Samodzielna Brygada Strzelców Karpackich - Vehicles

Matlida was the Queen of the Desert.  These are troops one and four, A Squadron of the 4th Royal Tank Regiment.  The white number in the lead tanks designate the troop leaders.  The names are a mix of names I'm sure were in the desert on Matilda II's, and names I'm sure were in France on Matilda I's.  I would've been happy to try my hand at the little desert rat marking but these guys never sported them.  I know the markings are shaky, but I think it's a more fun result to try to paint them than slapping on a better looking decal.  Plus Gordon told me I couldn't so that's that.

I had a Hell of a time trying to figure out what the caunter camo scheme was.  Nobody agrees!  The first time I heard of it, my reaction was joy that I'd never have to paint it since it had nothing to do with Poland.  That didn't last long.  "Drake" was the only one I had a decent reference for and then I randomized the rest.  I know better now that the lines are more predominantly front to back instead of across, and the result should be more like triangles.  I'll fix that for troops two and five when I get around to painting them.

Playing Matildas has been strange.  They draw a lot of fire and laugh at it.  But their main gun is terrible.  In early war they are ridiculously expensive, and then there's the cheese factor of knowing some of the other players don't have anything that can kill them, so I've only taken a two-tank troop once (where miraculously, they were destroyed by Italian Engineers.  Stronzo!)

The SBSK had quite a few carriers.  The red/white striping was required for the Operation Crusader breakout because there was so much captured equipment floating around.  I had a great picture of a bling-ed out Polish carrier from Time or Life magazine or something but I never found it again.  There were white eagles just above the gun port that I've attempted to recreate.  The Polish checkerboard is artistic license.  I never saw any of those.

I really like the way these play.  It's nice to waste enemy fire by pulling them out of harm's way and I'm looking forward to using the rest of the recon special rules too.  I'm going to paint up another squad or two of them some day, and those will be in caunter. 

I haven't seen any pictures of SBSK Anti Tank trucks but I know they had them.  Ok, I did see one of a 37mm Bofors stuck in the mud or something, but I haven't been ambitious enough to convert one yet.

These 2pdr portee AT guns get one turn of shooting per game.  Then something throws a rock at them and they all blow up.  Ambush is nice when they can get it.  They are shiny because I'm still deciding what markings to paint on before I dull coat them.