Battlefront Flammpanzer II

As a German player, I'll admit that the initial release of Early War has left me feeling a bit disappointed on more than one occasion. Initially it was cases where vehicles had be omitted and/or mislabeled. The lack of a Panzer I Ausf A, the mislabeling of the Panzer II Ausf C (late) (with the squared front hull) as an early (and the lack of the early rounded front hull variant), and the lack of an Sd Kfz 251/1 A/B makes doing a proper invasion of Poland list difficult. Later on, Battlefront continued to use the Panzer I Ausf B chassis for vehicles that would have only appeared on the Ausf A chassis.

For most players, these issues are minor and only drive rivet counters like me absolutely barking mad. However, Battlefront never even produced a Panzer II Ausf D or E for the Verlastete Panzer II platoon needed for the Verlastete Panzerkompanie.  Given Blitzkrieg was released way back in 2010, the fact that there are still major gaps in the Battlefront line for EW is disappointing.

Now that the EW era is coming to a close with the release of Barbarossa, one of the new releases was slated to be the Flammpanzer II. This vehicle appeared exclusively on the Panzer II D/E chassis, so I was a bit nervous that Battlefront would use one of the existing Panzer II models to put this vehicle out. Fortunately my fears were unfounded as they have actually released a stunning miniature of this fun little vehicle.

The Flammpanzer II comes in a set of two vehicles under the code GE014. Evan Allen designed the master, and it is a beauty. He captures all of the key details of this quirky little vehicle. Now maybe we'll see that elusive Panzer II Ausf D/E miniature in the not so distant future... please?