Hrafn's Saga - A wargaming blog: Bolt Action

Tiger, Tiger burning bright.............

One of the most feared tanks of WW2 - The German Panzerkampwagen VI Ausf E - Tiger 1 joins Großdeutschland along with it's brother the Sturmtiger. The kit is the Tiger 1 Late version from in 1/48 from Tamiya, along with the Tamiya Zimmerit kit. The Sturmtiger is by AFV Club which came with photo etched grills for the back deck. I must say that I was impressed with the Zimmerit kit, it went on with out a hitch and was so much easier than applying the Zimmerit using epoxy putty and a tool which I did with the Sturmtiger. One good thing was that the AFV Club kit came with a variety of photo etched Zimmerit applicators. Still, I don't think the result is anywhere near as good as the vinyl(?) decals. One thing the Tamiya kits have over others is the multipart hard plastic tracks - far better than the vinyl ones most kits come with. I'm looking forward to using them in the up coming Bolt Action Supplement - Tank War due for release in September 2014.

Pz.Kpfw VI Ausf. E - Tiger 1

Sturmmörserwagen 606/4 mit 38 cm RW 61 - Sturmtiger

Bolt Action...Why not?

I have always enjoyed modelling World War 2 miniatures. It started when I was about 12 and bought my first Tamiya kit. It was a Panzer II with D.A.K soldiers and cost me all my birthday money. I find it amazing that Tamiya are still producing many of the same kits that they did in the 70's.
When I saw Bolt Action - a squad based game - being played I thought why not, what's another wargame. I, not surprisingly, settled on a German Heer Army (they have all the best toys) and eventually picked up one of Warlord's German starter armies.
I was quite happy with the set which gave you pretty well every thing you need for 1000point force. The only gripe was the Hetzer tank destroyer which was cast in resin. God I hate resin miniatures!! My experience with resin miniatures was that all I ever seemed to do was clean up mould lines, cut off flash, bog up bubble holes and put them back together after breathing on them the wrong way. At least with the Hetzer it was three solid slabs of resin and a cast metal gun and mantle, what could go wrong. Dropped one of the track/wheel sections on the floor and it broke into pieces. Putting my hate of resin to one side for the moment, my biggest problem, once I had it assembled was - to my eye - the scale was completely wrong when compared to the figures. It seemed to small.
What to do? Simple, if to me 1/56 seemed to small, switch to Tamiya (and other brands) 1/48 scale for my vehicles. This looked right and had the added bonus of the vehicles being more detailed. Now I understand that a lot of wargamers don't like assembling models but modelling is a big part of the game for me and I find plastic easier to work with than resin or metal.

Anyway - my German army is a work in progress and here are a few of my finished(?) bits.