New from Warlord Games, for use in their ever-popular WW2 Bolt Action rules, we’ve got the Hungarian 10cm 37M Medium Howitzer and the 40M Nimrod SPAA Gun. These will cover your artillery slot and tank slot in a standard platoon and they are each powerful units in their own ways.
10cm 37M Medium Howitzer
Let’s start with the all-metal field piece; a chunky World War I era gun designed by the Austro-Hungarians and still used by the Hungarians after independence. Also used by the Italians, this appears to be the same model as the Italian one that Warlord also sell, which makes sense, what with them being the same gun!
The gun itself comes in five parts: two wheels, one gun shield, one barrel, and one carriage. This is a simplified version of the real-life model rather than an accurate scale model. The carriage has a small casting error that the judicious use of a hobby knife and file will sort but it is otherwise well cast with few mould lines.
The piece comes with four crew in different poses: one is spotting with binoculars, one carries a shell, one is pulling the firing lanyard, and one is nonchalantly watching.
40M Nimrod SPAA Gun
The Nimrod was a Hungarian self-propelled anti-aircraft gun based on a Swedish model and the Warlord one is a resin and metal version of it. Four resin parts make up the main bulk of the kit: a main body, two track sections and a turret. Within the turret are three seated crewmen, but they have no heads, so use the metal ones supplied to bring them to the land of the living! The other metal model parts provide the other crewman and the 40mm Bofors.
Casting’s good and the Nimrod is similar to the real one but slightly elongated – the wheels are spaced too far apart. There will be issues getting a brush into parts of the turret, especially if you fit the gun and other parts before painting. The figures are the same size as the ones in the medium howitzer kit, which is nice.
Painting the crew may be a difficult task
Yeah, I’ve built two different Metal Artillery models by Warlord so far, and both have had casting issues, considering many field pieces are used by multiple forces, I’m surprised they haven’t started making the guns themselves in plastic.