Tiger Tiger burning bright!

My second submission to Curt's 3rd Annual Analogue Hobbies painting challenge... A boxed set of 15mm scale Plastic Soldier Company Tiger I E tanks, for Flames of War.

Click on pics for a larger view as always...

The Tiger is probably the most iconic image of WWII, to my mind, and thus a crucial, from a collection point of view, element of my Wehrmacht forces.

[A lot has been written about the Tiger, and here is an interesting starting point for those who may wish to find out more. Thanks to wikipedia.]

And yet in the game, it represents a hefty points investment, in terms of your army list, and quite often, in some respects, a Panther tank could be a better proposition.

But there is no doubting, putting a few Tigers on the table will certainly draw your opponents attention as he decides how he's going to deal with them.

Though I must admit my first outting with them was far from a success as I tried using them to represent Tigers from Kampfgruppe Hummel, from 'Bridge by Bridge' - the new Market Garden supplement from BF for FOW.

Sadly in this guise, they are only 'Confident Trained' and get no 'bells and whistles' -  and predictably they ran into a new up-gunned 17pdr ambush that blew them apart in short order... oh well, you live and learn...Yes I know, where was my recce? Well the list I was using had a support choice that was [armour/recce], I picked the armour as I wanted the StuH 42 breakthrough gun to blow the paras out of their foxholes, but that meant I couldn't take any recce! Dumb list! Who came up with that idea???

The PSC kits are great, and easy to put together, and come with several options to make a themed tank from 'Eary, Mid and Late' production runs. I went with the Mid variety as I game 'MidWar' onwards so would ideally like to field them in a big 'Kursk' style engagement.

I also wasn't a huge fan of the appearance of the Late period road wheels, they just didn't fit the image I have of the Tiger in my minds eye...

The only glitch with the set is there is only 4 tanks in the box, compared to five in the other PSC kits, and that means to run a 'Schwere' Late War Tank Co. I am going to need to find another tank as I'd need a minimum 5 tanks ; 1 HQ Tiger and 2 platoons of 2 tanks...

So not sure how often I am going to get to play them... I envisage them as a divisional support option of 2 tanks cropping up occasionally to support my Panzergrenadiers every now and again, (until I can source the 5th tank...), which means its typically going to be a choice between 3 x Panthers for 560pts or 2 x Tigers for 430pts plus 130pts of 'something else'... decisions, decisions...

I painted them up in my usual three colour camo scheme (how to here), suitable for mid '43 onwards... decals from DOM.

So here's 4 'Big Citties' looking at you down their 88mm tank barrels, not the best place to be on the receiving end of!