September 4, 2019

Zvezda 1:100 Ju-87 B2 Stuka

A closer look at the 1:144 JU-87 B2 Stuka modelkit made by the Russian producer Zvezda. This kit belongs to Zvezdas range of 1:144 plane expansions for their "Art Of Tactic" wargame. I think Zvezda gave up this game since its official homepage is dead. Or at least was when I looked the last time. Since half of the internet fails today, I could not check it.

By now I own 3 kits from this range, and when my mate Olli got this kit, I used the opportunity to look at it. So let us take a look at the content of this box:

The kit comes in a single grey plastic sprue. The material is softer than the green plastic what is used for other Zvezda kits. In future reviews we will see, that the grey stuff generally is softer than its green counterpart.

Only 8 parts will be needed to build this plane, and the quality of the kit is ok, but the grade of detail is very basic and could be way better. There are no sinkholes and only minimal flash can be found. The body has to be cleaned because it has a major mouldline all arround, but the other parts are ok.

The clear part for the cockpit comes as a solid piece, what was already known before from other Zvezda kits. There is no room for pilot and gunner figures or torsos and the rear AA machine gun is missing completely. Slightly disappointing but what was I expecting to see?
Maybe I really should try to vacform some canopies.

The second sprue in this box contains 2 parts to build a stand for the plane. It is included in every "Art Of Tactic" plane expansion. It seems solid and not too bad and would be a decent model stand.

The decalsheet seems like it is printed in the same good quality than the other Zvezda decal sheets I know. This one contains some generic numbers and Balkenkreuze. I had no time to test them at the moment, but there should be no issues with them.
If you want to use decal setting and/or decal softing solution there is the chance that it may damage them, I had this issue with the decals from Zvezdas Hawker Hurricane.

This is a pretty basic kit, with some grade of detail, but most details are missing. The missing supports of the rearwings could easiely be scratchbuilt, adding the AA gun would take some more efford since you would have to drill into the clearpart.
Adding these tho things already would improve its look.

For a simple gamepiece this thing is ok, but if you want something more, you should get something better. Eduard offers various versions of the Stuka in 1:144 scale. Or you may find the Revell "Micro Wings" Stuka which I built some time ago.

According to my mate Olli, this was built without any issues, and after he built this plane, we compared it to the Revell Ju-87:

Just take a look for yourself, you will see a lot of differences between these two. The Revell model was shown in a previous post, and while its overall detail is mediocre, it beats the Zvezda JU-87.

Both planes were made for the planes expansion, and by now I finally have all special abilies created and wanted to show them up to you, even when it takes some more weeks to finish this.

I copy/pasted this part of the rought draft of the rules, I think I should not have to explain them, just read for yourself:

The new Special Abilitiy for all tanks:
AA Gun
This model gets 3 attack dice against air units.

New Special Abilities for planes:
Plane
This model can only shoot targets entirely in front of it.

Constant Movement
This model has to move in every phase of the round.

Dogfighter (x)
This model gets (x) additional attack dice when attacking other planes.

New Special Abilities for air defense vehicles:
AA fire (x)
This Model has (x) Attack dice when shooting at planes.

Penetrator Rounds (x)
This Model gets (x) attack dice when attacking Models with with 0 Basearmour.
(the name of this may be changed)

Does not look bad or does it? Another thing I made some thoughts about were the AA guns for the British and the American forces and I decided, that both vehicles I made up could be choosen from either the USA or the UK.
Then one of these two doctrines, both costing 0 points, must be chosen to mark the country for which the model stands:

In British Service
The player may choose to keep one of their die results and re-roll the rest when Shooting while Stationary with this model.

In US Service
Treat this Model as making one less Move than shown on its Speed token when calculating its target's Defence dice.

Sounds pretty simple, and it is. This way each nation has at least 2 different AA guns to choose from. Since I may add the Ostwind, I also may add the Canadian Skink tank to choose, playable like the Italians in "TANKS", what can be seen, when I take a closer look at the Italian expansions for "TANKS".
Actually, I could do this in the next post, but first it is time again to show some some built models in the next post.

Update:
I uploaded the video of this post to my youtube channel.

Hobbyzone Small Corner Module
For 26mm Bottles

A closer look at the small corner module for 26mm paint bottles made by the Polish producer HobbyZone. Since my amount of paint bottles is growning slowly but steady, not only with paints but with a lot of "little helpers" and other stuff, I need more room for them.

I already built some painttrays, they can be seen on this picture, and while they work well, I wanted to try something new and ordered this thing. It is priced below 10 Euros what is fine, and HobbyZone is offering more various trays for paints and stuff, that you can build your customized working station.

I hope this makes sense, but with no further words left, let us look what is inside this box.

All parts came packed in bubblewrapped foil, and with them a simple construction advice. The material is MDF or stuff like that, and it seems, that the parts were not done using a laser but using a CNC machine.

The parts are nice, I did not find any recess material or surface damages. Following the instructions, when needed since it will build easy even without them, this thing took about 5 minutes to construct and needed no glue, all parts fit very well.

If you use this thing in a corner, it will roughly take 30x30cm or little less than a squarefoot on the desk. 

This is how it looks now:

Does not look bad, and it seems pretty stable. I think by the time I will replace my selfconstructed painttrays with more of this stuff, I have seen a nice rack by Vallejo, I think this could be next.
I recommend this thing. Bought for 8,96, this tray is worth every cent and will do its job very well. I will take a picture when it is integrated and add it to this post.

Update:
Fits and sits well on in workspace.


