The First Custom Units For WW2 "TANKS"

Here they are, the first two custom units for ww2 "TANKS". Both of them are Soviet artillery units, and I decided to publish them together in one file. Next to the new units I also created a new crewmember and a new ammocard.

The "Guards Artillerist" will fit next to the other (official) Guards crewmen, and I think he will serve his duty pretty well.

The new ammocard "Rain Of Fire" was influenced by a card of "TANKS The Modern Age", it gives the Katyusha a devastating ground attack.

You can download this expansion (PDF) from my googledrive at

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11R3ZrSEnL9aYxZosBn0B_24uLPFH-8FP/view

Just to give you a small preview, what will come next, in the next posts I am going to take a closer look at the SU-76s by Zvezda and the Plastic Soldier Company, and they will be compared in a third post. There is also the Katyusha left, which also will get a closer look, and in another post you will see, which modification were done on it.

And it seems, that in the next week I will turn the focus to some cold war stuff, reviews, battlereports, finished models, custom units, all that crap, stay tuned for that.

The next custom units will show up at the weekend, the KV-2 on which I took a closer look in the past (this post), and a first German custom unit, who would not like to use a Panzerkampfwagen VI or VIII (reviews coming soon) in the game.
And maybe I will add an addition to the rules containing all model abilities since not all of them are included in the rulebook (update: Done and can be found here).

Closing this post with a classic from my youth, in the clip you can see some BM-13 in action.

Rügen'46 Gangs Of Sassnitz (2) Сибирские ветераны

For my last years first game of "Rügen'46" I had planned that we would first play a simple dungeon, using only two figures per player, to get warm with the rules. Followed by a simple round of racing, some lines about that game can be found in this post, the third and final part added some more units to the game for each player.

After I showed off two squads of German troops in powerarmour (this post), today I am going to show you the (Neo)Soviet forces which were used.

The commissar in the middle of the pictures obove was one of the squadleaders for the Neo-Soviet forces, just as Karl Heinz von Diskowitz was for his faction. The figure was taken from the Warlord Games "Siberian Veterans" box, on which I took a closer look at in this post, and painted in a similar scheme as all Soviet figurs that can be found on this blog.

Sorry to say, but I can not remember which was the second figure in that team, that is why he is accompanied by the squadleaders of another faction on these pictures.

The two female figures are the leaders of the Soviet factions forces, the figure on the left side is a miniature of Mariya Oktyabrskaya made by Stoessis Heroes, reviewed in this post, the figure right of the commissar was also made by Stoessi, it is a miniature of the Soviet sniper Lyudmilla Pavlychenko, which was (as Mariya Oktyabrskaya) a historical person.
I think, that I may repaint them when I will have the time for that.

Next we have one of the fireteams, taken just as the commissar from the "Siberian Veterans" box too. In the third part of the game, the two Soviet females got five of the veterans as an additional troop. These faction represented what was left of old Mother Russia.

Since I can not say which five figures I took, I made pictures of all of them. Please note, that there are some more figures included in the box.

But at least I think, this guy was not included in the game.

The next squad was another faction from the East. In Stalingrad a new government was made when the old world changed forever in Sassnitz in the year 1946.

Guided by comrade comissar, for the Neo-Soviet faction I choosed to use my modified Plastic Soldier Company Soviet Infantrists minis. I can not say which of them were used, but you can find some pictures of them in this post. Maybe I will get a single sprue of them in the future to give them a small review.

As usual, things not always are happening as supposed, and I did not find the time to finish the kits I wanted to this weekend, but today I managed to finish them, and they look great. The templates for the cards for them, they shall be used as custom units for "TANKS", will get finished tonight, that I can make a testprint tomorrow after work and them publish them via this blog.

Zvezda 1:100 Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Stuka Zu Fuss

A closer look at the 1:100 Sonderkraftfahrzeug 251/1 Ausführung B modelkit made by the Russian producer Zvezda for its "Art Of Tactic" wargame range. My mate Olli suggested to make a custom unit card for (future "TANKS" games) for this model, and I agreed. When he ordered this thing I took the opportunity to review it. You may excuse some missing bits, it was some weeks ago when I had this kit in my hand, but I try my best.

