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18Jul/230

Bolt Action A34 Comet Cruiser Tank

We've covered the lighter Cromwell tank before (the resin kit in 2013 and the plastic kit in 2014 - only in German), and we're following up on this class of British tanks, with another draft from 2018's backlog we're completing today - the A34 Comet Cruiser Tank.

Bolt Action - A34 Comet Cruiser Tank Bolt Action - A34 Comet Cruiser Tank Bolt Action - A34 Comet Cruiser Tank

My attention to the Comet Cruiser tank came from World of Tanks, as I really enjoyed playing the Tier VII medium tank back then. So, when Warlord Games added the kit to their range, I just had to have and now want to share the build report / review with a bit of delay with you.

14Jul/230

Bolt Action Bishop Self Propelled Gun

We covered a few self-propelled guns in the past, and some that didn't make it to tank week, just like this Bishop QF 25 pdr SPG. But today is his day and we cover him in a review.

Bolt Action - Bishop SPG

This is a 28mm resin kit by Warlord Games with a RRP of 31,50 GBP / 38 EUR. It is listed as a made to order kit, which does not mean he is mail order exclusive, but just something that is less likely to be on stock and is casted once ordered. Your local gaming store can order them in and it might not come in a boxed set with printed artwork, but a neutral packaging. As I had this kit for a long time (and this review is in draft since 2018), mine came wrapped in bubble wrap with a sticker on it.

7Jan/230

Bolt Action – Humber Armoured Car Mk II / IV

Along with A Gentleman's War, Warlord Games relelased two new plastic vehicle kits of armoured cars for the British and the Germans, covering a Sd.Kfz. 222/223 and Humber Armoured car, the later we're going to cover today.

Bolt Action - Humber Armoured Car Mk II / IV

This is a new 28mm hard plastic kit by Warlord Games, that formerly only was offered in different variants as a resin kit. The one we're covering today was a pre-release that Warlord Games send to me prior to the official release, thus lacking the boxing, etc. and minor tweaks might be done until the actual release outside the themed starter kit for North Africa.

16May/220

Bolt Action – British & Inter-Allied Commandos

With the two D-Day sector books that cover a lot of special operations, the need for British and Inter-Allied Commandos is certainly there. And Warlord Games delivered for this demand.

Bolt Action - British & Inter-Allied Commandos Bolt Action - British & Inter-Allied Commandos

The first Commandos kit that was released around 2011, was based on the regular British infantry, with a recut of a part of the sprue. We did a review back then and you can not only see how far Warlord Games has progressed over the last decade, but our reviews as well (that was pre-bilingual coverage, so you'll only find the German one online).

15Nov/210

British North African Motorpool – Part I

Following on the late war Allied motorpool for the US Americans for the late autumn / winter of '44, are the British in North Africa, mid-war around 1942-43. With this set of miniatures, I want to be able to play the theatre selectors of the Desert Rats / 8th Army in 1942-43 and the Long Range Desert Group from 1940 to 1943.

The infantry is build upon the magnificient range by the Perrys, mostly plastic.

Perry Miniatures - 8th Army Desert Rats Perry Miniatures - 8th Army Desert Rats Perry Miniatures - 8th Army Desert Rats

19Apr/210

Valentine for Operation Lightfoot

One of the final pieces to add to my 8th army motor pool is a Valentine infantry tank. As the army is themed around Operation Lightfoot, a mid-war tank and mark would a great fit. As I've stocked the british themed army mostly with Rubicon vehicles, I wanted to keep on doing so. It is just ridiculously difficult to receive stock. The Valentine is part of the second wave 2020 novelties and it took until this week to get my hands on a boxed set.

Tabletopper NL Drop

I kept looking for it on my usual suppliers, like Fantasy-In, got in touch with them, but due to Brexit and the incredibly bad preparations by Rubicon UK, there was just no info on when it would be deliverable. Earlier this week Tabletopper.nl posted an update on their stock, covering the Valentine as well, and I gave it a go. As they "only" charged 7,90 EUR for shipping from the Netherlands to Germany, and even had some other items on stock that I was looking for for a while now (for example Empress' WW2 range, which I ordered through a german store in November and Empress didn't manage to supply them with stock pre-brexit nor afterwards), so I had an order with a total beyond 100 EUR it was free of shipping costs. But what amazed me the most, I ordered it on Wednesday morning and within an hour my order was picked and packed, and I received my tracking number just 75 minutes later. DPD did a great job as well, bringing the package within 48 hours to me. So chapeau to Tabletopper.nl, will keep an eye on you from now on.

