Tanks for, well, Tanks! - Russians

[Daeothar]

Last year (summer), I bought myself the Tanks! game by Galeforce9, thinking it might be a nice gateway game to get some people into WWII miniature gaming. ALso, the fact that its movement is template driven á la X-Wing would be a big factor in interesting people.

So, having assembled the box's tanks, I proceeded to give the game a whirl with The Voivod, my regular opponent. And he broke the entire frickin' game in the very first play... Basically to the extent that for us, it would just not be enjoyable to play without completely houseruling or rewriting the rules.

Now; I was warned about the simplicity and loopiness of the game beforehand by the numerous reviews on Youtube and several blogs, but to experience it firsthand, still was a bit of a disappointment.

More so because I wanted to like the game. But then, I suppose I still sort of do, but not for regular play. I am now thinking of, rather than selling the whole lot off, to use it to introduce my nephew to WWII gaming instead. He's a lot more casual and not at all ruleslawyery (he makes me feel like a coked out tournament player, and I'm very laid back when it comes to rules )

At last year's Crisis, I managed to blag me 5 Soviet tanks in 1/100 by Svezda for the princely sum of €3,- a piece, so I decided to start with those first (they were to be my initial faction for the game anyway).

And after the almost obligatory stint on the shelf in WIP-limbo, finally 3 of them have made it to finished status today, with two more waiting in line, which I'm hoping to finish up next. All there is left to do, is seal them with varnish:



These are the first models I've painted in 1/100 / 15mm ever, and I must say I really liked the experience.

I found some reference online on the markings, as I'm no expert on the matter at all. There doesn't seem to be much uniformity there though, so I just picked a few which I thought looked good. The slogan on the one T34-85 is supposed to say 'Tanks!' in Russian, so I'm hoping Google translate didn't let me down there...   

The final two tanks will be T34-76's, and I'm hoping to post them here soon. After that, it will be the German faction, with a Panther, a Stug, a PzIV and something  more, which I still have to source...

[Truscott Trotter]

They look excellent to me - never managed the Battle of Berlin white stripes on mine but it looks very cool

If you are looking for a simple but effective set of rules for tank on tank - Chain of Command might do the trick. There is a free download that includes armoured platoons - (still need the main rule book) but no need to use infantry if you choose not to.
http://toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Big-Chain-of-Command.pdf

They are designed for 250 yards or less combat so point blank fun and games - but then who wants to be the T-34 on the end of an 88mm shell at 3,000m? 

[Daeothar]

T(h)anks

Goes to show how little I know of the subject. I didn't know the stripes were associated with the Battle of Berlin; I just thought they looked cool, as I just had a collection of pictures of armour with some years with them, and the late war ones often had those stripes in one way or another. I had been thinking about summer/fall '44, so my German tanks would be usable on the East and West fronts (versus Russia or versus the US and/or UK).

For now, I'm finishing these for use with the Tanks! game, as I set out to do. I'm only doing a handful of tanks for each faction, so probably not enough for larger games.

But I'm certainly not ruling out the possibility that I might branch out at least one of the forces for use in a different ruleset. I've been thinking of doing an Early War FoW Dutch force for ages now (I even have the beginning of a force in the mountain).

And for 28mm, CoC does tie with Bolt Action for me right now...

They are designed for 250 yards or less combat so point blank fun and games - but then who wants to be the T-34 on the end of an 88mm shell at 3,000m? 

Not me, that's for sure...

[N.C.S.E]

Those are some of the best 15mm tanks I've seen. I've been meaning to get into 15mm again to play Chain of Command on the Eastern Front, but have been turned off by the look of all the 15mm tanks available on the market, especially when compared to the extremely good looking 20mm vehicles available (along with gorgeous (and expensive) figures. It appears however that I should give Zvezda a second chance...

Also, "Bronya" on your tank means more "armour" than tank in my (limited) experience of russian. The closer term is arguably the far more prosaic "TaHKI" (Tanki) (that's a crude rendition of the cyrillic on a latin keyboard.

[Daeothar]

Cheers for that, although I'm pretty sure there are much better examples out there

And I had been sort of afraid of this. 'Танки!' does seem to match the western word better anyway.

But it's not too late; I can still change it, and I wasn't too fond of the original execution anyway...

[The Voivod]

Playing by the rules is not ruleslawyering, sjeesh...

Sweet looking armour, dude, lovely weathering.

Shame about the game, but I'm sure I could be enticed to get some FoW at some point.

[Gunbird]

That is some very nice painting on them Russians Looking forward to seeing more.

Vovoid: Using FoW miniatures does not mean using FoW rules neccesarely.....tons of historical rulessets options

[cuprum]

Hi! The models are excellent. But the inscription is strange. On the Russian tanks usually wrote slogans such as "For the Motherland!" or the tank's own name, for example "Terrible ". On your tank you got the inscription you wanted. The word means in the Russian language and armor - and any armored vehicles, such as tanks.

[Daeothar]

Thanks guys; much appreciated

@ cuprum: I was indeed aware of that, but the idea was actually a bit tongue in cheek. See; the game I'm painting them for is Tanks! and on one of the tanks, is the word Tanks! get it? 

(Oh; and I will replace the current 'Armour!' with 'Tanks!' as suggested already)

Tanks! is a very light game, not to be take too seriously, and I'm reflecting that. The German, US and UK forces might well get similar 'wink wink' references when I get to them.

[cuprum]

Do not need to change! This word is used as a slang, in relation to tanks. If someone really decided to write a similar word on a tank, he would probably choose that word. 

[Daeothar]

Awesome; t(h)anks! 

[Tim]

T(h)anks

Goes to show how little I know of the subject. I didn't know the stripes were associated with the Battle of Berlin; I just thought they looked cool,

I've done the same for a couple of my IS-2s, they do look neat indeed.  My Berlin IS-2s still appear in games representing battles in 1944 with their other IS-2 pals though.  LOL