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.
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.
Bolt Action Sd.Kfz. 139 Marder III
Continuing the Panzer 38(t) themed review week, with the Marder III Ausf. H tank destroyer based on the Panzer 38(t) chassis.
Based upon the chassis of the Sd.Kfz. 140 Panzer 38(t), a tank destroyer called Marder III was brought into service. The whole Marder series were makeshift tank destroyers, an interim solution, to put captured or obsolete vehicles in to use, by arming them at first with captured field guns and later with German PaK anti-tank guns. The Marder I was built upon the French Lorraine tank and the Marder II on the surplus of rapidly becoming obsolete Panzer II tanks. Marder is German for marten. The Marder III was built in three variants, as Sd.Kfz. 139, Sd.Kfz. 138 Ausf. H and Ausf. M.
Bolt Action Panzer 38(t)
Let us begin this themed week of reviews around the Panzer 38(t) with the tank itself, in this case the new plastic kit by Warlord Games.
The Panzer 38(t), registered as Sd.Kfz. 140 in Germany, was originally a pre-world war II pattern from Czechoslovakia named LT vz. 38 (Lehký tank vzor 38, Light Tank model 38). After the Third Reich took over Czechoslovakia, the tank was adopted into german service and formed the basis for many variants. Many of those variants will be covered here on the blog in the next days.
Warlord Games Stone Bridge
Before the Coastal Defense by Warlord Games is released in the next month, I'd like to present the Stone Bridge in this review. It is part of the cooperation of Warlord Games and Italeri and added to the Bolt Action plastic terrain range.
Warlord Games sets the price tag at 15 GBP / 16,95 EUR.
Warlord Games HQ Store & Studio 2018
After visiting Mantic Games, we went to Warlord Games, to take a look at their new HQ store. Warlord has been located at since the very beginning. Back when they only had a few offices, spread all over the complex, nowadays the have entire wings of the centre to their name. They held their first Warlord Games Day in 2013 there as well.
As the studio and production facilities are only open to the public during their open days or special occasions, the store is a new addition that is open daily from 11 am to 5 pm, with the exception of gaming thurday til 8:30 pm and sunday til 4 pm.
Connor is the one in charge of the store and master of the several gaming tables within it. You can have a match of any of Warlord Games system at the store with a pal or get a introduction game. They even have the Pegasus Bridge set up at the store.
Intro to Salute
Last thursday, on April 12th, Operation Sealion 2018 started. We went to Cologne Bonn Konrad Adenauer Airport, for our four day trip to the UK for Salute and a brief day trip to the Leadbelt.
There are a couple of ways to get to London. Two years ago and before that, we did the Salute as a day trip, grabbing a flight from Cologne to Stansted or Frankfurt to Heathrow. Flying from Germany takes roughly 1 to 1,5 hrs and sets you back between 70 - 150 Euro, depending on who you fly with. Just for Salute a rental car would only make sense, if the group is bigger than two people, as the London Underground is superb and reasonably priced. Only the shuttles ex-airport are sometimes a bit expensive. As we headed north to Nottingham, that question was already solved. Rentals are quite cheap in the UK, you can get cars for around 30 Euro per day. We paid just over 90 Euro for the prolonged weekend incl. unlimited miles. For rental cars I usually go with Budget, a daughter company of Avis. They offer good and uncomplicated service at reasonable quotes. The Honda Jazz was brand new, but not that much fun to drive and had a unpleasant driver seat.
Ryanair changed a lot in the last few months, along with strict limitations on the cabin luggage and checkin in. If you book all the excluded things to get back to a regular ticket, you end up with a price around the area of a Lufthansa ticket from FRA to LHR. Our flight was delayed by almost two hours due to mist, and on arrival we met quite a different weather compared to Spain two weeks ago.
Campaign Sea Lion 2018
It is time to take another approach and try to loot the Island for pewter, plastic and resin! Thursday we head over to the UK, for a short trip to the "Leadbelt" of Nottingham as well as paying a visit to the Salute on saturday.
Salute is the largest wargaming event in the UK, hosted by the South London Warlords at ExCel London on April 14th. Crisis in Antwerp is hard competition in size to this event, as it is larger on floor terms, but Salute is more international and has the benefit of being british homeground.
Bolt Action M3 Lee medium tank
This is a M3 review double feature, as I'll show you today the M3 Lee and the M3 Grant (with track guards). The M3 Lee kit is a regular shelf product, that comes in a boxed set. Warlord offers the Grant as a made-to-order / direct order product.
The M3 medium tank (not to be confused with the M3 Stuart / M3A1), was an American medium tank, that was supplied to other allied forces, like the British, Australian or Soviets during World War II. The differentiation between Lee and Grant, was done by the turret. The American issued turret (like in this kit) was called Lee, after the Confederate General Lee, the British issued turret after the Union General Grant.
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