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On the cover of a recent Miniature Wargames magazine was a free sprue of SneakFeet from Wargames Atlantic. Of course in any other place these would be space hobbits or halflings. Another place calls them Ratlings.
I borrowed some spare round bases I had and constructed the four models.
They were a little challenging to put together for me. You certainly get a wide choice of arms and heads, I wasn’t always sure about the best arms to use. However quite pleased with the end result.
The Maus was a German World War Two super heavy tank that was completed in late 1944. Five were ordered, but only two hulls and one turret were completed before the testing grounds were captured by advancing Soviet forces It is the heaviest fully enclosed armoured fighting vehicle ever built at 188 metric tons. It was armed with a 128mm gun and a coaxial 75mm gun. The Maus was intended to punch holes through enemy defences in the manner of an immense “breakthrough tank”, whilst taking almost no damage to any components.
This Maus came in the Operation Unthinkable starter set for Clash of Steel. One of seventeen tanks in the box.
This is the sprue.
The model was a relatively simple build.
I kept the tracks off the model to paint separately.
Having recently constructed the Zvezda Maus, it’s interesting to compare the two models.
They are pretty much identical.
However from a modelling perspective, the Clash of Steel version is much easier to put together.
I then gave the Maus a white undercoat.
The yellow of the plastic can still be seen, but I wasn’t trying to do a thicker base coat, this was about setting a primer for the sand base coat later.
Next step will be painting the model a sand colour.
The Maus was a German World War Two super heavy tank that was completed in late 1944. Five were ordered, but only two hulls and one turret were completed before the testing grounds were captured by advancing Soviet forces It is the heaviest fully enclosed armoured fighting vehicle ever built at 188 metric tons. It was armed with a 128mm gun and a coaxial 75mm gun. The Maus was intended to punch holes through enemy defences in the manner of an immense “breakthrough tank”, whilst taking almost no damage to any components.
I’ve always been impressed with the 1/100th scale models from Zvezda as well as being good quality plastic miniatures they are also reasonably priced. I was intrigued to see that my local model shop had the German super heavy tank Maus in their range of Zvezda kits.
I think it might have been priced wrongly at £3.50 as similar boxes (i.e. the bigger boxes) were £7.00. So I bought two for potential objectives or models for alternate history games set at the end of World War Two.
The model comprises two plastic sprues and look detailed and I think it will capture the feel of this monstrous tank.
The sprues have sat around for a while, but having recently purchased a similar 1/100th scale 15mm Maus from Battlefront I was intrigued to see the comparison.
The next stage was to construct the models, even though it says snap-fit, decided to glue the model together. I was going add some weight to the model too, so give it some heft and ballast. I think a super heavy tank, even at 1/100th scale, should be “super heavy”. However, I didn’t have any weights to hand. The model was not as simple as I thought it would be to construct, I had issues with getting the gun the right way around, but got there in the end.
This is a large 15mm model, as compared to the M18 Hellcat in the same scale.
The next stage was a white undercoat.
I have the Operation Unthinkable boxed set containing the American and Soviet tanks. The GF9 Operation Unthinkable boxed set, the American versus Soviet, contains 21 tanks. Two of these are the M18 Hellcat.
The M18 Hellcat is a tank destroyer used by the United States Army in World War II and the Korean War. Despite being equipped with the same main gun as some variants of the much larger Sherman tank, the M18 attained a much higher top speed of up to 55 mph by keeping armour to a minimum, and using the innovative Torqmatic automatic transmission.
This is the GF9 finished model.
This is the sprue.
The model goes together quite easily. I like how the track sections are complete parts.
The turret was a little trickier, but got there in the end.
I gave the model a white undercoat.
The next stage was to paint them, using Army Painter Army Green Spray.
The next stage will be painting the tracks.
The FV601 Saladin is a six-wheeled armoured car developed by Crossley Motors and later manufactured by Alvis. Designed in 1954, it replaced the AEC Armoured Car in service with the British Army from 1958 onward. The vehicle weighed 11 tonnes, offered a top speed of 72 km/h, and had a crew of three.
A few decades back I wrote an article about a modern era English Civil War, called Wessex, that was published in Issue #43 of Wargames Illustrated in April 1991. I posted some photographs of the Saladin Armoured Car from The Tank Museum and said of possible Wessex scenarios: You can easily imagine how these armoured cars would have been used for reconnaissance, keeping down unrest, and defending key installations against attack.
