From BenF: Big Cats and Swimming Wagons (80 Points)

With the imminent release of an Operation Market Garden supplement from Toofatlardies, along with an even-more-imminent trip planned to Arnhem, I feel like some Market Garden related gaming is on the horizon. To that end, I've decided to start refreshing my British Paratrooper and German Waffen-SS and Heer forces for Chain of Command. As with all of my Chain of Command forces, I've gone down the 20mm route due to the availability and range of vehicles and the superb sculpting of some figure ranges. I've also been dabbling with some Battlegroup at the local club, and my 20mm forces would work equally well for that. 

Up until now, my WW2 collection has focused on the Normandy campaign, and so rather surprisingly I've avoided collecting some of the most familiar of German tanks, a Tiger. While I had a Panther, it was an older resin sculpt which suffered from 'bendy barrel' syndrome, so I've replaced the whole thing with a more suitable Dragon diecast.

My first part of this entry is a few Waffen-SS crew figures. I think Crew really add something to armoured vehicles, however it does sometimes look a little odd to have crew sitting atop a knocked out or burning tank on the game table, to say nothing of a regular cycle of knocking off and regluing command figures. To that end, I've magnetised the open turrets and figures using some rare earth magnets which I've got left over from a 1/300 aircraft project. I think this is a pretty neat solution, as it allows variety and, in the event that a tank is knocked out in a game, the commander can easily be removed before a burning marker is applied.

These five figures are from Battlefield/Blitz, and are sadly no longer available. As with all of Andy's sculpts, I like that they give the feel of movement and action while maintaining lifelike proportions and easy to paint detail. Happy to hear that Simon's Soldiers has commissioned Andy to sculpt many more figures to be released soon, so I'm hoping to bend Simon's ear into getting a pack of crew figures for my British forces sculpted up.

This lot are painted up as Waffen-SS tank commanders, suitable for Normandy through to the end of the war. While the SS was a reprehensible organisation, I must admit I do like the variety of camouflage patterns you can use when painting them up. 

Next up, it's the big cats. This Tiger I ausf E and Panther ausf A are both from the Dragon range of prepainted WW2 vehicles. While I do try to avoid having a Tiger on the table in platoon level games, the attacks of Kampfgruppe Hummel on Frost's 2nd Parachute Battalion around Arnhem Bridge would make for an interesting game. I made some minor modifications to these which consisted primarily of sitting open the hatches. I then painted both of them, looking for a relatively generic set of schemes so they can be used for Heer or Waffen-SS vehicles.

Next, it's a little Schwimmenwagen, painted up as an SS vehicle. I'm not sure who the make of this one is, but I think it could be a Hasegawa model which came with a 1/72 scale Focke Wulf 190. The driver is from AB.

Finally, it's a brace of Sd.Kfz 251 halftracks, a troop carrying 251/1 variant, and a 251/10 37mm armed vehicle, often used by platoon commanders. Both of these are the excellent offerings from Plastic Soldier Company, with stowage from the same kit, and foliage from Noch.  I've got one more to do, which I think i'll build as a 251/9 75mm armed support vehicle.

Well, that's it for this entry. That makes it 5 20mm vehicles, (60 points) and 5 crew figures (20? points) for a grand total of 70 more towards my goal.
Next up will be some 15mm ancients.

***

Great job Ben - always nice to see 20mm, and always nice to see some Big Cats come off the painting table.  Great work all around here, but I'm particularly impressed with the 251s...and even more impressed that you managed to get any of these PSC kits, I've been trying to get some for months... 

For points, the crew figures are halves, but I'm still adding a few bonus points for nice camo patterns and the interiors of the 251s, always a pain in the arse to paint.  Great work. 

Greg B