Coming Soon: The Plastic Churchill tank Troop!

Perhaps one of the most famous tanks of WWII, the Churchill, is heading our way very very soon! – that’s right, we previewed the all-plastic Churchill kit back at Salute – to much rejoicing and drooling…

Just now we’ve received the first sprues in the Warlord warehouse, and we couldn’t keep it to ourselves any longer! It’s so new that our painters are still working their magic on the studio-painted model – which we’ll be showing-off as soon as the varnish has had time to dry!

The British Army adopted a doctrine centered around the use of light, fast ‘Cruiser Tanks’ coupled with slow, better armed and armoured ‘Infantry Tanks’, that would be used to smash the enemy defences with infantry support… and the Churchill was a prime example of the latter – one of the heaviest Allied tanks of the war, it featured thicker frontal armour than that even of the Tiger!

It will be no surprise to you to know that it was named after the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, but you may not know that he had also been involved with the development of the tank as a weapon during the First World War.

Taking the form very reminiscent of earlier WWI tanks, the Vauxhall motors built Churchill was the basis for a slew of variants from the MkI with a 2pdr gun to the MkVII 75mm guns. Other versions would see more specialist engineering equipment added including the likes of bridging equipment and minesweeping devices – and a favoured ‘close support’ option of the 95mm howitzer!

In this new plastic kit from Warlord and Italari you’ll get 7 turret variations (yes – we said SEVEN!) allowing you to build the following marks:

• MkIII – with 6pdr gun
• MkIV – Cast turret with 6 pdr gun
• MkV – Cast turret with 95m Howitzer
• MkVI – Cast turret and Welded turret with 75mm gun
• NA 75
• AVRE (Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers) with 290mm Petard Mortar (aka the flying dustbin!)

If that’s not enough, and you want to back-up your Churchills with some more interestingly-equipped variants, don’t forget to delve through the Bolt Action arsenal – where you’ll find some more specialist kit including the ferocious flame thrower-armed Crocodile variant- to mop-up any surviving defenders!