Bolt Action King Tiger with Zimmerit plastic kit
The King Tiger is in a couple of variants available at Warlord Games, with the plastic kit in cooperation with Italeri being the youngest incarnation of the German heavy battle tank.
The King Tiger, or sometimes called Royal Tiger, has the internal designation of Sd.Kfz. 182 or Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf. B Tiger II. Ausführung B and Tiger II showing it as a derivate of the Tiger I tank, but improved with sloped armour that made more use of the thick armour plates of the Tiger tanks. After initial problems with the reliability, it proved to be a remarkable battle tank towards the very last month of the war. The Tiger II was the pinnacle of the heavy tank series that actually got into production, unlike the Panzer VII Löwe or Panzer VIII Maus that never really left the drawing board (or in case of the Maus just had some mock-ups or prototypes).
Bolt Action IS-2 Heavy Tank
The heaviest plastic tank kit Warlord Games offers for the soviet forces is the IS-2 heavy tank - a perfect match for the Bolt Action campaign supplement The Road to Berlin and worthy enemy for the King Tiger. Time to honour it with a review on its own.
The IS-2 (Iosef Stalin, in Wnglisch often called JS-2 for Joseph Stalin) was the successor of the IS series heavy tank and counts as one of the most powerful tanks of World War 2. It was developed to withstand the German 8,8 cm guns and to counter Tiger and Panther tanks with the 122mm gun. It went into service in April 1944 and was used in the final offensive of the Red Army towards Berlin. Of the IS-2 were 3.850 units built between 1943 and 45, making it the most numerous tank of the IS series and triple the number of produced Tiger I. Besides being field by the Red Army / soviet forces, the IS-2 was part of the Polish and Czechoslovakian tank forces towards the end of the war. To the end of the war, the IS-3 was introduced as a derivative of the IS-2. IS-2s often would carry soviet soldiers into battle, offering valuable protection from enemy infantry. Warlord pays respect to this and adds a sprue of plastic infantry to this kit.
Bolt Action King Tiger with Henschel Turret
Another iconic tank from the late war period is the PzKpfw VI Tiger II, in this review we're looking at the resin kit by Warlord Games picturing the Ausf. B without Zimmerit and a Henschel turret.
The Tiger II, also known as King Tiger or Royal Tiger, was the derivate of the Tiger I, and combined the thick armour of the predecessor and the sloped armour of the Panther medium tank. The pattern was the pinnacle of German tank development and production, and after initial problems with reliability it proved to be a remarkable battle tank. The Tiger II first saw service in summer of 1944, at the Invasion of Normandy by the Allies, and was issued to the Wehrmacht as well as to the Waffen-SS heavy tank battalions. A total number of just below 500 units was produced until March '45, of these the first 50 were issued with the Porsche turret due to bottlenecks in production of the Henschel turret. In the first months of the productions, both variants of the Tiger (I and II) were build simultaneously.
Bolt Action Campaign The Road to Berlin
With the Ostfront supplement for Bolt Action, the campaign covered the "entire" activities that involved the Russian armies, beginning with the Winter war and Khalkin Gol. But this new supplement, Campaign The Road to Berlin, covers the very last years, from June 1944 until the crossing of the Spree.
Warlord Games goes into the detail on these years of the late war. Very much into detail indeed, with 148 pages this campaign supplement is the biggest so far. Campaign New Guinea is a couple of pages short with 132 pages, followed by Battle of the Bulge and Duel in the Sun both with 124 pages. So you get quite the bang for your 19.99 GBP or 30 USD. Shown above as first images of this review are the two covers, with the final cover (left) and the early cover (right), presented by Osprey in one of their product catalogues. This happens quite often, to promote an upcoming book, before the final decision on the artwork is done. We have already seen this with Duel in the Sun and Campaign New Guinea.
A Warhammer store on my doorstep
Earlier this year I saw an unexpected advertisment by Warhammer Recruiting on my facebook feed. They are looking for a Store Manager in Koblenz. Wait a minute? Koblenz? That's my (former) home town. That would mean ... that can't be ... a "real" Warhammer Store right on my doorstep?
I've lived in Koblenz, the beautiful city at Rhine and Mosel, for 7 years and if you would have told me, we would get a Games Workshop store in our city, I'd laughed and said no way. But on August 4th Warhammer Koblenz will open up. A bit strange feeling for me, the last time I've been to a Games Workshop Store Opening was almost 20 years ago. That was the Games Workshop in Darmstadt on June 26th 1999! I was there with my oldest friend, with whom I started wargaming back in the day.
Warhammer Age of Sigmar Shattered Dominion Objectives
Usually Christmas or the turn of the year is the time for terrain with Games Workshop. But with the new Age of Sigmar edition just released there is a new set of objective markers available, the Shattered Dominion Objectives.
Of the new terrain sets, many have their own rules of how they affect the game play and benefit a certain faction (you remember the Shipwreck I covered earlier on this blog). Yes, this is technically terrain, but not really, they have names but no special rules (but hey, nobody is forcing you to not use your own house rules to change that). I am really interested in this - as it is a fantasy set - that will make good use with a broad variety of fantasy rules. So let's see in this review what is in the box.
Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire – Ironskull’s Boyz
Where there is chaos and destruction, Orruks cannot be far away. Somewhat close to the Khorne Bloodbound warbands (Reavers and Fiends) in their intention / motivation, we see what separates the Green from the Red, in this review on the Shadespire warband of Ironskull's Boyz.
Earlier this week, I started the coverage on the Shadespire warbands with the Sepulchral Guard.
Ironskull's Boyz is a 4 Orruk strong warband expansion for Warhammer Underworlds Shadespire and costs 22.50 EUR. It comes with the pre-coloured two sprues (in matching orcish green!), a card deck and brief instructions on the assembly.
Oathmark Elf Infantry
Further plastic kits were introduced for the new Oathmark - Battles of the Lost Age system by Osprey Games and North Star Miniatures, among them new Elven.
I was able to get my hands on a single sprue for this review, of which 6 are in the complete box with 30 Miniatures in 28mm scale. The price is set at 25 GBP. As you can see, each sprue contains options for spearmen, regular soldiers with hand weapon and shield or archers. And additional pieces for standard bearers and officers. In the box are 30 plastic 25mm square bases by Renedra as well.
Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire – Sepulchral Guard
In addition to the starter box for Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire, I'll cover the expansion boxes for the warbands in sets of two. This week it will be the Sepulchral Guard and Ironskull's Boyz.
I actually bought this warband box before I even got the starter box. It was the starting point of a fantasy warband, in combination with the Deathrattle boxed set. Now you can buy the Sepulchral Guard without the Shadespire content as an easy-to-build kit as well.
But let's get back to this warband review. Games Workshop offers these expansions for 22.50 EUR each (20 EUR without the Underworlds cards) and the Sepulchral Guard is the largest warband of the first wave expansion with 7 miniatures.
Bolt Action Jagdpanzer 38(t), Flammpanzer 38(t) and 2cm Flak auf Hetzer
To finish on 38(t) week, I cover today the Hetzer kit by Warlord Games. As this kit covers quite the broad variants, I'll base the review around the Hetzer Zug kit, so I can build all three variants; the Hetzer, the Flammpanzer and 2cm FlaK 38 Hetzer reconnaissance anti-aircraft vehicle.
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