28mm Mantic Games Undead Balefire Catapult

A closer look at the Mantic Undead Balefire catapult. Some weeks ago my Undead warhost from the British manufacturer Mantic Games arrived. It contains 52 figures (not 50 as it is written on the box). I did not want to make a review on this because you can find enough reviews arround the web. As you can read in the reviews for this figures, they are nicely sculpted and you can get them for a good price in comparison with other 28mm fantary figures.

Here is a quickview on the catapult that can be found in this set:

Front side

Back side

Some detail shots

The catapult looks good. But there is no instruction sheet included (find it at Mantic here). It has a crew of two skeletons, the crew sprue offers the loader as simple two part figure. The commander can be build in different variations, if Mantic had included one more part of legs this weapon could have a crew of the skeletons.

Seems like this is a great kit. When it is build in the future, before that there a lot of stuff that I have to finish, you will find some pictures of this im my blog.

Here is a comparison of different figures. The Mantic minis would fit well to the Lord of the Rings tabletop game but compared but the Games Workshop skeleton warriors are bigger then the Mantic skellies. But I think the will still fit in any Warhammer session.

Finally some words on their bases. The have the standard size od 20 x 20 millimeters. In contrast to the bases of Games Workshop the do not have beveled sides and have a hole on one side which fits the bases of their figures.
You can find all of this undead stuff from your modelstore, if not you can order them directly in the Mantic onlineshop, soon there will be more undead minis of them.

Find pictures of painted undead catapults here.

Orion 1:72 Soviet Tank Crew 1943 - 1945

A closer look at the "Soviet tankmen and crew 1943 - 1945" by the Ukrainian manufacturer Orion. They are the newest addition to my growing collection. I read some time ago that they would appear on the market in the near future and now they are availabe.

I think they are a must-have for me (arrgh, more Soviets to paint), and when I found them at the bay on Monday I bought a set of them.

Today the set arrived, therefore let's take a closer look at them:

The box contains three sprues with total 39 figures in 13 different poses. There is almost no flash on the figures and no moulding lines except for on the bases. Three of the minis have no base attached.

The sculpting is very good and the theme is great, before these came out the only other Soviet tank crew figures that were available, were the LW/Evolution set (PSR review) and the Soviet Tank Crew figures of Preiser (On the way review).

There are two poses in this set that I do not like so much, it are the running mini in the first row (the man in the middle), he does not look natural. Second is the third figure in the second row. Why does he hold his gun to the side like a gangsterrapper?

All of the figures wear the standard tank crew helmet and most of them wear overalls, only three of them wear trousers and jackets. As you see on the picture above I splitted these figures into three different groups:

Maintenance poses:
A guy in running pose (could be combat,too), man with a big crowbar, a man running with a canister, and a guy with a wrench.

Combat poses:
A binocularist, a kneeling fig that fires his pistol, another kneeling fig with pistol, two crew men armed with PPsH, and a crewman with a pistol.

Parade/victory poses:
A fig leaning against something, a fig in parade pose for the tank hatch, and a mini that is waving a bunch of flowers.

The last picture shows some of the Orion figs compared with the tank crew minis by LW/Evolution. The LW figures are nice but in an ugly color, that you hardly see the details. For a closer look on the detail of the LW minis, check out the PSR link in the text above, they got their minis in black plastic where you can see some more.

Orion did a fine job with these set. There are only a few Soviet tank crew figure sets on the marketThese minis are a welcome addition to our hobby. They will look great when they get painted. But even the LW minis will look good when they get a good paintjob. But not in the next weeks, it's summer and I don't paint anything because in my hobbyroom it is alltime almost 30 degrees (Celsius).
However I have still a lot of fresh stuff lie arround that I will do some more small reviews for you. A little lookout for the next post, I will write some lines about the new 28mm figures of British manufacture Mantic.

Update:
I messed this up while reformatting, sorry to say, but I can not find the pictures from this post. This are the best pictures I have, but you can visit Plastic Soldier review to get a close look at the minis.

First Airbrush Experiences

Since I started with modelling in winter 2008/2009, I wanted to have an airbrush gun because it would make the painting of models much easier especially camouflage paintings. One day I got an old airbrush gun and an almost empty bottle of Revell airbrush gas. But the gun was broken and landed in the trashcan.
I kept the gas to use it in the future and last week I got suddenly a new gun.Today it's so sticky and hot outside, that I decided to stay at home and share my first airbrush experiences with you.

The tools are ready.