So when I saw Battlefront were releasing a 15mm FV603 Saracen and the Saladin Armoured Car for Team Yankee, I thought it was time to reboot my Second English Civil War and start painting some models for it.
This is a new release from Battlefront. I ordered both the Alvis Saracen and the Saladin Armoured Car packs.
There are three models in this blister.
The hulls and turrets are resin, and the wheels, and main weapon are metal.
You have the choice of adding a commander or having the hatch in the turret in the closed position.
I went with the closed position.
These models go together really easily.
It is a simple matter of gluing the wheels to the hull and then adding the hatch and the weapon.
I the gave the models a white undercoat.
The next stage was to paint them, using Army Painter Army Green Spray.
The next stage will be painting the wheels.
The FV603 Saracen is a six-wheeled armoured personnel carrier built by Alvis and used by the British Army.
After a visit to The Tank Museum I posted a photograph of the Alvis Saracen. I wrote: As part of the Second English Civil War, you can imagine the use of the FV603 Saracen to patrol urban areas and to suppress armed resistance.
A few decades back I wrote an article about a modern era English Civil War that was published in Issue #43 of Wargames Illustrated in April 1991.
So when I saw Battlefront were releasing a 15mm FV603 Saracen for Team Yankee, I thought it was time to reboot my Second English Civil War and start painting some models for it.
This is a new release from Battlefront. I ordered the Alvis Saracen.
There are two models in this blister. The hulls are resin, and the wheels, and main weapon are metal.
You have the choice of adding a gunner or having the hatch in the turret in the closed position. I went with the closed position. These models go together really easily. It is a simple matter of gluing the wheels to the hull and then adding the hatch and the weapon.
I the gave the models a white undercoat.
The next stage was to paint them, using Army Painter Army Green Spray.
The next stage will be painting the wheels.
After thinking about it for a while I have ordered the Battlefront Militia Group and Pickup Trucks for Team Yankee.
I like the concept of armed militia and pick up trucks with HMGs on board, they had been on my wants list for a while. They could also be used for games in Wessex: The Second English Civil War for insurgent and militia forces.
You get four pickup trucks, each armed with an HMG.
There are four resin trucks, with metal wheels and gunners. The wheels went relatively easy onto the resin trucks. The rollers are a little over scale, but these are nice models.
The gunners I stuck to a piece of wood to paint separately.
Then I gave the models a white undercoat.
Next stage will be painting the base coat.
This was one of those models that I liked the idea of. If you have ever seen the special edition of ALIENS, you will remember that the Colonial Marines used automated sentry guns to defend the colony from the aliens. I am pretty confident that these models are inspired by that film. In the pack you get two identical sprues that allow you to build two turrets mounted with twin grenade launchers, and two with twin heavy stubbers. It also includes ammo crates and control consoles. The models go together quite easily.
There is quite a bit of undercut on these models, so I had to do a double spray for the undercoat.
I gave the guns a base coat of Citadel Leadbelcher. The ammo cases I sprayed with Army Painter Army Green Spray.
The next stage will be a wash.
One of the Clash of Steel Starter Sets have been on my wants list ever since I found out about them at the beginning of the year. I ordered Operation Unthinkable boxed set containing the British and German tanks.
I decided I would add to the game by ordering the other Operation Unthinkable set, which contains American and Soviet tanks.
In the box, as well as the rules, counters, and dice, are twenty one tanks.
For the Americans you get
The Soviets have
Here are the sprues from the box.
What I didn’t realise was that the T54-1 model can also be made up as a T44 or a T55 as the different turrets are included. This gives even more flexibility over just using them as T54-1 tanks.
I thought that these would make ideal models for gaming scenarios from the Hot War series of books by Harry Turtledove.
This is the Operation Unthinkable Workbench.
On a recent visit to Warhammer World I purchased a blister pack of four metal Dwarf Engineers. Within the blister are the four dwarf models, separate weapons and tools, and four 25mm square slottabases. The first thing I did was clean up the models, sorting out casting lines, and the little bits of metal that are on the model from the casting process. I then based the models, I slotted them into the bases and added some sand.
The next stage was a white undercoat.
The next step will be starting to paint the models.