1st King Tiger

This is the first of two King Tiger tank kits sold in a twin pack by Pegasus Hobbies.
The box had been in local storage (in Bristol rather than Kent) and I made one up to give me a little break from the most recent batch of English Civil War infantry.

This is the only quick assembly plastic King Tiger kit available (to my knowledge), and I was very happy to discover this particular box on a market stall in Wells, Somerset. The models are made of a highly resilient plastic which did not agree with my clippers when it came to removing pieces from the sprue. This resulted in unfortunate chips in places, most notably on the bow machine gun port.

However, with liberal application of Liquid Green Stuff and Plastic Soldier Company German tank accessories, my frown soon turned upside down. What I thought would be a pig of a tank to finish actually became an enjoyable side project.

As seen in the photos below, I opted for a classic 1944 ambush palette of Brown, Yellow and Green, applied using a small piece of washing up sponge. I gave the turret a pintle mounted MG42 and added a couple of jerry cans to break up the predominantly brown stowage items.

It's one hell of a fighting machine on paper, combining the Panther's sloped armour aesthetics with an improved version of the Tiger 1's 88mm gun. In reality it was a slow, unreliable, bridge-breaking behemoth that was excellent in static defence until it either broke down or became surrounded by ever increasing numbers of lower quality Allied tanks.

This model will go well with any German force from mid 1944 onwards. At some stage I want to diversify the WW2 rules of One Hour Wargames to properly reflect differences in Allied and German tanks, as the standard rule set makes this beast equivalent to a M4 Sherman or Cromwell, medium tanks that were far outclassed in a one on one confrontation.