The following stuff was used for it:
- my new Revell Starter class airbrush gun,
- an old bottle of Revell airbrush gas,
- color, I use Revell Aquacolor acrylics,
- alcohol as paint thinner,
- syringes to mix the color,
- a "third hand" tool to hold the model (like this),
- a newspaper for covering,
- a cool drink (it's summer),
and, of course, the model that will be painted.

The color is ready.

For this first try I made a mix of 2 parts paint and 1 part alcohol as thinner. I had no idea how to thin it until I found in some internet forums some infos about using Revell Aquacolor for airbrushing. Most of the users there said that Aquacolor matte paints should be mixed with 30 to 40 percent thinner.

The model is prepared.

For the first test I used a model of the WW1 Mk1 tank by Airfix, it came with a lot from ebay but the tracks were broken. But I builded it to use it for some painting experiments like this.
I fixed an small screwdriver with some hotglue on the ground of the tank where it won't be seen when it is finished an found its way to a diorama or something like that. When the glue is taken away this small spot will be painted with a brush.

The model after the first layers of color.

As you can see on the picture above my first attempt does not look too bad, I was positive surprised about the result, it looks good. But I ran out of color and the gas bottle is now total empty. The gun is very good for giving a base coat to models but I do not think that it can be used for camo pattern, maybe with masking tape and/or stencils. But that will come later.

A closer look at the result

The picture above shows a enlarged view of the picture before. The color is still wet and some places got no paint but I am satisfied with the result of my first try. Sure it could be better, but you have to remember that I used low budget gear to get this result.

The color is dried.

Airbrushing is great. It does not cost as much time as painting with brushes and the paint is applied uniformly. I got a new bottle of gas and when it is empty and I made some progress in airbrushing, I should think about new equipment.

The only contra that I found was that it is a big waste of paint, I used 3 ml paint (+ 1,5 ml thinner) for this one, I think I could paint up to 3 tanks with the same amount of color, but with an other (better) airbrush gun the rate of consumption will sink.

10 Percent Discount At Smallscale.de

Smallscale.de gives to all his customers 10 percent discount on all orders until the 31st juli 2010.

It has a big sortiment of plastic model kits in 1:72 from different manufacturers like Revell, Airfix, MAC, Italeri, and many more. Beside that you can find a lot of multimedia kits, even some rare FSF kits are listed.

The prices are very fair and sometimes you can find some real rarities in his shops.

To get your own discount you must only write "HAPPYSUMMERSALE" in the comment after you checked out your basket. Check out the great sortiment at Smallscale.de and make your order.

Update 04/2018

Smallscale.de has closed it's gates.

Armourfast 1:72 Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Part 3

Soccer sucks...so here's part two of my small review of the Armourfast(HÄT) kit of the Sd.Kfz. 251. It is available via online shops and/or in your local model shop. I paid 13,5 Euros (postage included) what is a fair price.

The upper hull,from left to right:

Armourfast - ESCI/Italeri - Revell

It seems that the Armourfast hull is not as wide as the other manufacturer's hulls. After I measured the 3 hulls I can say that this is true. The Armourfast part is 30mm, the ESCI/Italeri part is 31,5mm and the Revell part is 31,3mm.
The wiki article about the 251 says that it is 2,1meters wide, divided with 72 give 29,17mm what means that the Armourfat kit is the most accurate kit or at least the width of it's hull.

I built some storage boxes from plastic card.

The Armourfast 251 with the rocket launcher
of the Revell Sd.Kfz. 251/1 kit.

It's a great kit, and with some time and little work it will look great. I'm looking forward to the future, Italeri will release a fastbuild version of the Sd.Kfz. 251 this year, that's why I will wait until I can make a direct comparison of both.

There are some parts that I changed or will change, the passenger storage boxes (see picture), a Notek light, a new trailer coupling and some minor things. Maybe I will drill out the holes of the roadwheels as I did on my StuG42 kits.
And then I will make my first experiences with airbrushing, I got the simple beginner pistol from Revell, it can be seen on the second picture. But before I do I have to finish some projects.

Armourfast 1:72 Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Part 4

Here are some detailed pictures of the Hanomag Sd.Kfz 251/1 made Armourfast(HÄT). This kit was announced some years ago, I remember that there was almost every second week a post in the HÄT forum which asked for the release date of this kit.

Let's take a look at this kit:

Front look at the sprue.

All parts are casted well without any mould lines or sinkholes except for the passenger seats. But why they didn't use the tan color of their other kits.

Back of the sprue.
I think it is the C version of this vehicle.

Some close look at the details: the rivetted hull, the front wheels
the machine guns (without handles, strange) and the tracks

The construction manual at the back of the box.
Note that some parts are not mentioned.

A first look at the kit shows that it is simple but has a lot of hidden potential. With some simple modifications this could be a fine wargaming model.