Without any words left, let us take a look at the kit which is included in this game expansion:

The kit comes in two grey plastic sprues which are just a little bit softer than the green plastic which is used for Soviet "Art of Tactic" models, maybe it even is the same stuff in grey color, since this plastic is harder than some of the grey plastic I already knew. And do not let me start with the Allied kits for the game. Since their tanks are not included in the current batch of reviews, you may expect to get a closer look at them at the end of the year.

The quality of the cast is great without any sinkholes or ejectormarks which would be seen, when this kit is built. There is minimal amount of flash and moldlines to remove, but this should take no big efford.

As all other Zvezda wargaming kits, this halftrack can be build without the use of glue, but the plastic takes normal modelglue very well and binds pretty fast.

This overall impression for this kit is good, also it is pretty low priced. The overall grade of detail is good compared to its scale. Even the tracks are not bad but they are still kept simplified. I guess that the newer "Art Of Tactic" expansion kits contain better designed tracks. While there are some more Zvezda kit reviews in the pipeline, in some of the next minireviews we will see some of the less detailed tracksets.

I give this kit my thumbs up, and since this was not my kit which is shown in this post, sooner or later this kit will find its way to my workbench.

My mate Olli built the kit and had no issues except for the launcher parts, these things are pretty small and he had to redrill the holes of the rockets to make them fit together properly.

The last picture shows the Zvezda Sd.Kfz. 251 Ausführung B model compared to two (w.i.p.) Plastic Soldier Company Sd.Kfz. 251D (the modernized version of this halftrack), both equipped with some infrared parts made by Heer46.

On a first look the proportions of the models seem almost equal even when they are different versions of this halftracked vehicle. They could be used side by side in any German army. I think, that the rocket launchers could be used on any manufacturers 251 with some little modifications.

When Olli has finished the paintjob, I will take a picture of this and create another custom unit for "TANKS". The inofficial KV-2 expansion for "TANKS" hopefully will be finished on Monday, before it will go online, I will have to get to my local copyshop for a testprint of the new cards.
At the moment I have further 2 (3) Soviet tanks on my desk, if I manage to finish them this weekend, they will get their custom cards too (including some equipment and doctrines), as well as the Maus will.

But before that happens, the next post will take us back to Sassnitz again.

Zvezda 1:100 Ju-87 B2 Stuka

A closer look at the 1:144 JU-87 B2 Stuka modelkit made by the Russian producer Zvezda. This kit belongs to Zvezdas range of 1:144 plane expansions for their "Art Of Tactic" wargame. I think Zvezda gave up this game since its official homepage is dead. Or at least was when I looked the last time. Since half of the internet fails today, I could not check it.

By now I own 3 kits from this range, and when my mate Olli got this kit, I used the opportunity to look at it. So let us take a look at the content of this box:

The kit comes in a single grey plastic sprue. The material is softer than the green plastic what is used for other Zvezda kits. In future reviews we will see, that the grey stuff generally is softer than its green counterpart.

Only 8 parts will be needed to build this plane, and the quality of the kit is ok, but the grade of detail is very basic and could be way better. There are no sinkholes and only minimal flash can be found. The body has to be cleaned because it has a major mouldline all arround, but the other parts are ok.

The clear part for the cockpit comes as a solid piece, what was already known before from other Zvezda kits. There is no room for pilot and gunner figures or torsos and the rear AA machine gun is missing completely. Slightly disappointing but what was I expecting to see?
Maybe I really should try to vacform some canopies.

The second sprue in this box contains 2 parts to build a stand for the plane. It is included in every "Art Of Tactic" plane expansion. It seems solid and not too bad and would be a decent model stand.

The decalsheet seems like it is printed in the same good quality than the other Zvezda decal sheets I know. This one contains some generic numbers and Balkenkreuze. I had no time to test them at the moment, but there should be no issues with them.
If you want to use decal setting and/or decal softing solution there is the chance that it may damage them, I had this issue with the decals from Zvezdas Hawker Hurricane.

This is a pretty basic kit, with some grade of detail, but most details are missing. The missing supports of the rearwings could easiely be scratchbuilt, adding the AA gun would take some more efford since you would have to drill into the clearpart.
Adding these tho things already would improve its look.

