The next of my Commonwealth 8th Army units, we have my Brethren from across the ditch – some models representing the 4th New Zealand Armoured Brigade in Africa.
The Kiwis also notably ran quite a few Shermans in WWII, though I’d already painted a half-dozen Shermans as my first models for the 8th Army. Also from my research, it seems that the NZ forces didn’t begin using their mud grey/blue-black camouflage until they hit Italy, before that time period their tanks were simply painted in the pale desert buff shade – so essentially what I’d been using as my base for the British Commonwealth forces to this point. Since using Honeys and leaving them bare of camouflage appeared to be the only way I could include the Kiwis with a reasonable accuracy for the late ’41-mid-’43 time period my force is set in.
Being rather light tanks for this period of the war, they’ve been given diamond decals (well, squares applied on an angle) to represent the Recce vehicles being part of the Regimental HQ. NZ decals aren’t exactly easy to come by, if they do happen to actually exist, so I spent a few hours in Photoshop one afternoon putting some Silver Fern regiment decals together so I could run them through my printer.
These tanks also represented a bit of a first for me – the first time I’ve used milliput to add stowage to models. Bedrolls and tarps and duffel bags. Basically with these tanks being smaller than any of the other British tanks I’d done to this point, the official clip-and-glue stowage (aside from jerry cans) seemed a bit large and awkward. I did nick a couple of small crates from another kit, but if I wanted to add any more differentiation to what is otherwise a pretty samey group of tanks, it would have to be via milliput! I also used a mixture of the two upper hulls provided in the kits – I couldn’t really find a specific difference in my limited research on the additional stowage, though I did make sure to use the turret variant associated with British use – though most sources I found online don’t really distinguish between the M3 “Honey” in British/Commonwealth service and the M3 Stewart in U.S service.
Finally, I realised last night that two of the three commander models for these tank troops have moustaches! Possibly a bit of a stretch, but I’m thinking this might qualify those two tanks models at least as something for Roger’s “Mo’vember” painting challenge!
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Excellent tanks as always! The Stuarts just look right in khaki/tan colours. The added stowage is a nice touch!
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Thank you! Unfortunately you cant really see the stowage well in these shots since it’s mostly towards the rear of the tanks. Just a couple of bedrolls up front.
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Excellent, and hell yeah they count towards Movember!
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Cheers Alex! 😀
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Great work on this next batch of tanks, and great little force to represent NZ. I would say they count for Movember if they have moustaches mate, I included an alien with facial hair, so I don’t see why these wouldn’t count.
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Thanks Dave – as long as Roger’s happy with them, I’m happy!
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Awesome and glad to see the NZ’ders in your queue.
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Cheers Mark! I just wish there were more diverse infantry available still for the 8th army. You can call any models anything, but it’d be nice to have some slouch hats for Aussies and turbans for Indian troops as well – I know one thing – I’m not doing any more headswaps on models this small!
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Very nice indeed! 🙂 And more Stuarts than I have ever owned in my lifetime!
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Haha I’m not surprised! They’re not that great, but they’re pretty cheap and this way I can run them as a core formation in games if I ever deign to. I guess I really need to at least once now that I’ve painted that many of them….
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Those are great- they are very nicely finished.
I’d also say that those moustaches should definately count.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Thanks Pete! Now I know how to rort more painting challenges – tiny, tiny models! 😉
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Very nice indeed
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Cheers mate!
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Another excellent looking set of tanks! Its cool how each group you’ve worked on have a different color scheme and unique challenges as well. I’m curious to see what’s up next!
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Thanks Kuribo! I decided very early on to lean into the fact that the 8th Army was made of very different regiments and units from around the Commonwealth as well as the UK itself.
I don’t mind painting much more uniform sets of models (and it’s a lot quicker and easier) but I wanted to take advantage of the 8th army’s uniqueness on that front.
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“Across the ditch”, does that mean you hail from the “big island” 🙂 hehe
These look great. Seeing all your posts recently really makes me wonder whether sticking to 20mm, 1/76 for so many years and refusing to budge to 15mm was a mistake…but to re-do so many armies.
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That’s the thing, though! If you’ve committed to 20mm/1:76 then I’d reckon you’re good – models aren’t too much bigger, as more readily available due to the really huge modelling scheme in that scale. I’ve also got 1:56/28mm WWII stuff, but that (mentally) fits in with all of my “regular” miniatures and a lot of my terrain. Getting the buildings and such for 15mm has been the hardest part, honestly – very little of my existing stuff crosses over properly, even things like most of my hills don’t work well as they’re stepped.
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Another Tank I really like !! job well done mate!
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Cheers Pat! Thanks!
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