Thank you Gents
@Captain Blood: Me neither, but imho there's not much choice when it comes to nice Soviet sculpts. The Eureka ones are rather nice, but the price is quite prohibitive.
@Lord Spode: Yup, they are... Warlord Games figures often have a certain comical character I'm not really fond of either.
@rha.celt: Oh well, that's not as bad as it seems
I only have one regular opponent who's an highly accomplished painter himself. Thus we both are fully aware of how much time it takes to paint our stuff and thus we usually handle our toys with utmost care.
OK, enough small talk, bring on the armour!
First off is a 'liberated' M8 Greyhound to be used (as all the other vehicles in this post in fact) with my Fallschirmjäger force.
I simply love to use Beutepanzer and Beutefahrzeuge (loot tanks/ vehicles) with my Germans as it gives you a chance to model something 'unique' and tailor it to your own force.
This model is from Warlord Games and is quite a nice kit. Only the suspension is a little fickly, which is the reasons why this model got a base. I cut off the skirts and swapped some of the original kits wheels for some from a Warlord Sd.Kfz. 222.
I was quite sure to have seen pictures of captured M8's with exactly this modification, but alas I must have dreamed it.
Be that as it may, I also added some stowage and a crew figure to further 'germanize' the vehicle. The original, rather thick antennas were substituted with thin broom bristles.
Next is an early production StuG III from Rubicon Models. Not much to say about this one, except that it went together nicely. The tank commander is from Perry Miniatures.
Next in the queue is a StuH 42 (short for Sturmhaubitze or Assault howitzer). This actually is a bastard made from a Warlord Games StuG III and the Rubicon StuG. It started life as a straight out of the box StuG III. I think it was during the one before the last challenge that I messed up the paint job that badly that I almost threw it in the bin. Some time last year, when I built the Rubicon StuG, I decided to strip it and give it another try.
During the stripping process I damaged some of the parts badly. As the Rubicon kit comes with quite some options I hadn't used I carefully disassembled the Warlord kit.
First the 7,5-cm-StuK 40/L48 gun of the stock kit was replaced with the 10,5-cm-StuH 42 with Saukopfblende from Rubicon. Later the roof of the fighting compartment was carefully cut away and replaced with the corresponding Rubicon part. I actually preferred that one anyway as it has the typical very late war remote controlled MG-34 and a Stahlabweiser (literally steel deflector) in front of the command cupola.
Next I cut up the Schürzen of the kit and re-applied them in a field mod common later in the war.
Last but not least I added the rear stowage rack from Rubicon.
Last of the vehicles is the Opel Blitz, which is a Rubicon kit again. Already owning a pair of Warlords Resin version of this vehicle I've got to say what a beauty the Rubicon kit is, both in ease of assembly and accuracy. I didn't really invest much time into painting the cargo bed as I'll add some passengers at a later point.
Last but by no means least are some markers I built for Chain of Command. These are so called 'Jump off points' and in effect are the entry points for my troops to enter the table. They were built using various bits and pieces from the bits-box, but mainly Rubicon models American and German stowage kits.