A couple of months ago, I finally “finished” my Afrika Korps army for Flames of War, that I’d started waaaay back in the 1st edition of the game. Well, I thought I finished it, but as I was doing so, I started having a closer look at what it would take to actually, you know, use them in a game with the current rules. Now, something that had always bothered me just a little was the fact that my Tiger I tank was the wrong version for the Desert War, most notably lacking the air intake filters for the engine. So having “finished” the army, I decided to burrow into my model archives and see what I’d squirreled away years ago in terms of 15mm/1:100 armour. Something I found amongst quite a few other things was a pair of Plastic Soldier Company’s boxed Tiger I sets, with enough parts in their modular kits to rectify the issues with my Tiger.

So I already owned the models. All I had to do now, was, y’know… build and paint them. With that, I had some painting decisions to make. To keep going with the modern-mixed-approximation of a desert yellow paint I’d used around 2002-2004, or just Tabula Rasa the thing and start fresh with my DAK armour scheme. I went with the latter, figuring it would be easier for any further additions to the force. So Vallejo’s convenient Desert Yellow spray paint became the basis for the scheme. I built two Tigers as the current FoW DAK list has them as a Support unit with 1 or 2 Tigers, so painting a pair at once just gives me more flexibility in future. I didn’t add any Panzer III escorts, though I now wish I had done so at the time, and I’ll likely paint up a pair of those in the future after a few other sub-projects.

Now PSC’s models don’t actually come with decals, and so I had to bodge together the turret numbers for these two from some Battlefront decals that I had. After some looking around, I went with 131 after Bovington’s finest, and 141 that I’d also found some references to elsewhere. No rear turret numbers due to a severe lack of decals, particularly red/white numbers. But I figure most people would never know the difference, so I’ll let it pass.

Lastly (as far as the tanks in this post go), here’s a comparison with my original resin and metal Battlefront Tiger I and the PSC model(s) that supercede it. The PSC models have the correct air intake and filters, exhaust covers, commander’s cupola and the turret side hatch. All good. As for the original Tiger I, it’s going to have to be reassigned to another Front. But that’s something to worry about later on down the road…

Now all of this Tiger-related shenanigans happened during August, when Dave Stone’s Season of Scenery Challenge was still a current concern. I’ll have my own horribly-belated update post for that Challenge shortly. On Sunday 26th of September I went out for a walk. This was the result. (though the photo is from today, so the brusing is gone and most of the swelling is as well.) Tibial plateau fracture and torn meniscus, though no damage to the patella and I’m assured that it could have been far, far worse (unusualy, no need for surgery). So lucky me, I guess?

So that’s one of the reasons I haven’t been all that active lately. There have been others, busy with work before that, a bit of burnout, stress, all the usual shit. Admittedly, I’ve been playing a lot of video games and actually doing a lot of building and painting. Now I’m looking forward to being able to walk again and do exciting things like make myself a cup of coffee and carry it to my desk all by myself. Since my work has returned to onsite duties because the pandemic is, like, totally over now, I’m actually on sick leave, rather than working from home – though that was also the doctor’s recommendation – so who am I to argue with an orthopaedic surgeon? So a chance to recharge a little and de-stress. Just checking in intermittently to fix and coordinate stuff that needs me – though I can tell you that sleeping in this fucking thing is not easy, so the resting part isn’t the greatest.

Enough bitching. See you again soon, hopefully! :p