Aces Of The Autobahn

While my mate Olli just arrived for another roguish Montagsmaler session, I wanted to share this picture I made some weeks ago.

An actual posting will come tonight.

Victrix 1:100 Ju 87 G2 Stuka

A closer look at the 1:100 JU87 G2 Stuka model kit made by Victrix Models. This is one of their two new kits of 1:100 planes for wargaming, the other kit available at this moment is the Hawker Typhoon IB, also in 1:100 scale. A closer look at the Typhoon is not planned.

First, as usual, let us take a look at the plastic included in this kit:

The kit came in one grey sprue containing all parts needed to build the Stuka. On a first look, the kit seems without any flaws, no injector marks or sinkholes and virtually no flash.

This kit seems great, but more on that when it is actually built.

Some details of the sprue: two pilot figures are included, and a detailed look at one of the 3,7 guns which will be attached under each wing.

Also icluded is a nice flightbase, the socket may be pretty huge, but this thing allows to show different heights by expanding it like an antenna.

Too bad that I already lost the clear plastic rod which should be attached to the sprue, but this will be replaced if I should use this thing.

The detail picture of the clear parts shows that the plastic is very milky, maybe some polishing paste may help, but when I saw the clear parts I was pretty unsatisfied.

The instructions which are included are colorcoded and are kept simple and understandable, I have seen a lot of worse building instructions but only a few in this great quality.

The last item included in this kit is a decal sheet, which allows you to build one of 4 different planes using this sheet. Since I did not use them I can not say anything about their quality but the print looks good.

This is a pretty nice modelkit with a decent choice of decals. The subject of it is chosen nice, I think that this is the only tankhunter version of a Stuka in this scale.

The only flaw is the pretty milky clear sprue, I hope Victrix will fix this issue when new units will be produced. But even whith that flaw, this kit is great in detail, and it seems that it will be nice to build this kit.

I think if Victrix would sell the flight bases only, they would be soldout in short time.

Originally I wanted to use this thing for the "TANKS" thing I am working on, but since this plane is pretty big, I will stay with my 1:144 Stuka, which can be seen in this post.

A lot on mini reviews will follow in the next time, but it will will try to keep the blog content balanced between closer looks at kits and actual hobby posts.

Blog Update August

In the past few weeks I did not find a silent moment to update this blog, but some things happened on my workbench. In this post you will get some infos about future posts.

First of all, I found many pictures in my backup folders which will be added to existing posts, and I see at least 20 more "Faces Of War" posts incoming in the next months(/years).

Two more playtests of my upcoming plane expansion for "TANKS" were made, one final playtest will follow and then it is time to actually write the expansion.

Each nation will at least get one plane with various weapon options and  two different AA vehicles. You may expect this expansion sometime in the autumn. Maybe the plane expansion for ww3 TANKS will come with that, if not, it will come close after that.

But before that second expansion is done, some more custom units for "TANKS The Modern Age", this time armoured AA tanks, will be released.

A lot of closer looks at kits will come soon and with them a lot custom units for "TANKS" and "TANKS The Modern Age".

I already took pictures of the kits on the picture above, this weekend I will upload them and start to write some small reviews.

Also, there are some more kits to show which are not on the picture. And yes, I like the works of William Gibson.

My mate Olli and I continued our roguish Montagsmaler sessions, one of the results from these mettings was Ollis Tiger shown on the first picture of this post. Actually, we may meet next week the first time since months on a Monday.

Maybe we will welcome a new member to our small group, another friend of mine likes "TANKS", not only he joined some normal games, he also helped with testing the new rules for planes.

Last but not least, I finished my French forces for "TANKS The Modern Age", and while this was done, two new French custom units were created. They are not shown on the picture above but they will be published soon, right after the closer look at the remaining French expansion for the game.

AMX-30 / AMX AUF1 Tank Expansion For TANKS The Modern Age & Team Yankee AMX 30 Tank Platoon

A closer look at the AMX-30/AMX AUF1 tanks expansion for "TANKS The Modern Age" by Galeforce 9. This game is a remake of ww2 "TANKS" with extended rules, and a spin-off of "Team Yankee". It contains a 1:100 model kit and some cards for the game.

