto (Carius) knocked a box of them on the floor and though there was no long term damage there was plenty of bits popping off, so this one got some Liquid Poly to hold it together. The assembly instructions are on the back of the box
 

It took less than eight minutes to clip the parts from the sprues and assemble them. The sprues were 100% flash free. Detail is very fine - a feature of many of the AoT kits and as a result they lack the overscale features we come to expect from mainstream wargames models. This is most pronounced in the 2Pdr gun barrel, which is very thin and fine, and has about a life expectancy of a few minutes on a wargames table, so I plan to replace it with some plastic rod before it gets painted, and the tracks and running gear which are frankly superb. The down side is like all AoT tanks there is no way to model them with an open hatch, which is a bit of a disappointment, and the smoke dischargers usually seen on the right hand side of the turret on tanks in a combat area are missing - but that last would take about a minute to fix with a bit of plastic rod..

Proportionally and dimensionally the Zvezda kit looks spot on, and captures the look of the real thing really well.

All in all a great little kit and well worth £3.00. Let me put that into perspective. Flames of War will sell you their multi medium (resin and plastic) version for £8.00. You will get the option to have an open hatch and a commander, but saving £5 a tank is damned attractive. QRF also do an A13 MkIV at £6 each, and Skytrex for £6.50, but still, thats twice the Zvezda price.

Well worth picking up if you want to do either France 1940 or the Early phase of the Western Desert campaign

Crustie Heavy Support

My "Gruntz" Crusties from GZG needed a bit of heavy support. The problem is the heavy mecha from GZG looks a bit weedy to my eye - particularly the bottom half - see pic.

However some time ago I saw a pic posted on an internet board of a conversion using the torso, arms and legs of the GZG Mech with some donated legs from another model. I shamelessly pinched this idea, so without further time wasting here is my new Crusty Heavy Mech

The bottom is a repurposed and reposed plastic Mech from EM-4 Miniatures plastic Mechs - £2.55 for 5!  with the arms and torso from a GZG Crustie Mech. I'm rather pleased with it

The Sheik and his Uninvited Guests

Terry, that nice bloke who has helped keep my car on the road by buying painted figures from me at regular intervals has asked me for one last project. He picked up some rather nice US Special Forces from Khurasan Miniatures and asked me to paint them. I choked a bit and then said "yes -  I can't paint anywhere near as good as the stuff on the site but I don't mind giving it a try".

A little later a packet duly arrived - 8 Seal Types and a pack including a terrorist leader figure, hostage and guards. I was not at first enamoured with any of them (except the hostage figure) as they looked a bit flat and two dimensional. Here was my first mistake - I underestimated the US Special Forces!

I undercoated them, and then my new Dropzone Commander Resistance army arrived through the post. Seal Team Six was put aside while there was a frenzy of DZC. When I returned, disaster - one of the Seals was missing! Clearly one of them had seen Sole Survivor and decided to do a Mark Wahlberg impression. Tearing my hair out I scoured the room, but to no avail. Finally I decided there was no option, so at 5:18pm GMT I placed an order for a replacement with Khurasan back in the Good Ol US of A. At 8:18pm Wahlberg reappeared - he had been hiding behind some Battlefront WW2\Fire & Fury stat cards, but on hearing reinforcements were on the way, he reappeared.

Now the team was reunited I got down to painting the Seals, and was happy to say my initial reaction was miss-placed. Up close these are rather nice figures, with lots of detail and nice posing - with the possible exception of the sniper who I would have preferred either kneeling or prone. I put "Zero Dark 30" on the DVD player and did some research. At the end I was rather pleased with the results - I thought the subtle use of different colours on the khaki background hinted at the digital camo teh Seals were wearing in the film, so I sprayed them down with my standard Army Painter matt varnish and called it a night.

Next day I was tearing my hair out again. All that beautiful (to me anyway) and subtle brush work seemed to have merged overnight into a sort of dull brown fuzz! I was not pleased, but there was not a lot I could do about it. Looking at them now, theyre ok, but not as nice as before the varnish - Damn!

 

The Terrorist and his guards were however a pleasure to paint, and again once painted they looked rather good.

So there you go - all getting packed up and ready to ship to Terry. I strongly recommend on Khurasan btw, particularly some of their Modern and Sci Fi Stuff, and as I found out, shipping from the US to the UK was not that expensive.

