What next? Future projects.

As this is a start of a new year I suppose it's a good time to look forward to what projects I will undertake this year. Now that I've got a proper plan and am better organised with my current Finnish project, I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel and am starting to actually think about what I might do next!

There are two ideas that immediately come to mind; a World of Tanks themed project and a small Middle East Wars project.

World of Tanks
The World of Tanks computer game is a continuing obsession with me, and I particularly enjoy playing the Soviet tank destroyers. So I thought that I'd love to have a little set of my favourite tanks in the game.

My favourite 'small' tank from World of Tanks is my Soviet SU-85i, or, as I
like to call it, 'the poor man's StuG'.

Action Hobbies do a nice 1/72 scale Su-85i, which would look great painted
in my World of Tanks camo scheme.

There are some amazing steel beasts in the game and some are quite obscure (some of the tanks are actually 'paper tanks' or tanks which were never more than prototypes). So, it would be nice to have a little display for my desk.

At the other end of the scale, my monstrous Object 268. Top of the Soviet Tank
Destroyer line and my favourite German E-100 killer!

Trumpeter make an Object 268 kit, but I think I would have to source my 152mm
gun option from a third-party by the looks of it.

Middle East Wars
I noticed that a lot of modellers got the 'Cold War' bug last year and while it is a very interesting subject, for me, it was the Middle East Wars that have influential memories for me. I still remember black and white TV news images from when I was a kid of Israeli tanks during the Yom Kippur War (1973).

Of all the tanks involved during the Arab-Israeli conflicts, one tank stand out in my mind as being iconic of these desperate struggles and that is the - apply named - Israeli Sho't tank (105 mm L7 armed British Centurion tank). I was lucky enough to receive a 1/72 scale Black Dog made Centurian Mk. III lit from my brother last year...

And, quite by chance, this seemed to compliment a Black Dog Egyptian SPG 122mm conversion kit that I had already acquired for one of my Soviet T-34/85 kits...

So, together, I thought these models might make the embryo of a nice little Middle East collection or maybe just an interesting little diorama.

Which of these two ideas I will go with this year remains to be seen, I could actually build the two Middle East tanks I have between projects I suppose and leave the World of Tanks project until I finish my Finnish collection, I suppose. But, I do have something special in mind with which I will conclude my Finnish project...