Das Reich T-34s

So as I and James mentioned in our previous posts I am now the proud owner of some of the Forged in Battle "Das Reich" T-34s. Now these guys are not just any normal T-34 but they're specifically sculpted to show some of the minor changes the Germans made to an already excellent AFV in order for them to use them even more effectively than their Russian counterparts! These changes include the addition of sideskirts/schurzen, more stowage boxes, cupolas and finally optics from other German guns as they found the main gun optic in the T-34 lacking (obviously this isn't modelled on these tanks!).

This fantastic site HERE from good old Beutepanzer gives you plenty of information on the Das Reich T-34s and perhaps explains a little as to why Forged in Battle decided to produce casts specifically for them. The chaps at Flames of War did an official section on their website showing off one of the teams self made attempts at these iconic captured AFVs but their left a little to be desired in respect to their placing of the cupolas and the use of Panther side skirts. I don't deny that the end results were fantastic, even more so the oak leaf wearing Aufklarungs Platoon that Casey did to join them!

I've been gathering pictures and inspiration from various sources including period photography, other modellers works and colour slides from various publications. Below you'll find a small selection of what I've been trawling through and finally a picture of where the tanks stand in their painting process.

New building for the board

While Nate purchased his copious amount of new tanks (feel bad for pointing out those Das Reich T34s) I purchased a new piece of terrain for the board.

The building is from the Hovel 20mm range which I feel suits the Flames of War models a lot better than some of the 15mm stuff out there. I paid £15 for this at the Vapnartak event but you can order them direct from the website both painted and unpainted.

While there are a few casting issues and bubbles I can happily say I don't mind due to what this building represents.

The building itself can hold twelve medium based infantry stands in total and will look quite nice on the board once finished, which I should hopefully be keeping track of.

Vapnartak - York Racecourse

Couple of cool pics from a snowy trip down to York and a great day was had by all. Pictures are nothing amazing and don't do the day justice but a few shots of a fantastic Saga demo game, a pre-ECW game on a great table and a few pictures of the upcoming WestWind game called "Empire of the Dead" which features famous fictional (and not so fictional characters) like Sherlock Holmes, Jack the Ripper and various other Victorian nasties!

The game looks very interesting with an interesting initiative system and third party characters who move and act on a predetermined set of values and can move randomly. For example the synonymous "Peeler" or "Bobby" of foggy Victorian London who move seemingly randomly unless they see people committing crimes or assaulting one another or in the worst case find the victim of one of the players. Once this happens the Peelers blow their characteristic whistle and his comrades come running from all direction to help!

I myself picked up a load of bits including the VERY new releases from Forged in Battle of the "Das Reich" T-34s, modelled with side skirts and German stowage, some FoW Flak Nests, some resin terrain and markers as well as a new Munchkin card game!

Further work on the HS129

Coming thick and fast I know but here's some of what I took my inspiration from and what my current state of affairs is:

Achtung Jabo!

Dug out some old 1/100 Aitcraft I bought many moons ago before Battlefront actually released their HS129.

These are considerable larger but also considerably cheaper, unfortunately the chap who made them worked out of his own home in his spare time and I think he was a serving soldier and these are no longer available.

However I'd never done anything other than prime these and I think they deserve some work on them, thankfully with the new FoW V3 rules I only need one rather than the original three so I'll be painting a couple of different schemes and probably giving one to my mate James.

Below is the inspiration and what I've just done on the first victim!

M14/41s serving Maria Theresia in Budapest!

They're about as finished as they'll get for the moment as I move onto other vehicles and infantry!

M14/41s, almost finished and Jagpdanther hit with some matte!