31Aug/180

Bolt Action British Airborne

One of the latest kits and the youngest of the paratrooper plastic kits, are the British Airborne. A must for this week's series of reviews around the Operation Market Garden along with yesterday's US Airborne kit.

Bolt Action - British Airborne Bolt Action - British Airborne

The British airborne is one of the many special combat divisions of the commonwealth's armed forces. They were founded in 1941, roughly a year earlier than their US American counterpart, and the 1st Airborne Division was send to North Africa for Operation Torch. But this kit covers the Red Devils in their North Western European gear, making them the best fit for the mid to late war operations of Pegasus Bridge, Operation Market Garden and the late fights crossing the Rhine / Operation Varsity, the largest airborne operation in history. In cinema the British paratroopers are mostly known from A bridge too far.

2Jun/180

Rubicon Models British CMP 15cwt Truck

In addition to the Northern Africa campaign week in November, I want to cover the British CMP 15cwt Truck by Rubicon Models in a review today.

Rubicon Models - British CMP 15cwt Truck Rubicon Models - British CMP 15cwt Truck

The CMP stands for canadian military pattern. This truck was build in Canada and used by armies of the British Commonwealth and even sent to the Soviet Union after Operation Barbarossa. Due to this, it saw action on theatres of war all over the world, from the North African Campaign, Italy, Burma and even after the second World War in Indonesia, Indochina and portuguese colonies in Africa. In Australian service (almost always with the No. 13 cab as supplied with this kit), the CMP was known as "Chev Blitz" or "Ford Blitz".

6Mar/180

Bolt Action Universal Carrier Wasp Mk II

Along with the previous introduced Chindits, there is need for suiting vehicular support. In Burma they used the nimble bren carriers to transport soldiers and goods, some of the universal carriers were fitted with a flamethrower and called Wasp, which I want to introduce in this review.

Bolt Action - British Wasp Flamethrower Carrier

Of the more than 110,000 units that were build of the universal carrier, roughly 1,000 units were manufactured as the wasp. The wasp carried the Ronson flamethrower system, with the Mark I having it fixed in the front and the Mk II the projector on the co-driver's position. Both had two fuel tanks with a capacity of 100 gallons. The canadians developed the Mk IIC with a single 75 gallon fuel tank. As you can see from the product image, this is the Mark II of the wasp.

5Mar/180

An army with an exotic theme – Chindits for Bolt Action

I have this lot of chindits lying around for quite some time now, and I want to explain why I chose these and what is the motivation behind it.

First of all, why a themed army? I always liked from background to my projects, wether it is sourced ficitional or historical. I like to have a proper base to start from. A source to begin with, a common thread that combines the miniatures. And it doesn't matter, if it is sci-fi, fantasy or historical. Simply painting your marines blue like on the box, is less interesting to me, than to read the books and see for something that catches my eye. I have to go back in my arguments, back when I started wargaming, I played Warhammer Fantasy and 40k, like many others do or used to do. A regular army project was already an invest and a themed army would easily be something that would drive up the costs by at least 50%, as you had to gather specific bits and pieces for conversions etc. But historical wargaming is usually much cheaper, as there are more companies offering the same ranges.  Exotic or themed armies can still be difficult or more costly, as in some cases only one or a few companies are covering specific nations or conflicts.

In this case, as we're talking Bolt Action, we're talking World War II. The conflict is rather Euro-centric and most go for the elite or well known armies, US Airborne, Afrikakorps or something similar. You have battles between Americans, British or Russians on one side and Germans on the other. There is often not that much variation, as you more or less see the same armies. As with the armies I already have, different German forces, US American and British late war western front forces, those have broad vehicle pools, only a few limitations. So I looked for something far from home. I could have gone with the blue division (spanish volunteers on the eastern front), but that is more or less a regular german army with a minor different paint job. Along the campaign supplements for Bolt Action "Empire in Flames" was a very interesting read for me, as it showed that there many conflicts that lead to a global war scenario, beside the tension after World War 1, but I don't want to go into detail on that, I'll pick up the conflict in the pacific in the upcoming review on the Campaign: New Guinea. More interesting was for me this specific special army of the British in Burma. Warlord has these in their Bolt Action range and they were sculpted by the talented hands of Paul Hicks, so the miniatures had it easy to "lure" me in.

As the chindit range is entirely metal, it is spread across a couple of blister codes and a single larger box, with lots of different poses. I went more or less with ordering one of everything, as you can see below. And as we're talking Bolt Action, around 1,000 pts should be enough and not to costly.

Bolt Action - Chindits