One of the most iconic stories in the Hammer’s Slammers pantheon is “The Warrior”, a three-parter that tells the tale of Slick Des Grieux, a fearsome but somewhat wayward tank commander in Hammer’s regiment. The second part portrays an assault on the town of Morobad across a landscape of paddy fields, causeways and dikes by the Han Black Banner Brigade supported by Slammers’ blower tanks. The town is held by the Hindi army, aided and augmented by tank destroyers, infantry and artillery from Baffin’s Legion.

We’ve already released models for the Black Banner Brigade in both 6mm and 15mm, plus trucks and even some trikes for the regular Han troops (only in 15mm so far, 6mm is on the way). So we’re moving on to the opposition this week with the release of a series of vehicles for the Hindis.

Their primary armoured vehicle is the Hathauda (‘Hammer’), also know colloquially as the H-Tank. It’s called a tank by the Hindis, but could also be considered to be a tank destroyer as it has no turret which gives it a very low profile. It’s armed with a heavy liquid-propellent gun along with a remote-controlled chain gun plus a pintel weapon on the commander’s cupola. A specific feature mentioned in the story is that the vehicle can operate either on its wide balloon tyre wheels, or alternatively single-piece rubber tracks can be fitted around the wheels to lower ground pressure and improve traction. So we’ve provided both versions of the model to allow you to choose. Anyone familiar with armoured vehicles from the Cold War will immediately recognise where the inspiration for the H-Tank came from – and that’s because it’s exactly the vehicle that David Drake himself was thinking of when he wrote that part of the story.

Also mentioned in the story are towed anti-tank weapons which pop up in the paddy fields to take quite a toll on the advancing Han armour. These have the same LP weapon as the H-Tank on a wheeled chassis. Continuing on the towed weapon theme, the Hindis also employ artillery pieces which Slick encounters in Morobad itself. We’ve also provided a tracked gun tractor, the Khachchar (“Mule”) to haul these weapons around the battlefield...

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