Zvezda 1:100 King Tiger Ausf.B With Henschel Turret

A closer look at the 1:100 King Tiger tank expansion for the "Art Of Tactic" strategy game made by Zvezda from Russia. This box contains a 15mm modelkit for the game, but its use is not limited for that only. As I wrote in other reviews, you could use it for any 15mm wargame which supports rules for this unit. My mate Olli and I have planned to use this as a custom unit for "TANKS".

But without any more words to spend, let us take a look at the modelkit:

Zvezdas Tiger II modelkit comes in 2 grey sprues made from the usual Zvezda material, for me it feels softer than the usual stuff which is used for modelkits, in other (p)reviews I wrote some lines about that.

The kit can be build without the use of glue, all parts fit and sit well. But you should use glue on it to strenghen all connections between the parts.

The grade of detail is ok, all tools and towropes are moulded onto the hull, and some parts are simplyfied, especially on the turret. The roadwheels are ok, but the trackdetail is minimal, a simple pattern on the outside and no detail on the inner side of it.

The choice of an opened or closed commander hatch would have been nice, but it should not be too much effort to exchange the commander hatch with a matching hatch from the bitsbox, to bad that I did not have any spare hatch.

Me and my mate Olli built some of them (for future use) and on some parts you have to use a good amount of pressure to close all gaps and make them fit.

When it was constructed and painted, it looked like this (the decals were made by Heer46):

Once again Zvezda offers a nice looking kit with the usual issues, neither decals nor a commander figure are included, and the tracks suck. But even with these issues, all in all, this is a nice kit. Remember, this is not a "true" scale model kit, it is just a piece for a strategy game.

This kit offers a good alternative to the resin Tiger II tank from Battlefront Miniatures. As far as I know, this is the only 1:100 hardplastic King Tiger kit available on the market.

The price of it is the same as for most "Age Of Tactic" 1:100 tank kits, for approximately 4 Euros you can get the Zvezda King Tiger.

Next Thursday we will take another close look at a 1:100 Zvezda kit, then we will see a Soviet or US tank.

Update:

Today I found some time for my blog and decided that this closer look can go online now and not tonight. By the way, I am going to add the latest reviews to the reviewlist. And I changed the time for upcoming autopublished reviews, instead of 22:30 (too late) they will come at 20:00.

I am still not sure if I find some time for "real" content this week, but I am aiming for the weekend to write some lines about my Revell airbrush odyssey.

Leopard 2 Tank Expansion for TANKS The Modern Age

A closer look at the Leopard 2 tank expansion for "TANKS The Modern Age" from Galeforce 9. This expansion includes some cards for the game and a 1:100 modelkit, produced by Battlefront Miniatures for their "Team Yankee" game.

My mate Olli ordered this to complete his German Platoon, and eventually I took the opportunity to take a look at this it:

The modelkit comes in a single green sprue, and as far as I remember there were no issues with it. Neither sinkholes nor ejectormarks were found. The turret and hull details are good, some tools are moulded onto the hull. The tracks are (even when simplyfied) well made.

There is the choice of an opened or closed commander hatch. Also, there are 2 machineguns included, in case that you break one, you would have a spare piece.

After we have seen the plastic kit from this game expansion, let us take a look at the game material that is included. This time you will get 6 upgrade cards beside the unitcard.

Let us take a look at the cards and start with the card for the Leopard itself:

The Leopard 2 is one of the best tanks in the game. With 2 armourpoints and a total of 9 hitponts it can take some hits. Its initiative of 8 is higher than average. With 5 attackpoints and the "Advanced Stabilizer" this thing is a threat to every enemy tank. To use it you will have to spend 32 points, that is more than twice that the Leopard 1 costs.

After a quick look at the unitcard, now let us see which other cards are included in this expansion:

First we have 3 crewmember cards, all exclusively usable for German Tanks platoons.

The commander "Ernst Müller" adds 2 more initiative points for your tank. The price of 7 points may seem pretty high, but this cards also grants the abilitiy to add an additional attack dice against tanks with a lower initiative. This is pretty nice, a Leopard 2 with this comander would have an initiative of 10, what is very high.

Next there is "Klaus Katelaan", who not only adds an additional attack dice, when his tanks scores a critical hit, the defender draws 2 cards and you would have to decide, which of the 2 cards would be used for that critical hit. This upgrade costs 7 points, if you put it in a Marder you would have a nice AA unit.

The third crewcard is the "Homeland Defender", for 2 points he adds an additional initiative point for the movement phase. When that tank gots destroyed, you gain an additional attack die for your "Final Fury" attack.

The remaining 2 cards included in this box are global upgrade cards. 

"Adaptive" gives your tanks 2 more initiative points when you have three or more crewmember aboard your tank. If you are using lots of crewmembers in your tanks, this card is a must-have for only 1 point.

The "Liquid Courage" card could be known from the ww2 version of the game. It lets you reroll failed repairs for damage which is affecting your crew. This could be useful and costs as most generic equipment upgrades only 1 point.

According to my mate Olli, the kit was easy to build and took not much time to build, the result looks like this, but please note that no crewfigures are included, that guy came from the bitsbox. And I think, that the machine gun may came from the Leopard 1.

This expansion should be owned by everyone who commands a German platoon for "TANKS The Modern Age". Not only that you get (one of) the most powerful unit(s) in the game, which would not need any special crews to be a threat.

