Telling a story with vehicle wrecks

I think vehicle wrecks are like casualty figures, they are visual cues to the unfolding narrative of any game or campaign. The more that I record my games here on the blog the more I see how well those elements help to tell the story and make the experience more immersive. One of the advantages of playing the Second World War in 20mm is the abundance of models and their relative low cost when compared with 28mm. It means I can afford to turn a few into wrecks without breaking the bank, like the PzIV below, a plastic kit from Dragon.

The first wreck I made was a small Panzer II using the old Matchbox kit (see below). I opened up the driver's hatch and added a very simple interior, but other than that this is the kit as it comes out of the box. 

The second was a T34 and I decided to try something more ambitious. The old Airfix kits can be picked up very cheaply and I decided to make this one with the turret blown off. The interior elements were scratch built, but not following any precise plans, I just wanted to give the impression of cluttered debris within the tank hull and turret. All I used were odds and ends from the spares box and pieces of plastic card.

With the turret blown off it made sense to have surrounding debris and so I mounted this one on a small base.

When we planned the 29, Let's Go! campaign I had a feeling we might need a wreck of a Sherman - the Americans can field several of those and it occurred to me there was a good chance we'd replay on a map where one had been destroyed. I had a spare M4A3 from one of the Armourfast sets that was perfect for the job.

Generally I've found open hatches and a burnt out effect on the exterior are two simple ways of conveying the tank's status.

As it turned out, it didn't end up making an appearance in that campaign but I did find a use for it in Operation Martlet where it served as a knocked out British tank.

Operation Martlet also inspired a knocked out PzIV. The core German panzer grenadier platoon starts with one attached. There was a good chance that might also be destroyed and we would play another game on the same table. I picked up a very nice kit from Dragon that enabled me to make one with most of the hatches in the open position without having to undertake any conversion or cutting of parts.

In all cases the painting method is essentially the same. The base model is sprayed with brown and black tones.

Once dry the model is sprayed with AK Worn Effects.

Once that is dry the tank is sprayed in the colour it would have been prior to being knocked out. Once that is dry you lightly wet the paint and then rub at it with a coarse hair paint brush to expose the colour underneath. It's a surprising simple yet effective technique. You can see this in more detail in this post about making the wrecked T34.

Broken down vehicles or those out of fuel also add to the narrative. The story of a retreat is full of pictures of vehicles abandoned by the side of the road. When we played the Ruckzug campaign I thought that was a perfect opportunity to make up a bus that I had bought with just such a project in mind.

I have a set of plastic panzer crews from Orion and a few of them are in overalls and look like mechanics. I thought a few of them would provide the perfect little vignette to work with the model.

I based them separately so that they can work with the model or not depending on how I wanted to use it.

Here it is in one of the Ruckzug campaign games:

A Japanese Isuzu truck model from IBG came complete with an engine and it seemed a shame not to do something similar with that. In this instance I haven't come up with any appropriate Japanese figures for mechanics but I think with the bonnet up and the driver's door wide open it still tells its own story.

Is this all a bit of an indulgence? I don’t think so. I love games with miniatures because they offer a rich visual narrative. Our figures, models and terrain are the props and performers on our little stage, so we can never have enough.