Happy New Year everyone. What better way to usher in 2026 than with a Tiger tank!
The last of the Resin Tiger Trio, is this one:
A late production model with steel rimmed road wheels, late pattern cupola etc and covered in (very, very finely moulded) Zimmerittt.
A hefty looking beast, I've wanted one of these for ages to use for Panzer Kompanie Hummel at Arnhem (the fourth company of the 506th Schwere Panzer Abteilung). This particular one also sports the turret number 222, Wittmans ride at Villers Bocage, because... well, why not?
Wittmans actual tank was 007, but as is the way with Tigers, 007 was broken down on the day so he had to nab another one.
The actual turret numbers on the 10st SS Schwere panzer Abteilung really stand out as you can see in this image of Tiger 205. They look really crude, like someone has slapped them on with a very big brush from a can of white paint. They rather spoil the dense green/brown disruptive camo! Fans of nose-tail tanks might also note the vehicle spacing on the road....
The Tigers of the 101st seem to have been very densely oversprayed in camo, so I really went to town on this one. tbh I've probably left too much dunkelgelb showing through but it is still basically a big mess of green and brown.
A pinwash of ink and a light drybrush of pale sand emphasised some of the lowlights and highlights.
The AAMG is an incredibly fine moulding, so I will enjoy it while it lasts. It is bound to get knocked off in use my either my fat fingers or some other clumsy wargamer.
The turret is also festooned in track links. I'm never really sure what colour to paint these. German tracks were painted black out of the factory but it rapidly wore off and it seems a bit odd to have a very non-camouflaged set of tracks hanging off the turret. Anyway I did them black, gave them an inkwash and a light gunmetal drybrush and then dirtied them up a bit so they don't look quite so stark.
Once again I've got the 'towrope right where I want to put a decal' problem, but once again I've got away with just sticking the cross on top the tow rope and painting over it. It actually looks better on this one than the other two.
The turret number 222 is plain white (Battlefront decals maybe?) but doesn't stand out anything like as much as the photo of 205.
Usual mud etc around the running gear, and I highlighted the steel wheel rims with gunmetal which looks OK.
And here is the finished trio. I'm very pleased with that lot, lovely models and they have come out really well and scratched a particular obsessionist itch. I've got scenarios in mind for all of these, which will no doubt appear on the blog in due course.
As you say - every WW2 gamer loves a Tiger tank, and these are a really neat group of models. I think I will add this to my own project list over the next couple of years, doing some more Tigers in various different schemes.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I'm not sure why the Tiger is so iconic (why not the Crusader, Panther or T34/85?), perhaps it just looks like everyones idea of what a 'tank' should be. It was a fun little project to do, but sadly it means my overflow box of tanks is full again.
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