For a simple gamepiece this thing is ok, but if you want something more, you should get something better. Eduard offers various versions of the Stuka in 1:144 scale. Or you may find the Revell "Micro Wings" Stuka which I built some time ago.

According to my mate Olli, this was built without any issues, and after he built this plane, we compared it to the Revell Ju-87:

Just take a look for yourself, you will see a lot of differences between these two. The Revell model was shown in a previous post, and while its overall detail is mediocre, it beats the Zvezda JU-87.

Both planes were made for the planes expansion, and by now I finally have all special abilies created and wanted to show them up to you, even when it takes some more weeks to finish this.

I copy/pasted this part of the rought draft of the rules, I think I should not have to explain them, just read for yourself:

The new Special Abilitiy for all tanks:

AA Gun

This model gets 3 attack dice against air units.

New Special Abilities for planes:

Plane

This model can only shoot targets entirely in front of it.

Constant Movement

This model has to move in every phase of the round.

Dogfighter (x)

This model gets (x) additional attack dice when attacking other planes.

New Special Abilities for air defense vehicles:

AA fire (x)

This Model has (x) Attack dice when shooting at planes.

Penetrator Rounds (x)

This Model gets (x) attack dice when attacking Models with with 0 Basearmour.

(the name of this may be changed)

Does not look bad or does it? Another thing I made some thoughts about were the AA guns for the British and the American forces and I decided, that both vehicles I made up could be choosen from either the USA or the UK.

Then one of these two doctrines, both costing 0 points, must be chosen to mark the country for which the model stands:

In British Service

The player may choose to keep one of their die results and re-roll the rest when Shooting while Stationary with this model.

In US Service

Treat this Model as making one less Move than shown on its Speed token when calculating its target's Defence dice.

Sounds pretty simple, and it is. This way each nation has at least 2 different AA guns to choose from. Since I may add the Ostwind, I also may add the Canadian Skink tank to choose, playable like the Italians in "TANKS", what can be seen, when I take a closer look at the Italian expansions for "TANKS".
Actually, I could do this in the next post, but first it is time again to show some some built models in the next post.

Update:
I uploaded the video of this post to my youtube channel.

Hobbyzone Small Corner Module For 26mm Bottles

A closer look at the small corner module for 26mm paint bottles made by the Polish producer HobbyZone. Since my amount of paint bottles is growning slowly but steady, not only with paints but with a lot of "little helpers" and other stuff, I need more room for them.

I already built some painttrays, they can be seen on this picture, and while they work well, I wanted to try something new and ordered this thing. It is priced below 10 Euros what is fine, and HobbyZone is offering more various trays for paints and stuff, that you can build your customized working station.

I hope this makes sense, but with no further words left, let us look what is inside this box.

All parts came packed in bubblewrapped foil, and with them a simple construction advice. The material is MDF or stuff like that, and it seems, that the parts were not done using a laser but using a CNC machine.

The parts are nice, I did not find any recess material or surface damages. Following the instructions, when needed since it will build easy even without them, this thing took about 5 minutes to construct and needed no glue, all parts fit very well.

If you use this thing in a corner, it will roughly take 30x30cm or little less than a squarefoot on the desk. 

This is how it looks now:

Does not look bad, and it seems pretty stable. I think by the time I will replace my selfconstructed painttrays with more of this stuff, I have seen a nice rack by Vallejo, I think this could be next.

I recommend this thing. Bought for 8,96, this tray is worth every cent and will do its job very well. I will take a picture when it is integrated and add it to this post.

Update:
Fits and sits well on in workspace.

-

Yesterdays roguish Montagsmaler meeting was nice. I started to work on the new scenery pieces and my mate Olli built and started to paint some Zvezda "Art Of Tactic" kits, including the one which I will review tonight, includig some rambling about the (work in progress) plane expansion for "TANKS".

And YAY, I doubled my youtube subscribers from 1 to 2, maybe I should quit my job and concentrate on this.

And finally, Olli gave me his cards and boxes of the two missing German "TANKS The Modern Age" expansions, that I will take a closer look at them this week to complete the German range too, as I already did for the French, and will do for other nations in the future, even for the British.

At the moment I have over 10 reviews in the pipeline, but I do not want to spam with them since there is always something on the desk to write about.