By the time I got to the next tanks – the Crusaders – I’d picked up enough of them to put together a fully-legal, Crusader Armoured Squadron in 4th edition Flames of War using only Crusaders. The Crusader Squadrons in FoW can feature a mixture of three different types of Crusader, though only one of the three is really distinct from the others in a meaningful way on these models. The HQ Platoon above features one Crusader II armed with a 2-pounder and two Crusader II “CS” (Close Support), armed with 3-inch howitzers . Since the models’ main weapons are all but identical, and I’d decided to omit Tank Commanders from all of these models (turns out it’s fairly important in FoW) I decided to paint the barrels of the Crusader IIs with the green covering half, while keeping the CS variants to “clean” tan barrels. A little tricky, but as the vehicles look almost identical…
The Crusader III versions are a little more distinct from the others, with the flattened turret fronts and larger 6-pounder gun, making the models in the other two mixed platoons easier to distinguish from one another.
At this point, I’d fully committed to using different schemes on the different 8th army vehicles. The particular camo scheme for the Crusaders was inspired by a couple of colour plates I found online.
I used stippling to add the black (dark grey, actually) soft “spray effect” line dividing the green and the desert stone.
Again, a pic to show the four sides of the camouflage pattern applied…
…and an “aerial” shot.
And here are the completed Crusaders on the “Desert” flats.
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
THose are fantastic Azazel. THe use of slightly different barrels to differentiate marks is a great idea. Doesn’t stand out but if you know what you are looking for you can see it.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Cheres Pete – I decided that I had to do something with the paint to differentiate them, since the difference in the physical barrels supplied by BFG for the two versioons of the Crusader II is so minute. Like put them both up three inches from your eyes and squint to be “oh, I think *that* one has a little ridge…”
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So stylish! Great work!
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Thank you!
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Great work on the Crusaders mate, the force is really coming together
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Thanks Dave. I just wish the British used slightly fewer tanks in the desert. This train of armour is never ending…
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Great work on the Crusaders
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Cheers – I appreciate it!
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Brilliant mate, I really enjoy the subtlety in play here 😊
Interesting tanks too – they look very modern in shape!
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Thanks Alex – they’re a good looking tank really. 🙂
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Very nice! 🙂 I like Crusaders, even if they’re not great tanks! Good idea with the stippling – I used to paint German tanks the same way to represent a sprayed camouflage finish!
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Thanks John – and good to hear that you used the same technique as well! 🙂
I’m not sure when they’ll all find use at once on the table in normal situations, but I think a couple of big tank battles will have to happen
– just because.
Or to put it another way – just because I’ll want to justify painting all fo these to myself! 😉
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They look great. The stippling worked well.
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Thanks mate. I’m certainly learning a few new things by working in a very different scale and setting to the usual stuff I do!
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Excellent work yet again, mate. I don’t know how you’re cranking out these tanks so well and so fast but it is impressive. I would be bored to tears by the second or third tank, I imagine so good on you for sticking with them! 🙂
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Thanks Kuribo! These British tanks are all the stuff I was working on in October, after spending September assembling them and priming/base spraying them right at the end of the month.
The only way to get these done in units like this is to batch paint them, which can definitely be boring, but I find worthwhile since they’re relatively quick, and there’s a nice payoff at the end when you’ve got a decent group of models completed all at once.
Not much different to painting a unit of Uruk-Hai, ro Gondor Infantry, or whatever else fits into that “army building” type of thing, really…
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That makes sense and batch painting is one of those things that I should do but I struggle with. I think I’m just too used to taking my time on one mini until I’m finished and (mostly) satisfied with it. For that reason, I salute you for getting batch painting done!
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Yeah, it’s just a thing that works for some and not for others. Models like these really work best for me as batches, while with most 28mm models – say a squad of Space Marines, I’ll start with 10, then at a certain point, drop to 5 at a time, then get down to working on 2 or 3, then finish them individually. That way they still look like a cohesive unit, but can still have those individual touches and attention while completing them.
it’s still admittedly a lot easier to do even models like these as a pair, or even better – a single. Just that they don’t work that way on the table and again – I want to keep that unit consistency.
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Great looking bunch of Crusader variants. They were another in a line of not-so-great British armor in the early desert war but were better than the A9, A10, etc. Nice job on the stippling too, and your camouflage work is really good. I found that adding different decals helped as well – and I did use a lot of FoW stuff like this for What a Tanker before moving on to my current madness. Still, I love the period and the wide range of stuff to use.
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Thanks Mark! If they’d merely had T38t and the PzI and II to deal with, eh? Their role in the game seems to be as cheap, fast, scout tanks that can harass flanks and grab objectives while still offering *some* threat. In the one game we’ve had so far, Marouda managed to knock out at least one PzIII with them, but when they got into it properly with my PzIII and IVs, they went down pretty quickly.
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Wow mate you are becoming a dab hand at the cammo!!
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Thanks Pat! Now I’ve finished the German stuff I’d started, I need to get onto the sprayed/assembled Valentines and more of the Brit camo again!
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