TANKS The Modern Age: Custom Unit #3

The Zvezda Bradley which I showed in the previous post offers a good base for another custom unit for "Tanks The Modern Age". 

The new unit card is based on the Soviet BMP-2 tank and offers the same values, also included is a weapon card for the TOW launcher, which can only be equipped by this vehicle. At the moment we did not find the time for a playtest, but this should work fine.

The PDF including the new cards is available from this link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dUV45YQemgKF8rwEUKqF1NzE-39w2DFF/view?usp=sharing

A good moment to mention, that the two previous made custom unit cards were redone and now published in PDF too.

The 4th and last custom unit, at least for this moment, will follow tomorrow.

Zvezda 1:100 M2A2 Bradley

A closer look at the US M2A2 Bradley APC from Zvezda. This Russian producer not only makes scalemodelkits, also it has several ranges of wargames with mostly simplified models, usally, like this, in 1:100 scale.

This kit comes from Zvezdas "Hot War - Battle for Oil" wargame.

Normally the modelkits from this range cost twice as much as their "Art Of Tactics" counterparts, but I had the opportunity to pick up 3 of them for half the normal price.

This offers the chance to take a (closer) look at this kit:

This kit comes in 2 sandcolored sprues, containing 14 parts to complete the model. All parts are nicely sculpted and casted, I did not find any sinkholes or visible ejectormarks on all 3 kits. There is almost no flash, but minimal cleanup is needed before putting this thing together.

This kit can be built without using glue, the fit of the parts is very good.

The decalsheet seems like it is printed in the same good quality than the M-109 sheet, I had no time to test them at the moment, but there should be no issues with them. But both include the same set of generic tank numbers and tactical signs.

Also there is a mistake in the spelling of Bratley, spelling it Bredley as you can see on the picture above.

All in all once again Zvezda offers a nice, easy buildable model with this Bradley. One minus are the frontlights which are casted as solid blocks without any details, but otherwise I could not find any issues with this kit except for the fact that it comes will all hatches closed.
Compared to their first 1:100 gaming pieces, this is a step forward, especially the tracks got more care by Zvezda.

Anyway, this kit is a nice addition to any 1:100 cold war/modern US army.

After about half an hour, this kit was built. Even when I built it only temporary without any glue, there are almost no gaps which would need filling. A rough measurement shows that is kit probably hits its scale. I would like to mention that this model has slight differences compared to the picture on the boxtop.

I like its look and will have a proper use in the future. You should have read it in the post above.

My Method To Apply Camouflage Netting To Tanks

Building a kit out of the box makes fun, painting the finished kit gives you something special, but adding some extras and modifications will make the finished kit to a true unicate. In this post I will show you, how I apply camouflage netting to tanks. This method was found some years ago in an old forum, which does not exist anymore, now I had the time to test it for myself.

You do not need much to do this modification, you will only need a model of your choice, some Greenstuff and a needle.

First I mixed the Greenstuff, then I applied a flat patch over the designated spot. For this demonstration I used an old Italeri JS-2 fastbuild kit. It comes from the testbox, where I have some old models on which I test new methods of painting and modifications.

After that I used the needle and started to push little holes in the flat surface, you do not have to worry about this process, just keep pushing. Whith the needle you can trim the form of the net if you want to.

The whole procedure took about 5 minutes and the result is promising. Please note that this is only a testpiece, do I did not put too much efford in this.

On the picture below you can see a slightly modified 1:100 Zvezda M2 Bradley APC (inspired by this blog) with some camouflage netting applied and already basecoated, with a layer of paint this already looks great. I am curious how this will look when all colors and decals are applied.

As you can see, some modifications for models do not take too much efford and look great in their results. The Bradley above will get his NATO woodland camo pattern, then I will decide in which colors I will paint the new applied camouflage.

Faces Of War (5)

It has been a long time since I posted some of my Grandfathers war pictures. He took part in the African campaign of the second world war, but that is all I know.

But I want to share them anyway because they offer a more personal view on the war.

These pictures do not come in a specific order, I just took them from top of the batch. While I went through the rest of them, I mentioned that not all of them were made in Africa.

It seems that some of them were made at the homefront.

In this and the previous "Faces Of War" posting I tried a different way to digitalize the pictures. I will do this with the pictures from the other (#1, #2, #3) posts in the near future. That will be a good method too see which pictures I already had uploaded.

Dieses Werk ist lizenziert unter einer Creative Commons Namensnennung

 - Nicht kommerziell - Keine Bearbeitungen 4.0 International Lizenz. -

I updated the custom cards site with links to the official rulebooks of both "TANKS" games.