-

Yesterdays roguish Montagsmaler meeting was nice. I started to work on the new scenery pieces and my mate Olli built and started to paint some Zvezda "Art Of Tactic" kits, including the one which I will review tonight, includig some rambling about the (work in progress) plane expansion for "TANKS".
And YAY, I doubled my youtube subscribers from 1 to 2, maybe I should quit my job and concentrate on this.

And finally, Olli gave me his cards and boxes of the two missing German "TANKS The Modern Age" expansions, that I will take a closer look at them this week to complete the German range too, as I already did for the French, and will do for other nations in the future, even for the British.
At the moment I have over 10 reviews in the pipeline, but I do not want to spam with them since there is always something on the desk to write about.

September 3, 2019

3Dprinting Timelapse Video



It took some time, but finally I uploaded a video to youtube. I do not think that I will do this often, even when I have some ideas for hobby related videos, this stuff takes too much time. But at least it is a start and a place to collect all videos I made for this blog. In the next time I am going to upload them to the new channel.
You may subscribe, but I do not think it is worth it, since all videos will be shown in this blog.

Yesterday was the second try of doing this kind of videos, which was not successful, but today I tried again and as you may have seen, now the timelapse thing works, but the quality of the video is pretty bad. I think the camera is the reason, maybe I will try another camera for that. And for sure, a different camera angle, where more can be seen.
And maybe some nice music, without any sound, this is pretty boring.

The file I have chosen for this print was a P-47 Thunderbolt from Thingiverse scaled down to 1:144. Now the Americans will also have the choice of two planes.

The next roguish Montagsmaler meeting will be tomorrow today, oi that video thingi took long, then it is time to get the scenery piece with the crashed passenger jet done. If my mate Olli will build that one kit, a closer look at it may follow in the evening, when we have finished our roguish projects.

September 1, 2019

1:144 Messerschmitt BF-109 F2
&
Hawker Tempest Mk. 5

Some pictures of two recently finished 1:144 model planes. 

First there is the Messerschmitt BF-109 F2 made by Russian producer Zvezda for their "Art Of Tactic" Range. I got it together with the Ilyushin IL-2 and other things some time ago, while I built and painted the IL-2, see pictures in this post, the BF-109, you can see the sprue on this picture, was built but got lost somewhere.

When I found this thing in one of my bitsboxes, it had suffered some serious damage. The antenna went missing, what I still have to fix, two rotorblades were broken off, and both tailwings were seperated from the plane, one of it was broken in two halfes.

Fixing the rotor was no big issue, as also the reglueing of one of the tailwings, but the part broken from the other wing did not stick well to its counterpart.
It broke off at least 4 more times, the last time after the plane was painted, what you clearly can see on the picture below. But I thought fuck it, and left it as it is now.

The upper half was painted in Revell Aquacolor Khakibraun, while the lower half was painted in Revell Aquacolor Light Green, brightened with some drops of white. As usual, the decals were taken from the scrapbook.

The second finished 1:144 plane is the Hawker Tempest Mark 5 made by Revell from its old "Micro Wings" range. I wrote this in a previous post, and I write it again, it is too bad, that these small things are out of prodution, even when they are pretty simple and their moulds are almost worn out.

The belly of this plane was painted in a Vallejo Grey, which label is not readable anymore. The upper part was painted in a selfmixed blue grey, which got too blue, and Revell Aquacolor Dark Green. I used so liquid masking solution for the camouflage pattern.
The decals were taken from the kit and as usual produced in the same good Revell quality as usual.

At the moment the printer is running, I am printing a final plane for the planes expansion. If everything will work out as supposed I will add another post tonight.

August 31, 2019

15mm ZIS-5 Truck With AA DsHK

Some pictures of my recently finished ZIS-5 truck with an equipped DsHK AA machine gun. Basically it is the ZIS-5 from Zvezdas "Art Of Tactic" wargame with scratchbuilt arnament. I did not take a closer look at this thing yet, but you can find some nice reviews on the web and youtube.

The truck got painted in the same style like my other 15mm ww2 Soviet vehicles. I use different greens as basecolor for them but the rest of the procedure is always the same. Some red star decals from the sparebook were applied after it got painted.

Detail pictures show that I have at least 3 things to do, I will have to overwork the muzzle of the gun, the windshield needs some more blue paint and there are some spots on the mini which need some more paint.
A little bit annoying, but this should be fixed quickly.

I took the picture above from a previous post which shows the other Soviet AA truck which I partly scratchbuilt. The gun was built, using some needles, a part from Orions 1:72 AA DsHk, and an spare machine gun from the Battlefront miniatures T-64, if I remember correctly.
This thing was easy to build and it looked not as bad as I suspected when finished.

The operator of the machine gun was taken from the bitsbox, it is one of the spare crewmembers from the 1:100 Plastic Soldier Company Bren Carrier. Formerly under British service, after some rough handling with the cuttermesser and sanding paper, now this guy has joined the Red Army and, well, it could have been worse.

I am pretty satisfied with the finished model, before it was painted I thought this would look crude when finished, luckily everything went well, even the figure does not look too bad. If you read some of the last posts, you already should know what it will be used for. Some brainstorming with two fellow mates solved the last remaining issues, that a final playtest should show that all would work as supposed.
Maybe tonight but at least tomorrow I will show some legitimate targets for this new addition to my growing collection of 15mm models.

By the way, all planes and AA vehicles for a first revision of the planes expansion for "TANKS" are now painted and ready to get photographed, this will be done in the next days, I will keep you informed.