From DallasE - 1/56 Panzer I Ausf. Bs from Bolt Action/Warlord Games [Death Star][85 points]

Well, after playing Fredrick's excellent "Danzig Post Office" Bolt Action game a few weeks ago, early-WW2 fever has flared up again. Fortunately this coincided with a) a Warlord Games order pending from Frederick, and b) the "Tanksgiving" buy-two-get-one-free promotion. So I duly added three Pzkpfw I Ausf. B tanks to his order.

 

The models duly arrived and painted up very quickly indeed. They're 1/56 scale though - unlike most of the rest of my collection - so I boosted them a bit by putting them on bases. The models are pretty nice though - all resin except for the MG barrels and headlight, plus each one came with a metal commander half-figure.

I did them up in grey (Mechanicum Standard Grey/Dawnstone/Administratum Grey) with a Nuln Oil wash and light Celestra Grey drybrush on the panel edges. I did Corax White crosses as displayed in the Polish campaign, and small 3-digit tactical numbers using decals from the 15mm Team Yankee range (they fit).

Tracks were painted Steel Legion Drab, washed Nuln Oil, and drybrushed Leadbelcher. Some light weathering with Steel Legion Drab and the models were complete.

Here's the other two tanks in the Zug.

Here's one of the Panzer Is with an old Bandai 1/48 Pzkpfw II just to show scale. I think that the base really helps even them out.

 

I painted one of the spare commanders to go in the open hatch of the Panzer II. They're nice early-war tankers wearing the "schutzmutze" protective helmet and beret.

So that's 20 points x3 for the tanks, 5 points for two half-figure tank crew, and a 20-point bonus for the Death Star. The Death Star theme is of course "hubris, of questionable design" and I think this suits the Panzer Is to a tee. The hubris of course fits well with Hitler's invasion of Poland and his thought that Britain and France would look the other way (or if they didn't, he'd easily dispose of them as adversaries). The "questionable design" element works too - the Panzer I was lightly armoured and equipped with only two machine guns - pretty lame even for early WW2.

So with that I've entered Quadrant XII! More next week! 

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Welcome back to the Challenge, Dallas!

These early (earliest?) panzers look terrific. I appreciate you providing your paint recipe for them as I'd like to try to do some early war German stuff myself, and I very much like how these turned out.  I won't belabour the peanut gallery with my well known opinions on the 1/56 'standard' for 28mm figures. Suffice it to say that these models do a wonderful job in underlining the petiteness of the Pz I. :)

Great work on this Zug!

- Curt