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I hope it's okay to post this photo from Warlord's newsletter, showing their latest plastic kits as displayed at Salute.

The StuG III (an Italeri-produced kit) is all but released (Warlord seem to announce the release of kits a long way ahead of the actual date, I've noticed). The Italeri-produced Panzer III is probably their next release - it looks pretty good from the photo, and is presumably going to have parts for multiple versions. The Italeri website says it'll be the J/K/L/M/N, but the Ausf J had a different engine deck layout to the later versions, and the Ausf K was a command version with a Panzer IV turret, so that might be a stretch. The Warlord-produced SdKfz 251 Ausf D looks like it's based on the their existing Ausf C sprues - you can see some of the parts from the Ausf C, like the (crude) rolled tarp. I suspect it will lack the finesse of the Rubicon Ausf D, but we'll see. If they include parts for a Stummel version, then they might be onto a winner.

There are also plastic Fallschirmjager in the works. In case you needed even more Germans...

The Warlord 251 D will be nice to get for the crew figures - I can imagine getting 2 or 3 of Warlord's for base model 251/1 D and 2 or 3 of Rubicon's for the variants, and using the Warlord figures liberally throughout all of them.

More pics from warlord's Facebook

The 251 looks nice. Passengers in a transport are a must. Just wish it cane with a canvas.

Man Warlord is on a roll. They even shipped my pre-ordered Grenadiers today.

Wonder how the Panzer III will turn out.

Big P wrote:
Wonder how the Panzer III will turn out.

It looks better than Rubicon's, from what I can make out in the photo. Hopefully it has the correct non-slip pattern on the track guards. I can see parts for both the Ausf M exhaust and the earlier version.

It's clear that their SdKfz 251 Ausf D shares a lot of parts with the Ausf C and has the same rudimentary interior. Not hugely impressed with the passengers, but much better than nothing.

 Tailgunner wrote:

Big P wrote:
Wonder how the Panzer III will turn out.

It looks better than Rubicon's, from what I can make out in the photo. Hopefully it has the correct non-slip pattern on the track guards. I can see parts for both the Ausf M exhaust and the earlier version.

It's clear that their SdKfz 251 Ausf D shares a lot of parts with the Ausf C and has the same rudimentary interior. Not hugely impressed with the passengers, but much better than nothing.

I'd be willing to bet Warlord makes some resin seated figures just as they did with the Ausf C one.

A plastic Jeep would have been better. Yanks, Brits, Ruskies and Natzees all used at least a few hundred and yet Warlord's effort looks like they stole the designs for Matchbox's 1/72 verson and casted it up in resin.

It will be nice to see some plastic jeeps in 1/56 -- and hopefully with lots of neat crew options.

 sing your life wrote:
A plastic Jeep would have been better. Yanks, Brits, Ruskies and Natzees all used at least a few hundred and yet Warlord's effort looks like they stole the designs for Matchbox's 1/72 verson and casted it up in resin.

Oddly enough, they are pretty close in scale to Matchbox's 1/58 Jeeps - considering Bolt Action is 1/56, I'd say good job on Warlord's part.

However, even official plastic Jeeps would be hella more expensive than picking up Matchbox 1/58 stuff. Hell, I just bought 3 Kubelwagens for $1.99 each! And my six Jeeps were $1.50 each.

 judgedoug wrote:

 sing your life wrote:
A plastic Jeep would have been better. Yanks, Brits, Ruskies and Natzees all used at least a few hundred and yet Warlord's effort looks like they stole the designs for Matchbox's 1/72 verson and casted it up in resin.

Oddly enough, they are pretty close in scale to Matchbox's 1/58 Jeeps - considering Bolt Action is 1/56, I'd say good job on Warlord's part.

Funny, Warlord's jeeps look quite undersized compared to their driver and other infantry by the same company and the detail is also quite badly sculpted and over-simplified [even for wargaming] as far as I could see.

The best way go approaching small softskins in plastic is to provide 2 different vehicles in one kit. Such as a Jeep and a Dodge 4x4, or a Kubelwagen and a Kfz 70 Horch. That way you can justify a bigger box (and higher price), but at the same time give people more transports for their money. The trick is to make sure that you choose the right softskins.

I think selling two trucks in a box is the way to go. A gamer can almost always use two trucks.

Indeed. And with American softskins you can use them for a bunch of different factions.

Warlord's Panzer III is now up for pre-order: http://www.warlordgames.com/pre-order-plastic-panzer-iii-2/

It's another Italeri kit. It builds several versions - basically the same ones as Rubicon's, with the addition of the early Ausf J with the shorter L/42 50mm gun. But it seems to be a much more accurate kit, with nice details like track sag (possibly a bit overdone), spare tracks, and the optional parts necessary for each version (including turret visors, hull escape hatches and 2 different exhausts). It also has the correct non-slip pattern on the track guards. Note that the painted Ausf N on the Warlord site is wrong, in that it has spaced armour on the mantlet (i.e. the same mistake as Rubicon's kit); I think that's probably a construction error, as there's a plain mantlet included in the kit. Early Ausf Js had a different engine deck layout to this kit, but that's probably of little concern to most people who'll buy this.

Volleyfire Painting has a review of the kit: http://volleyfirepainting.blogspot.hk/2015/07/warlord-games-28mm-plastic-panzer-iii.html

It's not one of his best efforts - the weathering is rather sloppy and out of scale - but the model itself looks pretty good.

Up next from Warlord is the plastic SdKfz 251/16 which I mentioned in another thread. This is a Warlord kit, rather than an Italeri model. Hopefully Warlord will then turn to some Allied subjects (Italeri are presumably still proceeding with an M8 and M36, although Rubicon already has prototypes for both).

Good to see the they improved the track parts breakdown. I would have still prefered to see vinyl belts but it seems to be a lot better Engineered and less annoying that what they supplied on their M4 kits [for example]. The amnount of sag seems accurate compared to the photos of the real tank I've seen.