Draconis: Spring Clean 2024 and onward

1st April 2024

My friends and I are planning to try out Warlord games new tank game, ‘Achtung Panzer’ – but plan to try to play it co-operatively.

We recently played through the Star Trek Attack Wing coop campaign and had great fun. One friend is a big tank fan and already has some for Bolt Action. I have a few made (Shermans and Panthers from the previous Tank war game – I am also a big tank fan ? ), but have had some waiting even longer to be done.

Many years back, when playing a Weird War 2 game called Secrets of the Third Reich I picked up a 1:48 scale Tamiya Sherman Firefly…. But never got around to putting it together. I also have a Warlord (1:56?) scale Cromwell that I sprayed green, but clearly didn’t clean it properly first. And most of the paint flaked off.

So this first stab at spring cleaning will be to build the Firefly (may be a little large, but since we are playing coop should be ok, and I think it deserves to finally be built), clean up the Cromwell, then paint them both. No problem….. ?

The Firefly build started out ok – gluing some bits to the diecast chassis. Then came the difference between a model kit and a wargaming kit – the sheer number of components, often very tiny, that go to make a more realistic model!

However, as it went along I actually enjoyed the process (apart from the searches for tiny components that somehow jumped away from me to hide on the floor…). But, I got there in the end.

After scrubbing the Cromwell in warm soapy water, sanding parts back etc I have sprayed them both black. But, I am currently waiting on some paints that should have arrived on Saturday. Needed to order the correct colours for them. Once they arrive and I can get the time I will spray them both with my airbrush (hopefully that goes ok) then try to work on some weathering to add visual interest.