First let us take a look at the plastic model kit that is included:

The kit comes in 2 green sprues containing enough parts to build either an AMX-30 or an AMX AUF1. Whatever you choose, there will be one complete turret left over for the bitsbox.

The kit came without any flaws. It is made in the same high quality as the other newer BM plastic kits I know. Neither sinkholes nor flash can be found on the sprue, a quick look offered that there are no ejector marks that would be seen when the kit is built.

After a look at the plastic, let us take a look at the cards which are included in this expansion. First there are the cards for the available units from this box:

The French AMX-30 offers with an Initiative of 6 and an Attack of 4 a solid base unit. Having an armour of 1 is ok, but only 5 hitpoints makes this one of the weakest battle tanks in the game. Sure, it is not the best tank in the game, but it is better than it may seem because of the AMX-30 special ability.

This tank is equipped with the "Rapid Fire" ability, granting this tank 5 dice against helicopters and unarmoured vehicles. For 13 points, this tank is a must-have for the French, even when there would be more battletanks to choose from.

The French AMX AUF1 is the only official artillery unit in the game. With a defense of 0 and only 3 hitpoints this thing is at the same level as most light tanks from the game. It has the lowest initiative in the game, with only 1 it moves first but shoots last what is a big disadvantage.

Its strenght is the "Artillery" ability, which lets it shoot over other tanks. "Brutal" is very useful too, it lets you change one hit to a critical hit.

With 10 points this unit is very cheap, but its usefulness may not be given in every game.

After a look at the units, let us see which other cards come with his game expansion:

There are 4 crewcards and one equipmentcard in this expanxion. First there are two French hero cards.

The commander "Paul Durand" adds 2 Initiative and 1 armourpoint. You also may place up to 2 tanks not before the game starts but in the first rounds repair phase. For 5 points this commander should join every French Platoon.

The gunner "Laurent Dyre" adds 2 Initiative during the attack phase, its special ability, just read it for yourself, is useful for any tank with a high Initiative. Pretty good for only 4 points.

The next 2 crewmembers are French use only and the new type of "Revealable" cards.

The "Charging Commander" adds for 3 points +1 initiative while the movement phase. When revealed, the tank gets +1 Armour for that round.

Next is the "Charging Driver" who adds +2 Initiative during the movement phase. When this card gets revealed, the tank gets the "Fast" ability for that round. This is a nice addition for only 3 points.

Last there is the "Bomblet Bombardment" for 4 points. Usable only for artillery tanks, it grants you an unmodified D3 attack versus the target tank and all other tanks in close range when discarded. This could be a big gamechanger, especially when combined with the "Artillery Observer" which is included in the AMX-10 expansion.

This expansion is solid, the model comes in a high quality and offers two choices to build. The units for the game are not bad, but I hope that GF9 will make more French battle tank expansions. The addition of the new French crewmembers with the "Charging" tag is nice, I will see how useful they are.

As usual, the only negative point on this model are missing crewmember figures, at least one figure would have been nice, and also there are no decals included.

The main battle tank costing only 13 points, makes me think that the French are a mass army compared to the USA or germany.

I got 2 AMX expansions, but only two of them are not enough for a good game, especially since they are not the best units available and they have a quite low cost of points, that is why I had to get some more AMX tanks trying to score victories by strenght in numbers. Getting a Leopard 2 or an M1A1 down one on one seems pretty impossible, but what if the ratio would be 3:1?

A closer look at the AMX-30 platoon for "Team Yankee" from Battlefront Miniatures. Team Yankee is a ww3 tabletopgame in 15mm/1:100 scale which uses the same models than "TANKS The Modern Age". That is why I choosed this box to improve my French tank platoon.

This box contains 5 AMX-30/AMX AUF1 sprues, which were already shown in this post.

Also included are some unitcards for "Team Yankee". At the moment they do not interest me, but since my mate Olli and I have rulebooks for the game, it is not impossible, that you may read some Team Yankee battlereports in the far future.

More interesting than the unitcards are the other things which came with this box.

First there is a small sprue with 6 tankcommander figures. It is made from the new plastic which is used for Battlefronts Miniatures figuresets. It feels minimal softer than resin or the Restic stuff used by Mantic.

