10/ 12mm WW2 and 6mm Napoleonic gaming: Tiger 1 company, winter cammo (Wittmann)

I managed to get hold of a job lot of the Takara case special Wittmann in S04, so I decided to do a whole FOW Tiger 1 company. I did in the end use some other vehicles rather than just the same version for a bit of variety as described below. In all there are:

Command and 2iC tanks;
3 platoons each of 4 tanks

The first two platoons are the Wittmann case special (shown at the back, some close ups coming below).

While Takara are very nice models the painting is good but not great - Can Do models are on the whole much better painted (although as an aside, I think the Takara Tiger 1 looks much more the part as the hull of the Can Do one seems too low). I repainted all the equipment on the tank - the cables, the tools etc. as they tend to be a bit messy in the out-of-the-box paint job. I tidied up the tracks too as they are not properly painted on the model. I also painted over the S04 decals on the turret side and rear to allow unique tank markings to be added. The only decals I added where the turret number on the rear of the turret bin (100, 101, 102, 103 for first platoon and 200, 201, 202, 203 for second platoon). Numbers are red with white outline - and are shown in the third platoon pictures. You can see more on decals in an earlier post.

I used the spare bits that come in the Takara versus sets to add bits of track - the model came with some track on the sides of the turret but on a few I added some more pieces; I also added a piece of track on the front of the hull on some tanks and some pieces on the turret roof (I saw this on a model on the internet and thought it looked good!).

For the third platoon I decided to just use the winter white Takara Tiger 1 from series 5. Mainly for variety. Again I needed to do a bit of repainting but I also applied a weathering wash of GW Agrax Earthshade. The original model had no decals so I added German crosses to the sides of the hull and turret and the divisional marking at the front (I decided to use the black version with white key as it stands out better and it was a version I found on many Wittmann models online). Turret numbers of 300, 301, 302 and 303 for this platoon.

For Wittmann's tank I actually did not use the Takara case special Wittmann S04! I bought a while ago a Takara tank game with 8 unpainted tanks (two each of Pz IV, Tiger 1, Sherman M4A1 and T34/85; one set in grey plastic and one in sand coloured plastic). No interest in the game but the tanks worked out very cheap. I really liked the Tiger 1s and decided to paint them up for Wittmann's tank and the 2iC tank. Painted as a winter cammo and the decals added. It came with a plastic crew figure but instead I used an Arrowhead German tank crew figure for Wittmann himself.