In the next days I will work on the new 2 custom units for "Tanks - The Modern Age". The first new card is finished, for the second I still have to build the kit and design the card, but with an optimization of this process it will go faster.

At the moment the new nunits did not get a playtest, but since they are only "reskins"of units which are already included in the game (US into USSR/USSR into US), it should not make any issues to use them for the game.

We will see.

Also the 2 artillery units got redone. Tomorrow I will have printing testrun, then the updated cards and also the new cards will be available as PDF next week.

PAH Helicopter Expansion For TANKS The Modern Age

A closer look at the PAH helicopter expansion for "TANKS The Modern Age" by Galeforce 9. It is a remake of TANKS with an advanced ruleset. Also, it is a spinoff of the tabletop game Team Yankee, which is based on the same named book. I still have to read it, but I have read "The 3rd World War. The Untold Story" by General Sir John Hacket and it seems both books play in the same fictional universe.

First let us take a look at the 1:100 BO-105 PAH modelkit which comes with this expansion:

Once again Battlefront miniatures offers a nice modelkit without any issues. Not this, not that, if you read one of my closer looks at other BM modelkits you should know everything about this kits quality.

The flightbase is casted in good quality, gives you two height options and offers the choice for magnetization, but it works fine in my Cobra/Hind helis without magnets. This are not the actual parts included in the box, but the parts in this box are identical to them.

After a look at the included modelkit, now let us take a look at the unit itself:

The BO 105 PAH shares its Initiative of 7 and its Armour of 3 with all other helicopters from the game (except for the French 20mm Gazelle helicopter). With 3 hitpoints it is pretty weak and except for its 5 dice missile attack it is unarmed. This restricts its attack abilities because of the special rules for missiles but for 23 points this is strong unit for every German platoon when eqipped with a good crew and extra equipment.

The other cards included in this expansion are:

6 crewcards are included, first there are 2 hero cards for German use only.

The pilot "Günter Weber" offers for 5 points not only an initiative boost of 2, also you may roll a dice after an attack, at a 5 or 6 the helicopter can change its elevation. This seems very powerful for hit and run attacks.

"Friedrich Wulf", the German gunner, gives 2 initiative in the shooting phase and lets you re-roll 2 Attack dice when the helicopter has a speed token. This is strong crewmember especially since this helicopter is only armed with missiles which have special rules.

The remaining crewmembers can be used by all other nations. The "Dead-Eye-Gunner" lets you upgrade one hit to a critical hit, for only 3 points, this gunner may get down helicopters pretty fast. The "Sharpshooter Gunner" could be a pretty powerful addition, its pretty high cost gives you the advantage that your enemy has to draw 2 cards when hit critically and you have to decide which card counts and which would be discarded. The "Inspired Commander" grants additional 2 Initiative for 4 points.

While these 3 crewmembers can join every vehicle, the "Cunning Pilot" can only give helicopters plus 1 initiative in the movement phase. This is is a cheap (only 1 point) but relatively useful pilot.

Finally 4 equipment/doctrine cards are included in this box.

As also included in the HIND and the Cobra expansion, "Countermeasures" and "Defense Maneuvres" cards are included in this box, both are very useful for defending attacks, worth 2 and 3 points this equipment may save your helicopter in critical situations.

"Spearhead" gives the vehicle which has equipped the card the chance to move before the game starts. This may be ok for 2 points, I still did not figure it out, its use may depent on the actual game setup. The last card included is "Ambush", when discarded this card grants you a massive initiative boost in the shooting pase of the actual round. This may not only be useful for the PAH, as I would use it on low initiative tanks like the T-55 variants.

Overall this is a pretty nice unit when equipped with the right stuff. Following the German "First Panzer" (hehe) special this could be a powerful unit for a reasonably price, compared to the point costs of equal equipped other nations helicopter, for example, a fully equipped HIND may easily cost more than 50 points compared to this little thing with only 43 for a well equipped PAH.

The difference could be a Marder or even a Leopard 1.

The modelkit included is made in good quality. What could be seen as an issue is the fact that there is neither a clear canopy nor a cockpit included, but since this is a gamepiece, it is ok.

With the experiences made from a first game with air units, in future games these small flyers will be tough opponents with a potential high killrate. 

For a rough size comparison I re-uploaded the picture below of the PAH with a Revell 1:100 from this post. The final picture of the post comes from my mate Olli and shows the helicopter in finished state.