Hello all
As you might have heard from Episode 36 of the podcast we are going to (or probably have been to by the time this post goes out) an Eastern Front Two Day Mid War Tournament at Entoyment. I had arranged with Adam to use his Finnish for the weekend, but I dislike borrowing whole armies if I can avoid it. I had bought some Great Coat Germans which I had got Matt at Papa Bear Painting Services to paint for me and decided to try and make an army around this.While having a mess around making some list I decided to have a bit of a fun around and add five Panzer 38(t) to the list. I love the 38(t) it is probably my favourite looking tank of EW. I almost forgot about it until I was done Entoyment picking up some more Cromwell box sets when I saw the PSC Panzer 38(t)’s, in what can only be describe as an impulse buy I picked up a set. The 38(t) is my favourite Early War tank, I’m not sure why but I just love the way it looks. It has some stiff competition as I love the awkward looks tanks you only get in EW but it’s still just about holding it’s own.
When I got the box back home I was impressed with what you get in the box. not only do you get option to build the 38(t)’s (the reason for buying the box) you also get the bits to make two of the Marder variants based on the 38(t)’s hull. Add to this the crew for the Marders there is little space on the sprue unused. Looking at the Marders I think I will try them out at some point, I’m planning on getting 11 38(t)’s in total and as that’ll leave me 4 spare it would seem rude not to use them.
The construction took no time at all and bar a few issues with the turret not quite going together properly (probably my fault) they go together with ease (gone are the days of PSC multi part tracks!). If you need some armour support for your EW Germans (not MW as they will get crushed as I found out at the tournament I took them too….) I highly recommend you check these out.
Painting wise I wanted to paint these up for use in either the invasion of France or Russian, but I was lacking the unit making decals. In the end I had to settle for the 12th Panzer Division which did use the 38(t) in Barbarossa but wasn’t formed until after the Battle for France. While slightly annoying it’s not that important (I will still be using Blitzkrieg lists with these models).
2016 looks like being an Early war heavy year for me, with French, Desert British, Desert Italians and German Armour on painting table. I hope to get the 38(t)’s as a working army in their own right before too long. So keep an eye out for me on there over the coming year.
Ben