Southcon 2012

I like to build my competition forces round particular vehicle or troop type I want to try out- last weekend it was Valentines, Day of Days it was German 233 armoured cars (which would be very very interesting with their massive road movement in v3) for Southcon I want my "must include unit" to be lend lease Shermans. With that in mind it becomes a question of what to run them as:

Tankovy
Cossacks
Razvedki

All have plusses and minues. Cossacks are winning out at present (the are the only force in Eastern Front that gets Fearless Trained Shermans) but the new Razvedki rules make them another good choice. Of course a lend-lease themed tankovy of Shermans, Stuarts and razvedki in US M3A1 scout cars has a nice theme to it too.

My only problem, I have no Soviet Shermans- plenty of US & British ones though. So last night I made up a box of the PSC M4A2 Shermans. They have the extra armour on the sides and I probably should have filed that off but they should be okay. The five models took a bit over an hour to assemble and being less than half the price of BF models are good value for money- and very nicce models in their own right.

So with the Shermna chosen its what else to support them with. My an ideas are centring round 8 Stuarts or 4x SU 122 (always a handy choice) but I have quite a few lists I'm mullling over. A couple of initial ideas are as follows:

	Soviet Tanks- Conscript
1x	Stuart	40
9x	Stuarts	285
10x	Shermans	605
4x	SU 122	245
9x	Razvedki (FT)	230
	Sporadic I153s	90
		1495

	Cossacks
	HQ (incls Komissar)	35
4x	Mounted Sappers	90
5x	Mounted Cossacks	105
13x	Dismounted Cossacks	250
4x	45mm (obr 42) AT Guns	120
	Conscript Support
9x	Shermans (FC)	570
8x	Stuarts (FC)	240
	Sporadic I 153s	90
	TOTAL:	1500

Plastic Soldier Company Panzer IVs

The prize for Southcon was some of the new Plastic Soldier Company 15mm plastic panzer IVs. Andrew at Hobby Hub in Dunedin is importing them and at 5 to a box for just over $40 NZ they work out at less than $9 per model- or about half the price of the equivalent BF model.

Tonight I thought I'd put one together to see how they compare to the BF versions.



The Plastic Soldier Company one is the unpainted one.








The model comes with parts for the Panzer IV F1, F2/G, and with the schutzn for the late G or H! Potentially 4 different marks from one kit- now that is good value. I aren't so much of a rivet counter to tell if certain parts are the same or not on differnt marks of panzer IV and quite frankly I don't care.

The tanks come in about 10 parts and take 20 minutes or so to put together- the parts aren't too fiddly and the vehicles look good when finished. The castings are crisp, scale wise they seem to be similar (almost identical) to the BF panzer IV F2 I located to compare it with and are very nice models.

If I needed to build another panzer IV company (I don't) or need workhorse tanks for any army (they also have T34s and Shermans by my understanding) I can see these kits being a welcome addition for many wargamers. AFAIK BF have some real competition in these models and I'd happily run them on table beside BF kit- they are:
a) decent models
B) half the price

I say go for it.

As an added plus it took me back to my misspent youth and building Airfix & Esci models for my 1/72 scale armies.

My only issue- I've plenty of the various models of panzer IVs already!

Craig