Kitbashing Blitzkrieg Germans and Afrika Korps
Regular readers of my blog will know that I have a lot of fun converting plastic miniatures to see what new poses I can come up with. I've taken the Warlord Blitzkrieg Germans and swapped parts with the Afrika Korps sprues to invent new combinations.
I love the Blitzkrieg sprue, as it has six good, usable rifle poses on it, all of which can be adapted to other sets. This is particularly useful as there tend to be too few basic rifles in the later plastic German kits, and that lack is a problem for list building (I include the Atlantic Partizans in this criticism, but I'll do another blog on converting them later).
[caption id="attachment_70949" align="aligncenter" width="429"] Newer set on the right.[/caption]
There has been a slight 'scale creep' in the newer Warlord plastic infantry sets, making them approx 5% bigger than previous plastics. This is slightly problematic but not impossible to overcome.
The Afrika Korps set introduces a 50mm mortar and an A/T rifle to the mix, two useful weapons which the early war Germans could do with.
[caption id="attachment_70951" align="aligncenter" width="441"] Afrika Korps with Blitzkrieg weapons, making unique combos.[/caption]
The Blitzkrieg set has the option of an MG34 either fired prone or from the hip... lovely! I love the hip firing pose so much, I have a converted a Panzergrenadier posed with an MG42 as well.
I like the Afrika Korps guy charging with the bayonet, why should the 8th Army have all the fun? I've not yet put on the backpacks, water bottles and gasmask containers, but these will be a mix of both of the sets.
The early Blitzkrieg Germans gain some poses too. While they already have plenty of rifle poses, I thought I'd add the AK ones to see how they look. There were a few tiny issues, as the Blitzkrieg models are slightly slimmer in the shoulder, but they fitted ok with a tiny bit of filler.
And to finish off, I decided to convert some Kradschützen Truppen with their distinctive greatcoats and goggles. These are heads from the Afrika Korps and bodies from the winter Germans. You can have lots of fun converting miniatures into unique combinations. Be adventurous!