Gaddis Games M6 heavy tank

I got a good size box in the mail today from Gaddis Games containing my kickstarter rewards which included their new American M6 heavy tank. The concept for the M6 began in the interwar Era and was quickly accelerated as Germany began rampaging through Europe. By the time the design was considered good enough for production it was dropped by the army ad it was decided that the M6 offered no particular advantages over current available armor that various design flaws didn't cancel out. Of course none of that matters for alt-history where all the paper tanks can come out to play. Lee please bring us a SARL 42 to go with this alt history goodness.

I'll start the review with the box, it's definitely nothing flashy but at least you know what you're getting and I guess I haven't been paying enough attention but it would appear these vehicles are being made by Company B who make some good stuff.

I didn't take a picture of the box right when I opened it but it was this bag and like 3 or 4 packing peanuts which makes me somewhat nervous to open it. Interestingly it looks like the track and hull are just one solid piece so assembly will be a breeze.

Yeah assembly will be real easy. This isn't technically 4 pieces, the 2 pieces on the right broke off on shipping, they are part of the track guard. I don't know how easy a fix that will be because they are quite flimsy I may just trim up the remaining bit of track guard and paint it like it was never there.

There were some bits thrown in, an MG and some stowage, but to really be an American tank some additional stowage will be needed to just pile on this bad boy.

The turret fit on kind of snug but a little sanding will solve that. The sides have some odd texture that seems to come from 3D printing and I'm not sure if paint will cover it or not but I'll find out down the line.

Here is a Gaddis dragon portes and a warlord US GI for scale. I honestly thought this would be bigger, it had a crew of like 6 or 7 but maybe it's a cost saving measure. It's a good looking kit, needs a little cleanup but I'm sure it will come out nice in the end. Unfortunately I recently moved house so all my paints are still packed away, which is also why I haven't made a post in some time, but I hope to be up and running properly soon. In the meantime I'll be doing a photo dump from bugeater and reviewing the 2 player starter set I got for empires fall so loom forward to those soon.

Review: Gaddis Games Dragons Portes

 Back around Black Friday I picked up some of the Dragons Portes miniatures from Gaddis Games. I've really come to love the miniatures Lee Gaddis sells through his shop having painted a USMC platoon made up of his miniatures a year or two ago and these French troops continue to meet the standard I have come to expect. The sculpting is excellent with only a minor issue here and there where a couple of poses were only sculpted with one of their two ammunition pouches and the NCO has a rough patch on his right shoulder joint but those are small issues easily fixed or just not really noticeable on the table at all. All the troops wear the mechanized troops helmet, a very unique helmet which I like more then the Adrien helmet and all the troops are in standard uniforms without the greatcoat which I personally love since I don't care for the greatcoat look. All the riflemen are armed with the MAS-36 rifle which is another thing I really like about these figures because the MAS is one of my favorite rifle but I do wish a few of these guys had the Berthier carbines and maybe MAYBE a MAS-38 sub machine gun but I digress.

When I bought these on Black Friday I got a platoon deal which included three squads of ten men, a medium mortar, and an HQ section. There are 10 separate poses that make up the rifle squad, NCO with a rifle, 7 riflemen, light machine gunner with FM 24/29 and an assistant with a rifle. The HQ had 4 men but one of them who has what looks like a man portable radio at first glance more likely has mortar ammunition as France did not have a man portable radio at the platoon level like the Americans or British and as such he has been moved to the mortar section appropriately. As I said I really liked these models and they paint up beautifully but they do suffer the same fate many metal ranges suffer and that is variety. That 10 man squad is the only one available and it would be nice to see some prone figures but the only ones available are operating a light mortar (not pictured here) and the only other figures I don't own are the light mortars and a Hotchkiss machine gun team. Hopefully this part of the French range will be revisited and expanded just a smidge but in the meantime there is a whole ton of other models in Lee's French range including Alpine troops that I may use to make a French platoon for Narvik.