Gruntz - a distraction, but welcome

I'm enjoying my regular Dropzone Commander fix, but it was suggested we give Gruntz 15mm Sci Fi a try. Gruntz is a generic set of fairly "hard" sci fi rules written with 15mm figures in mind. There are no "official" figures, you just use what you want, and you build your units based on any background you fancy, paying points for each trait or factor.  I say they are "hard" sci fi because they are more grounded in "realistic" combat with ranged weapons than hitting each other with chainswords and the like (like DZC). That having been said, if you want to do that they will allow you to - though you may need some method of crossing the fire soaked intervening ground between you and your target.

Grunts are aimed at a tactical level down from DZC, so each figure represents a single soldier , who operates as part of a squad. They're based individually, but some specialists and support weapons are based in pairs or teams.

I've had a copy for a year or so but never got to play properly - partly because after DZC arrived it eat up my sci fi gaming time allowance, but I did manage to paint up a nice little platoon sized unit of about 30 figures. And therein lies the first plus point of Gruntz. You can play with a platoon of 30 15mm figures. Total cost of a reinforced infantry platoon is less than £20, and the figures paint up quickly and easily. I have a platoon of 15mm "Crusties" from Ground Zero Games, who bear a passing resemblance to the aliens from the film District 9, so I pointed them up and headed for the club, where Paul, my opponent for the night, had agreed to bring some opposition. There was another first tonight - we both had the rules on our tablets, which was a new step for us old fashioned folks, but seemed to work. I used the tablet to take the accompanying pics, which goes to prove it doesnt matter how good the technology is if the operator is a idiot!

So without further ado "Meet the Crusties!"

I went for 3 squads of six laser rifle armed Crusties, with each squad having two plasma gunners attached, plus a Medium Laser, a Commander, and finally a pack of Prawns (just out of shot) - vicious if stupid close combat creatures. The Prawns usually come with a herder, but I couldn't afford the extra points needed for him :-(, I also had a tripod mounted medium laser to give me some heavy weapon fire.

Paul had chosen a similar platoon organisation, however in addition to his three rifle squads and Commander, he had a medic, and what I'm sure my Commander would call, a "Fooking Tank". Each of his rifle squads had an anti tank launcher and a squad automatic weapon in support, all conventional projectile weapons, but his tank had a rather big laser.

The table was set out and we got started

The game played fast and was fun. Paul made the mistake of pushing his tank forward ahead of his infantry support, which resulted in it being deluged by plasma gun fire from the three Crustie squads plus the rather more dangerous support laser. The tank took repeated hits from plasma weapons, and although none of them were serious or caused a lot of damage the tank was being gradually shot to bits. This was made clear when a lucky laser hit caused a critical hit on the tanks targeting systems, making hitting anything at other than point blank range difficult. Paul tried to pull the tank back but a sequence of rather lucky plasma hits immobilised it and then the laser got in a killing shot - first blood to the Crusties. Also centre in the pic is the Prawn Pack heading enthusiastically for the ramp leading to the landing pad and what they thought would be a tasty snack of Humans!

The Prawns charged forward, straight into a withering burst of automatic weapons fire which decimated them and sent the sole survivor scuttling for cover. This was all part of the Crustie Commander's "Cunning Plan" in that it allowed a Crusty infantry squad to climb up a steep slope to try and attack a human squad. The humans were waiting however and opened fire as the Crusties cleared the top, causing 3 casualties, but the Crusties passed a rather difficult morale test and won the initiative to put down a withering hail of laser and plasma fire on the humans.

At about the same time on the other flank a human flanking move came up short when the squad took some heavy casualties and fell back to cover.

In the centre the last remaining human squad took a "lucky" hit from the Crusty support laser, but the casualty was saved by the quick intervention of the Medic team. It was clear however that he Crusties were going to win, so Paul called his men back and left the Crusties in control.

It was a really fun and quick game, and we both enjoyed it. I think we learned different lessons - certainly pushing the tank up unsupported was a mistake, and Paul was impressed by the Crustie Plasma Guns, whereas I have developed a healthy respect for his squad assault weapons, which were rather nasty. There is going to be some furious painting and reviewing of stats too - the Crusties are going to get a drop in morale value in an effort to make them cheaper as at 29 points a squad compared to the Humans at 21 points they're way too expensive.

Judging from this game, I suspect we will be seeing some more Gruntz on table.

If you are interested the rules are available as a download from Wargames Vault for under $10, great value, as is the squad builder which makes building your squads much easier. There is also the authors dedicated blog here Gruntz which has loads of useful stuff.