Keeping the updates fast and consistent as ever.
Tonight we played another alt-history tank game at my club, so for the past week I'd been painted up a few vehicles to give some more options for the Soviet player. Along with pushing off a pair of older projects from the "to do" pile (one of them) which have been sitting around for far too long at this point.
I'll lead with pictures of the models and end with a dump of some images of the board. So first up here's the German stuff.
Super Heavy Tank DestroyerStarting with something silly. I'll post the images below of this unpainted to show how little of the children's toy this is based on was left over. ...This more being an effort into using that toy which I'd had left unused for ages than looking for something which could ever be used in a game. Though perhaps one day the Soviets will have more large tanks for this to actually go up against.
Its pretty much an E-100 Flak turret on tracks (most of the bits coming from a 1/48th Tamiya Tiger kit). I'm thinking used as a Tank Destroyer on the Russian steppe somewhere. Ah, its more in the style of something you'd see in a video game than in reality, but all the angles look cool. ...Even if it is a bit daft.
BergepantherOriginally this started out as a regular old Bergepanther using Heer 46's conversion kit - albeit with extra armour and a cab added. It just wasn't working out for me and my alt-history tastes though, so I stripped it back a bit and went for a different route.
Its partially based on a few real vehicles. The plow isn't a 100% recreation, but its a "good enough for wargaming / I have a game in a few days, screw it". The real one with a plow was a salvaged Panther made from a hodge podge of bits with a stripped down turret. Though here I went for the random bits, but the turret wasn't doing for me so instead I went for an autocannon. Which with the armour hopefully will keep it kicking if anyone shoots at it whilst its clearing some rubble.
It'll probably do for just a piece of terrain (which is what it was used for tonight) or perhaps a scenario vehicle - clearing as many roads as possible to help the Germans get off the board in a break through.
T-44Now onto the Soviets. First from the pair of vehicles is a second T-44, going with the first vehicle which I already have made from the Blitzkrieg Miniatures T-54 resin kit.
With this one I wanted to be a bit more accurate to the real vehicle than my first attempt. With the game coming closer and general fatigue of having this sitting unfinished for so long I rushed some of the details, but its a fair representation I think.
T-4/ 76One more German tank in Soviet service. I mentioned this is based in concept on a pair of real vehicles - a post-war Bulgarian bunker made from a Panzer IV fitted with the gun from an SU-76, and a request during the war to convert captured German tanks to mount Soviet guns which wound up not really going anywhere.
And just an update on that other Soviet tank I've been working on. Nearly done, but I haven't pushed myself to finish it off. I'm not happy with how the rear stowage area looks and will probably do my best to cover it up with some cloth or something.
Finally, some images of tonight's game. Or rather a few of the 3 we played ...as the first two were rather short (on account of me being a my usual gitish self).
Over the past few week's I've redone all of my winter terrain with new snow and mud effects. Hopefully things look a bit more realistic now. I'll eventually go through my tank collection and update the paint jobs and effects on those too. The pictures aren't the clearest, but hopefully you'll see the difference between these and the "before" pictures I'd posted earlier.
There's also a few new bits. Another ruin (the one with the StuG) and flooded craters. With plans to add a load of tank traps and rubble piles in future. I'd also like a proper winter mat (instead of the flipped over regular one we use ...which is completely untextured) so we play with a less stark white and instead something which mixes the snow and mud together a bit better. I've seen home made ones which look all right, its just finding the time to make one.
As a last point (...yeah I know I just said "finally" a minute ago), elsewhere I've started (yet another) project. Or at least an off shoot of this one. The infantry side of my WWII stuff hasn't really been the main focus of this thread. I've decided to split off the less obviously alt-history figures into their own thing - which whilst realistically would still be suitable for post-1945 games, may as well be a bit more historical for the sake of being able to play regular WWII games with them.
Lately then its been a work in progress to repaint and add models to that SS collection I have. Mostly made from Heer46 and CP models figures with those winter parkas the SS had. With a decent number of other figures - largely Perry - done up with the same uniforms sculpted from clay to fill in whatever roles those companies don't do models for (heavy machine guns, radios, more sergeants etc).
This will also mean perhaps a few vehicles too. I'm not into the main German tanks much, so if there are many they'll be stuff like the Marder series and other converted or captured tanks, or things like armoured cars or recce vehicles (I was thinking of doing one of those Panzer 38ts with the 20mm gun turret used on Sd.kfz 222). A Marder III has already been started, and is just awaiting a pair of crew figures to be converted.
Expect a thread on those to be started at some point. Depending on how much interest there is at my club for the Eastern Front setting it may be ongoing, or I'll just keep it to the initial post and things will be more sporadic from there as I work out how to actually play with the figures. I was considering doing a Soviet force - either all in Snow Suits as Siberian Veterans, or as some sort of Engineering groups wearing armoured bibs (I know two companies doing both suits and bibs, and could easily sculpt either on other figures). That's probably way down the line however, and up in the air based on what's going on around here.
Anyhow, there's an update for this ...trimester (?). I'll see about getting around to posting pictures of the terrain more specifically - showing off the snow and mud a bit more. For a last image though here's some arty farty stuff done for the sake of ...arty fartiness showing off some Soviet elite infantry on patrol in some "dead" city (...hah, zombies
).