Category: workbench

Flames of War Cromwell IV

The Cromwell Tank was one of the most successful series of cruiser tanks fielded by Britain in World War II.

The Cromwell tank, named after the English Civil War leader Oliver Cromwell, was the first tank in the British arsenal to combine a dual-purpose gun, high speed from the powerful and reliable Meteor engine, and reasonable armour, all in one balanced package. Its design formed the basis of the Comet tank. The Cromwell first saw action in June 1944, with the reconnaissance regiments of the Royal Armoured Corps.

This is the Flames of War blister of the British Cromwell Tank.

In the blister you get a resin hull and turret and the rest of the model is in whitemetal.

You also get the option to make it a CS Centaur version.

See the full workbench feature on my Cromwell IVs. In the end I picked up a couple more to make a full platoon.

Forge World Grot Tanks

I picked up a set of Grot Tanks on a recent visit to Warhammer World.

The lunatic product of the deranged imaginations of grot riggers and scavs that have spent far too long basking in the insane genius of the Big Meks, Grots Tanks are diminutive armoured vehicles made to imitate the far larger Ork Wagons and Tanks.

The set contains four different variant chassis, tracks, exhausts and turrets as well as four fantastic Grot Tank Kommandaz and 5 different, incredibly shooty, weapon options.

Before making them up I had a good look at the pictures on the Forge World website.

There are many variations, but before I got started, I washed all the resin pieces. There is a fair bit of resin for the four tanks.

I then looked at the four main bodies and tracks deciding which was going to go with which and then cleaned up the resin.

The workbench feature on the Grot Tanks is broken down into four separate features, one for each of the Grot Tanks.

Grot Tank I
Grot Tank II
Grot Tank III
Grot Tank IV

Black undercoat for the Big Trakk

After giving the model a white undercoat, I wanted to give the main tracks a black undercoat.

I made a mistake. I used a can of Citadel black spray paint to paint the majority of the model except the flatbed. As you can see the results were less than satisfactory. The paint had dried and almost had a dusty look to it.

In the end I decided to respray with a different brand of matt black spray paint.

This seems to have worked better.

Flames of War German Panther A Platoon

I bought this box set as it was available at Hobbycraft for a much cheaper price than the list price.

The Panther is the common name of a medium tank fielded by Nazi Germany in World War II that served from mid-1943 to the end of the European war in 1945. It was intended as a counter to the T-34, and to replace the Panzer III and Panzer IV; while never replacing the latter, it served alongside it as well as the heavier Tiger tanks until the end of the war. The Panther’s excellent combination of firepower, mobility, and protection served as a benchmark for other nations’ late war and immediate post-war tank designs, and it is frequently regarded as one of the best tank designs of World War II.

Flames of War Tiger I E

The Tiger was feared so much by the Allies, that most German tanks were referred to as Tiger tanks.

Tiger I E

Tiger I is the common name of a German heavy tank used in World War II, developed in 1942. The final official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. E, often shortened to Tiger. It was an answer to the unexpectedly formidable Soviet armour encountered in the initial months of Operation Barbarossa, particularly the T-34 and the KV-1. The Tiger I design gave the Wehrmacht its first tank mounting the 88 mm gun, which had previously demonstrated its effectiveness against both air and ground targets. During the course of the war, the Tiger I saw combat on all German battlefronts. It was usually deployed in independent tank battalions, which proved to be quite formidable..

This is the Flames of War blister of the German Tiger I E.

Flames of War Tiger I E

I was quite surprised by how many parts were in the blister. This wasn’t going to be a quick model to put together, especially with no instructions!

Flames of War Tiger I E

The key was to find pictures of the finished model on the web and see if that helped.

See the full workbench feature on the Flames of War Tiger 1E.

Ork Kil Krusha Tracks

The Ork Kil Krusha from Forge World has a somewhat complicated track arrangements, however it is simplified somewhat by using large pieces for the tracks rather than lots of individual links.

The suspension looks quite complicated, but thanks to the clear instructions it was quite easy to fit it all together.

The tracks unlike the Big Trakk are only in four pieces, two of which lie on the bottom under the wheels.

The tracks do need to be fixed more securely to the leading and trailing wheels.

It was clear that the driving wheel would need to be placed carefully to ensure a snug fit for the tracks.

See the full workbench feature on the Ork Kil Krusha.