This addition is very useful because the figures could be used for other nations.

Finally there is a small decalsheet with names for the tanks included. I did not test them, but I know, there are two different types of decals available from BM.

They are very thin and either they will need very long in the water, like the "Flames Of War" decals, or they need only a short period of watering before they can be applied, like their "Team Yankee" counterparts. No matter which type they are, all BF decals I used before were pretty fine even when sometimes it got tough to apply them properly.

I already started to work on the first tanks from these boxes.

On the picture you can see another bitsbox/3Dprint hybrid.

Due to the fact that I will get 7 spare turrets when I will have built all of one or the other AMX variants, I searched through Thingiverse, looking for possible spare parts and found this AMX AUF1 file.

Printing the hull took about 4 1/2 hours, but when it was finished, I saw that I will have to recallibrate the 3D printer since the surface details were not printed properly.
I can replace this anytime with a better print, but for now it is ok, I think the big turret distracts from the hull. The turret was magnetized using the method I used before.

I think I will print 3 more of these hulls, a platoon of 4 AMX AUF1, each under 20 points with useful equipment, may be pretty fragile, but with the right support units they may be a tough challenge.

A simple desert pattern was chosen, at least for the AUF1. The paintjob is not finished yet, there are some things left to do, highlights, decals, varnish, all that stuff.

All artillery units will get commander figures. To have something different, I used a "Flames Of War" tank commander with a French head with Kepi (also FOW), just  to let them look like the troops of the French Foreign Legion.

After I have uploaded the next closer look at the last remaining French expansion for "TANKS The Modern Age", after that and the first games using them I may write a post about the French forces for the Game. And since the amount of available choices for the Germans and French is very low, you may expect some more custom units for the game.

1:100 Master Modell Avions Marcel Dassault "Mercure"

A closer look at the 1:100 Avions Marcel Dassault "Mercure" made by the German modelkit manufacturer Master Modell.

Initially released in 1975 by the East German Plasticart Zschopau, this kit was re-released from 1989 to 1991 by Master Modell. These and many more informations about this long gone manufacturer can be found on this homepage.

This is not the usual stuff on which I take a closer look, but when I saw a picture* of a scenery piece with a crashed passenger jet, I felt pretty inspired. I checked various sources to get the cheapest 1:100 civil airliner kit which I could find, to build a scenery piece for "TANKS The Modern Age".

I found this kit, even when I did find almost no informations about it. The linked homepage was the highlight from the search but the rest I got was pretty bad. This is a good reason for this mini review. 

Let us take a look at the parts which are included:

The main parts are moulded in white plastic, which is pretty sturdy and hard. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you may know that I am absolutely no aviation expert, but even I see the simplicity of this kit.

There are not much details, only some raised panel lines. I did not expect the quality of a modern Dragon or Revell kit, but building this as desired will take more efford than I tought.

The next sprue comes in a silverish grey plastic, not as hard as the white parts. It contains more parts to finish this model, among some others, the landing gear and the engines can be found. The grade of detail is low and most of the panel lines are raised just as on the other parts.

The next sprue comes in black plastic and contains all wheels for the landing gear. The detail is simple but at least they are round.

The final sprue includes all clear parts for the model. I am positively surprised by its quality, they are pretty clear, especially since today I unboxed another kit with many clear parts which are pretty milky.

Seems that there are some more closer looks incoming.

Beside the plastic there is a big decal sheet included. According to the Wikipedia article about the Dassault Mercure, it was used by only one airline (Air Inter) for which this sheet is included.

I can not say anything about the quality of East German decals, but to be honest, I do not expect much from them but I will see.

All in all, this is an old kit, compared to "west" modelkits from this time, I think this was never a great kit. On the other side, it is a relict from the past, made from a company in a country who both do not exist anymore.

I think with some work it will make a great scenery piece, combined with the planned new battlefield, this will not only be a fun to make but also an impressing piece of decoration.

This weekend I will continue my closer looking at French tank expansions for "TANKS The Modern Age", it took a little longer to prepare, I had to resupply my French forces, but there will be some "bonuscontent" included.

(* The picture which inspired me can be found in this video at Youtube at 15:30 right after the Boxer.)