A Tale of More Gamers – Jon’s German Tiger II

When concocting our plan of having a Warlord HQ multiplayer battle to celebrate the release of Achtung Panzer!, it was inevitable that someone would bring one of the German big cats. It just remained to see quite who would be the one to get a whiff of the finest Bergkäse. Well, it turns out Jon Heeney, process specialist in our casting team, is a big fan of cheese – so much so that he’s picked one of the biggest tanks possible, the Tiger II. He would not be denied in this, and while the Allied players have been left reeling at the prospect of taking on such a behemoth on the table (seriously, it’s going to take some canny manoeuvring to expose the more vulnerable side and rear armour), Jon set to building and painting one of the largest of the armoured big cats.

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Jon: I love the Tiger II. It’s one of those WWII-era tanks that truly blurred the line between practicality and functionality. Between the propaganda and the few instances of combat it did see, it has garnered a legendary reputation. I especially like the “Porsche” turret – this name is not historically accurate, but it’s the one everybody knows. It was complicated to build, hard to maintain and epitomises the concepts of German tank design in the latter stages of the War.

Assembly

When I found out nobody was doing one for the Achtung Panzer! staff mega-game I swiftly threw my hat in the ring. I’ve built a few Tiger IIs for my German Konflikt ‘47 army over the years so I’m very familiar with the kit. It’s very easy to put together, requiring only basic modelling tools like clippers and a sharp knife (for those troublesome mould lines). Atypically, I tend to use super glue when assembling plastic kits, as I prefer the feel and finish, but this preference doesn’t really alter the building process.

For this build, and because this was for Achtung Panzer!, I wanted to throw in a few extra details to make my big cat feel like it was a veteran of many battles. To that end I added stowage elements in the form of spools of barbed wire, extra fuel canisters, tarps, as well as some Adrian helmets from the plastic French infantry kit, raided from my bits box, to serve as some rather grisly ‘trophies’ hanging from the commander’s cupola. I also always add some battle damage to my tanks, roughly cutting off a couple of track guards does the trick nicely.

Painting

I’ve never really painted camouflage before so I used my friend Google to search for some German German tank schemes. I knew I was looking for something dark with high-contrast areas, like an autumn pattern. Once I’d settled on an image that inspired me, I cracked out the paints and got to work.

From a flat black primer undercoat, I took a heavy bristled brush and stippled a dark red all over the tank. I repeated this process several times before the paint had a chance to dry.

I then took a pale light green and using the same stippling technique ‘drew’ long waving lines around the tanks’ perimeter, both hull and turret.

Once this too was dry, I simply went around the edges of the green with a light brown. I did this twice to ensure a nice, crisp outline.

Once dry I picked out all the details in base colours – red for the oil cans, blue for the Adrian helmets, and silver for mechanical elements. Once all the flat colours were in place, I applied a series of decals straight out of the box.

It was important to apply these at this stage as I wanted them to match the weathered look of the rest of the tank. To achieve this I simply stippled a small amount of the relevant base colours over the top – the result is a scratched, worn effect. After this, I liberally washed the whole vehicle with a dark wash.

When the wash was dry, I applied a thick mud effect to the tracks as well as the lower half of the wheels. I also applied splashes further up the tank where I had damaged the track guards, even as high as the turret, giving the impression of mud having kicked up through the gaps. I then stippled (it’s a useful technique!) small amounts of black and silver in small quantities all over the tank, but without pattern, creating chips and scratches in the paintwork.

To finish off, I highlighted details like the fuel cans and stowage, simply using their base colour again to make them stand out again after the wash, added a very subtle drybrush of red to the tracks to create the impression of rusting, and added a series of kill markings to the tank’s main gun.

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King Tiger

The Königstiger (officially named the Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. B or Sd.kfz 182) more commonly known as the ‘King Tiger’ or ‘Royal Tiger’ by Allied troops, was a development of the fearsome Tiger I tank. Its introduction to hostilities in 1944 caused significant problems for the Allies but ultimately it saw action too late and in too few numbers to have a game-changing impact on the war.

Our plastic kit contains one Tiger II heavy tank with options to build either the Henschel of Porsche turrets, and an optional tank commander – perfect to represent your unbuttoned Achtung Panzer! commander!

Achtung Panzer! German Tank Force

The Achtung Panzer! German Army Tank Force provides five legendary German tanks with which to take on Allied armour. With a rock-solid core of hard-hitting late-model Panzer IVs mounting long 75mm guns and capable of dealing with whatever the Allies throw at them, backed up by the anti-tank punch of a Hetzer tank destroyer and the infamous armoured might of a Tiger I to anchor your platoon, this force is more than capable of taking on the best the Allies can bring to bear. With plenty of long-ranged punch at your disposal, your enemies will learn to fear open ground!

Alongside the five great plastic vehicle kits (and a fantastic set of characterful stowage items), the included Germany-specific Asset cards, plus Datacards for 16 different tanks (letting you field the full armoured fury of the Wehrmacht), Tank Ace and Ace Skill cards, game tokens and markers along with mounted and dismounted tank crew figures give you the resources you need to tackle the foes of the Fatherland. Panzer Marsch!

Also Available

The perfect way to jump into Achtung Panzer! on the side of the Axis, the Achtung Panzer! German Collection nets you both the Blood & Steel starter set and the German tank force detailed above, along with an extra set of German Panzer crewmen (both mounted and dismounted) included for free! The crew are also available separately, for added customisation options or to use in Bolt Action as footsloggers who’ve been forced to abandon their armour in the field. There’s also a Winter version of the crew, for those battles in less… tropical climes.