Tuesday 14 May 2024

I need more tanks!

 


Well, of course, what I really mean is that I fancy buying some more tanks. In this case, some nice 6mm WW2 tanks. The plan is to have a small OHW hex game using some 6mm troops and my 80mm hexes. To illustrate, this picture shows two old (mid-1980s) Pz IVHs from H&R. I'll be using the OHW scenarios set in mid-1943 Eastern Front. 

The question is, which manufacturer should I go for? An influencing factor is that I have small but reasonable selection of H&R tanks plus a far too large number of old Leicester Micromodels Tiger Is! It would be easy to add to this from H&R again.

There are variations between manufacturers in materials (metal, 3d print), size (6mm vs 1/285), packaging (single models or packs of several), crispness of finish and mould quality. There is also a wide range of prices. A rough survey of prices per vehicle (using the Churchill or proxy as the sample vehicle) shows:

GHQ: £2.26

PSC: 2.00

2d6: £1.20

Baccus: £1.46

BPM: £0.89

Irregular: £0.88

Scotia: £0.85

H&R: £0.75

Phew! As much as I fancy GHQ they are outside my price range. I'm still thinking H&R but I'm open to suggestions.

9 comments:

  1. Interesting timing sir. I was just looking at building a 1/285 Italian North African force and the GHQ stuff, while exquisitely detailed, is just way outside my price range for a full army. I'm on the hunt for 1/300 3d printed options on ebay.

    What rules will you be using?

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    Replies
    1. Hi Steve, I very much enjoyed your Kasserine game. I'll be revisiting that at a later date. For starters with the OHW scenarios I'm looking at Martin's OHW WW2 and also Peter's WW2 rules. It will also be a hybrid with Norm's TaM rules. You'll see what I mean when I get it up and running.
      Cheers

      Jay

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  2. The Baccus stuff is the newest, so may have good sculpting, but I think the answer may well fall on how they are sold, how many are in a pack or are singles, so that you don’t have to over buy any particular model

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Norm, I much prefer being able to choose how many I order so packs aren't really my thing. H&R are singles, and nicely priced, so that's where I will probably end up.

      Cheers

      Jay

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  3. I have such a vast collection of HR, Scotia, NavWar and Mainforce already, that I avoid the newer, larger stuff. I have some GHQ and CinC, but try not to mix sizes too much. Baccus is 1/240th and doesn't mix with any other ranges at all. I'd go with HR and Scotia, the price/quality ratio is really good, and you can easily afford to multi base. OHW WW2 is fun, fun, fun, whatever scale you do it in. I seem to have settled on masses of 15mm stuff!

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    Replies
    1. You're not kidding Martin. I recently tried putting a baccus Steyr heavy car alongside a GHQ German command van on a HQs stand, and the car was bigger than the van! I am wondering how the PSC 6mm stuff compares.

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    2. Thanks for the info Martin. I hadn't realised how big the Baccus vehicles are. They're even bigger than GHQ! I already have lots of H&R and would want to make sure that everything fits together.

      Cheers

      Jay

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  4. Tough to beat Heroics and Ros!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Prufrock, yes indeed. I have been looking over my stash (which probably dates back to the 1980s) and the H&Rs actually look very crisp.

      Cheers

      Jay

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