Zvezda Tigers for the Western Desert and ISU-152 for the Yom Kippur War

More work done on the massive order of Zvezda 1:100/15mm armour kits that arrived last week... This time it's two Tiger I's and an Egyptian ISU-152.

These are early-production Tigers I think and perfect for the Western Desert with their Feifel air-cleaners. Pretty easy kits to assemble with only a few parts - but be careful of the fit of the turret to the top plate of the hull. There's a plastic pin that fits in a hole and on both of my kits they bound up, so when you turned the turret it just twisted the pin right off. No problem, fixed that with magnets but it took a bit of faffing about.

These will be used for Flames of War and I love having a commander poking his head out. Unfortunately the Zvezda kits don't have separate hatches so I had to cut off the cupola, stick on an elevated hatch, and resculpt the cupola with greenstuff. I ended up using a thinly-sliced roadwheel for the open hatch but I don't think it's obvious enough to notice. Looks OK to my wargamer's eye anyway.

  

So that's the two models. As for paint I used Tallarn Sand but lightened somewhat with off-white. Washed Agrax and re-highlighted of course, with sponge chipping and decals from an ancient 1/72 sheet. YES I KNOW that Tiger 141's tac numbers should be white outline only (and I think that 231's should be red/white?) but this is what I had to hand.

 

Next up is a relic from the YKW, an Egyptian ISU-152 SP gun. To me these look so cool, I had to have one for my Egyptian force. It was built from the box but I added the pintle MG from a Battlefront sprue for looks-cool-factor and to match one that I saw in the AK Arab-Israeli Wars vehicle book. 

I painted this one Tallarn Sand with camo in Deathworld Forest and a medium brown. Again, to match the vehicle in the AK book.

Lots of stuff painted now for the YKW, I feel like I should put on a game soon!

Heia Safari and youm sa'id!

BATTLEFRONT Grants and Zvezda Pzkpfw.II for the Western Desert

Escalation continues in the Western Desert! I'd actually finished painting these Grants a couple weeks ago but had run out of decals for them. Sentry Box to the rescue, they had a set of Battlefront Desert Rats decals in stock and I was headed out to Calgary anyway, so when I got back I set to applying them and finishing the weathering.

The models are from Plastic Soldier Company BATTLEFRONT and are typical great quality and easy to build. 

Painting was the standard 8th Army armour formula: AK Light Earth, GW Castellan Green and Deathworld Forest for the camo, washed with Agrax Earthshade and tipped back up with the same paints. 

I didn't load these down with storage as I didn't want to obscure the detail on the rear deck. However each tank does have a tarp attached for shade.

They are pretty great models, I'm happy with how they came out.

Advancing towards the enemy!

While I was in Calgary more reinforcements arrived from Poland - a box full of 1/100 Zvezda models. The first one completed was this Pzkpfw.II. The Flames of War army list allows the Afrika Korps a Panzer II as a forward observer for the 10.5cm gun battery I've painted already. But getting ahold of a single Panzer II wasn't exactly easy.

Battlefront sells these in a box of four, but I only need one. They also used to sell a blister pack of one metal and resin model but nowadays that's a Noble Knight deal and they are $$$. So I looked on eBay for a single seller that had all the Zvezda models I wanted, and got this single tank for about 5 euros. It's tiny!

It did require a bit of conversion as the Zvezda kit (five parts!!) doesn't have an opening hatch. So I had to file the hatch flat and make some "open" hatches out of card. Not difficult. I also used a Battlefront commander with binoculars. He was wearing a steel helmet though so I cut off the head and replaced it with a Peter Pig head sporting the Afrikamutze.

The tank was painted GW Tallarn Sand, washed Agrax, and highlighted again, then chipped with German Camo Black-Brown. Done!

So that's the update... some infantry have arrived from Forged in Battle so I think I'd better get at those next. It's been a bit of a trip with that bunch but I will give all the details next time. Until then, toodles and heia Safari!  

Siege Weapons of Middle Earth

Having cleared most of the backlog of WW2 Germans from my workbench, I decided to take a break from painting all that Feldgrau and work on another partially completed project that has been collecting dust, a collection of Siege Weapons for my Lord of the Rings armies. This included the Gondor Battlecry Trebuchet and the Mordor Siege Bow, both by Games Workshop, three mantlets and a ballista by Zvezda, a Mordor catapult converted from a Dollar Store find, and a troll loader converted from a chess piece from the Fellowship of the Ring chess set. I covered the details of the conversion of the catapult in a blog post back in 2011 (just to give you an idea of how long these have been kicking around)

http://wpggamegeeks.blogspot.com/2011/01/dollar-store-mordor-catapult.html

The Gondor Battlecry Trebuchet and the Mordor Siege Bow and their crews are straight from the box. The mantlets and ballista are from the Zvezda Siege Machines Kit No. 1. My brother-in-law had bought the kit and was only interested in the catapult that came with the set, so I got the rest of the items as a windfall. I had picked up two troll chess pieces very cheaply off eBay as an alternative to the very expensive (and now OOP) Games Workshop figure that accompanies the Mordor War Catapult. I still have the second one unaltered that I might convert into an Isengard Troll by adding armour and a weapon with epoxy putty. Another project for the future.

While all these weapons can stand on their own, I decided to make bases for most of them with different themes depending on which faction they are associated with. The bases won't always match the terrain they are on, but all my LotR figures' bases have slightly different colour schemes depending on faction.

 The array of Middle Earth Siege Weapons before the wall of Gondor.

 

Zvezda wheeled mantlets providing protection for some Uruk-hai crossbowmen.

 

Zvezda ballista used by a crew of Dwarves.

Mordor Catapult converted from a Dollar Store find. The base is an old CD with sand, flocking, and grass tufts added.

 

 

Troll loader converted from a Lord of the Rings chess piece. The large 'rock' spheres are the plastic projectiles that came with the Dollar Store catapult.

 

 

Mordor Siege Bow and crew by Games Workshop.

 Gondor Battlecry Trebuchet by Games Workshop. The base is another old CD with the stone work made from squares cut from used plastic gift cards.

 

A 'before' and 'after' of the Troll chess piece. I sawed it off the original base and mounted it on a large metal washer to give it some weight. I had to build up the center with some epoxy putty as the feet of the original figure curved down a bit on the base it was mounted on.

I still have a few more details to add to the base the ballista is on, basically a few potential projectiles that could be fired, but otherwise I am calling this one done.

Have a safe and happy holiday. I have more LotR projects waiting in the wings, so stay tuned for more to come.