The old Warlord Games tank rider figures are pretty cool. However, anyone who has tried using them in a game will probably agree that they are not very practical, especially the ones standing up. They just fall over and off the tank all the time. And the whole idea is that they will ride on the tank, which means youll be moving the whole set around, right?
To make them easier to handle and more practical in actual games, I decided to mount mine on to small bases. These were just pieces of plastic bases which I cut into smaller sections. Obviously I tried to make them as inconspicuous as I could, and I painted them in a color matching the tank hull. I think this turned out pretty well. The bases are about as small as I could make them and still fit the models on them, and they blend in well enough on top of the tank. Of course, one could well have made larger bases with more figures on them. That would have looked very cool, but I didnt feel it was really worth the effort doing a whole platoon’s worth of tank riders. On a larger tank, such as the KV or IS series, it will be possible to fit two bases on one tank, but on the T34:s that doesnt really work.
I should also add that about half of these were painted recently, adding to the ones I already had. Several of the figures originally had fur caps (ushankas). My Soviets are mostly not wearing winter clothing, so I thought that itd be more appropriate with regular helmets on. So, I decapitated them and replaced the heads with helmeted ones from the WG plastic set.
Pancratist 