Bolt Action Opel Blitz & Maultier
In late 2017 Warlord Games covered the Opel Blitz / Maultier combi plastic kit for Bolt Action.
The truck is one of the workhorses of the German army, transporting troops, supplies and ammunition were they were needed. The Opel Blitz is the most known of these trucks, other companies like Ford or Daimler supplied their own trucks, in some cases like the DB 701 by Daimler, it was simply the Opel Blitz without the markings built under license.
Where the Opel Blitz was build between 1937 and 1944 and made it to around 70,000 units, the half track variant of the Opel Maultier was released later in 1942/43 and around 20,000 units were built. As these trucks were the standard solution for logistics of all kind, there were multiple variants of them, converted and built for use as ambulance, communication, weapon carriage and even uparmoured ones.
Rubicon Models SdKfz 301a Opel Maultier with Box Body
Based upon the already available Opel Blitz Kit (RM280026), Rubicon published the Maultier variant that replaces the rear wheels with tracks. As with some of their other kits, like the SdKfz 25x, they cover further accessories. For the Blitz and Maultier there is the option to upgrade the cargo bed with the box body "Einheitskoffer".
After the first winter in 1941 on the Eastern Front, the German army high command realised that the trucks weren't capable of handling the weather and terrain conditions. The vehicles often got stuck in the mud and snow. A unit of the Waffen-SS build the tracks of a Bren Carrier under a truck to confront those conditions. After realising the benefits of this modification in 1942, Opel, Ford and Daimler added these variants to their truck production. Depending on by whom the LKW Gleiskette 2t was build, it was called SdKfz 3a (in case it was built by Opel), 3b (Ford V3000 S) or 3c (Daimler L4500). The variant was called Maultier (mule) and further variants were build upon the halftrack vehicles, like the Panzerwerfer or with a 2-cm Flak 38.
Annual review of 2018, preview of 2019
Yet another year on the chaosbunker and with 2019, we're heading towards the 10th year of this blog and my 23rd year in the hobby. Chaosbunker continued with the bilingual content, offering the articles in both English and German. And similar to last year, this year was quite busy, again, both in wargaming and private life.
Adeptus Titanicus – Warlord Battle Titan
The final part of my Adeptus Titanicus coverage is this "double feature" of the Warlord Battle Titan, one variant with volcano cannons and one with plasma annihilator and power claw.
The Warlord - currently - marks the heaviest of the available battle titans for Adeptus Titanicus, is only outclassed by the even larger Emperor Class Titan. Even though the Reaver and Warhound are much smaller and less material consuming to produce, the Warlord Titan is the most numerous of the Imperial battle titans. And they are kept in service for millenniums, some date back to the Great Crusade or even the Dark Ages of Technology. There are / were several patterns and marks of the Warlord Titan. The original mark of the Warlord covered a beetle like carapace and that design was kept from the first edition until the late 80s and can be found in first plastic model of the Warlord Titan. It was succeeded by a more bulky carapace variant, that was available for a brief amount of time, as Epic 40.000 was already developed and Space Marine was about to get pulled. This variant is strongly influenced by the early artwork of the Warlord Titan. In the late 90s, a Mark 3 (Epic 40k) variant of the Warlord Titan, that was classified as a Lucius pattern of the Warlord, and was available as a multi part metal kit. The newest incarnation is called Mars Alpha Pattern and produced by Forge World for 28mm as a resin kit and by Games Workshop as a 6/8mm plastic kit.
Adeptus Titanicus – Reaver Battle Titan
The second titan of the Adeptus Titanicus coverage is the Reaver Battle Titan,
The Reaver counts as an medium class battle titan, almost twice as tall as a Warhound but still a lot leaner and smaller as a Warlord. Similar to the Warhound and Warlord, the Reaver has different produced patterns, but more dominantly different Marks of its design. The design of the Reaver is quite consistent, did not change that much during the decades, "just" more modern. A Lucius Pattern was produced by Forge World for Epic 40k in the late 90s, but that is a relatively unknown fact. It is more commonly know for the different Marks of the Mars Pattern. A Reaver is commanded by a Princeps and between 2 to 5 Moderati (Primus, Steersman, Navigator, Sensorius, Oratorius), along with an extended crew of multiple servitors and such. Models of the Reaver were available in different Marks for a long time and in the lore it is mentioned, that it might even pre-date the Warlord Titan.
Adeptus Titanicus – Warhound Scout Titans
Let's begin with the Titans. The first review will cover the duo of Warhound Scout Titans, the smallest of the Imperial Titans.
There are multiple patterns of the Warhound Titan, produced on Forge Worlds among others like Mars or the now destroyed Gryphonne IV. The here shown Warhound pattern is the Mars Pattern, depending on how you count the Mark III. It is the first time that the Mars pattern is produced in 6-8mm scale. A Warhound has a crew of 4 (a Princeps, a Tactical Moderati, a Weapons Moderati and a Techpriest Enginseer) along with multiple servitors and servo skulls.
Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress
Back in 1989, Games Workshop teamed up with Hasbro / MB and released with Heroquest - a fantasy board game with miniatures. For many this was the beginning of their wargaming hobby. Due to the fact, that it was a board game and sold as such in toy stores and not "just" comic book and gaming stores, the game reached a much broader audience. 2 years after they stopped producing Heroquest in 1993, a derivative - Warhammer Quest - was introduced. Still using the Citadel Miniatures but featuring now modular floor tiles instead of a fixed board, the game was a success and received a lot of additional content in form of supplements, articles in White Dwarf and Citadel Journal. And now, with Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress Games Workshop continues the more than 20 year old brand and expands it for the first time into the universe of Warhammer 40,000 (as Space Crusade etc. are games of their own).
It comes a bit as a surprise, as we already had quite a lot of boxed sets this year by Games Workshop, just last month the one-off Speed Freeks, the month before that the Rogue Trader expansion for Kill Team. But here it is, a massive dungeon crawler just before Christmas.
Warhammer 40,000 Speed Freeks
As part of Orktober, Games Workshop delivers a stand-alone boxed set of orkish racing - Speed Freeks! It was already announced back in August on Warhammer Fest Europe and there were rumours about a revival of Gorka Morka, so now we know what these were about.
Game Envy Hobby Holder painting handle
Back in 2017 Game Envy started a Kickstarter for a new paint handle and collected almost 90.000 USD with their crowdfunding campaign. The 3d printed prototypes are replaced by a final injection moulded product and I'm testing one today.
I got the Hobby Holder along with a handle mod. This sets you back 20 USD for the holder, 6 for the handle mod and additional shipping (~10 USD to Europe). My kit came with a button, a strip of blu tack and 5 bottle caps.
Heer46 Carro Armato P43 Bis
Following the Krupp-Steyr Waffenträger from Tuesday, today we unpack and build the Armato P43 Bis by Heer46.
This is another tank from the resin series produced in cooperation with Rubicon Models. The Armato P43 was an Italian heavy tank that was developed by FIAT and Ansaldo, but never left the draft stage. The sources why the development stopped are not clear, some say the design was dropped in favour of the lighter P26/40 tank, but it is likely that the resources were just not available after the armistice of Italy with the Allies in 1943 and the Axis had other things valued higher than Italian tank development. Only two mock ups were build, but as mentioned before not further progressed. The tank was intended to weigh around 30 tons and have a 420-430 hp diesel V12 engine. The name Carro Armato P43 stands for armoured vehicle, P for pesante - Italian for heavy - and the number '43 most likely standing for the development year.
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