The kit is well made, the only negative point is the absence of any decals or crewfigures, but except for that this box has everything included to give your platton mor firepower.

Next Tuesday (22:30) we will take a closer look at a Zvezda model kit, a German expansion for their "Art Of Tactic" strategy game.

Semovente 75/18 Tank Expansion For "TANKS"

A closer look at the Semovente tank expansion for "TANKS" made by Galeforce 9. This expansion contains a 1:100 model kit and some cards for the game. As all other expansion kits, the modelkit came from another game range.

The Semovente model kit was made by Battlefront Miniatures for their "Flames Of War" strategy game. You can build either the Semovente or the M41/14 tank from it, basically this is the same kit that is included in the other Italian expansion for "TANKS" and what I wrote about that kit fits perfectly here:

The kit comes in a sandcolored sprue of styrene. As with most BFM model kits, I can not see any flaws on or with the sprue. Except for some mininal mouldlines arround the tracks, no further cleanup is needed, the kit is nicely moulded. The overall grade of detail is fine, the rivets may be a little oversized but they still look fine. The tracks offer a simple but nice grade of detail comparable to the better made Zvezda "Art Of Tactic" kits.

Some stowage and spare tracklink parts are also included on the sprue.

After wee took a look at the plastic kit from this expansion, let us take a look at the unit itself:

The Italian Semovente 75/18 tank is a weak unit with an attack of 4, 0 armourpoints and only 4 hitpoints. Its initiative of 5 is lower than the initiative of the Italian M41/14, but still acceptable. This unit is an assault gun which limits its use, but a bunch of them could still be a potential threat to every unit with a lower initiative.

This tank can join your platoon for the low cost of only 13 points. Its Italian special ability which aims at larger tank groups, makes it effective in groups with at least 2 other Italian tanks.

As usual, next come the upgrade cards, 7 of them are included, and as we saw in the M14/41 review, there are no global cards included.

First, we have the crewcards, which all support attacks on close range:

The Italian tank Commander "Pietro Bruno" adds +2 initiative for the movement phase. If you score uncancelled hits at close range, you may add an additional hit. For 4 points this may be a good commanders, but it needs some strategic moves and a lot of luck on the dice to get in close range, since the Italian tanks are pretty weak units.

The next 2 cards have the Italian exclusive "Risky" prefix, just as the French for "TANKS The Modern Age" use the prefix "Charging".

The "Risky Gunner" lets you score critical hits not only on a 6 but also on a 5, but only at close range. Costing 2 points, this crewmember can be useful if you find the right strategy to compensate  the weakness of the Italian tanks.

The "Risky Loader", available for 2 points, lets your exchange a critical hit made by you for 2 regular hits, but also only on close range,

The other 4 cards included in this expansion feature some new doctrines and equipment for Italian use only:

The first card, which is the most interesting card of this expansion,  has text on both side, depending if you want to use Italian tanks for your German platoon or vice versa.

On one side we have the "German Support" doctrine, with this upgrade you may add any German tank to your Italian platoon, but for that are only non-hero German and global upgrades allowed.

For 1 point you could add a Tiger (for 29 points) or any other German tank to get some more firepower.

On the other side we have the "Italian support" doctrine, for 1 point you can use this doctrine to add this or any other Italian tank to a German platoon. Theoretically you could use a bunch of cheap Italian tanks combined with some high level German units, and I think I am going to build an Afrikakorps squadron including some allied Italian forces.

With the use of the "German Support" doctrine you may add any German tank to your Italian platoon, but for that are only non-hero German and global upgrades allowed.

For 1 point you could add a Tiger (for 29 points) or any other German tank to get some more firepower.

"Face the Enemy" is a doctrine which needs a lot of luck on the dice. As long as you have the card eqipped, that unit gets +1 initiative. If you discard it, this tanks and any friendly tank in close range may rotate to any direction with the cost of getting 0 initiative til the end of the turn.

This doctrine combined with "Avanti" and some upgrades can make a turn a bunch of Semovente assault guns into a big threat, if they stay alive until they can shoot.

"Effento Pronto" adds an additional attack dice when discaded. For 2 points this is a useful upgrade. We have seen this card with different names, I think in "TANKS The Modern Age" the US forces have "Silver Bullets" available which give the same effect.

The "Local Wine" lets you re-roll any one die when consumed (discarded). For 1 point this could be a lifesaver.

What I wrote in my closer look at the other Italian expansion fits here very well:

This expansion for "TANKS" offers a nice 1:100 kit with two options (only one is supported in this expansion) to build a cheap unit for the game which may be a threat when at least three of them are used.

As we have seen, the strenght of the Italian tank force is staying together in groups to benefit from "Avanti" and other advantages from crew and doctrine cards. The addition of the doublesided support card offers the choice to use either Italian tanks in German platoons or to use German tanks in Italian platoons, the choice is yours.
The only minus of this expansion is the absence of any decals and any commander figures,  a fact that this game expansion shares with all of its kind.

Next weekend I may lead them into their first battle, after that I will give you my experiences and thoughts on the strenght and weakness of the Italian army for "TANKS".

The kit was easy to build and the result looked like this:

No matter which tank you will build from this kit, there is one complete upper structure left over. I choosed to build another M14/41 from the kit and in best DIY tradition I turned on the 3D printer to try to create another 3Dprint/bits hybrid.

On the picture below you can see this new hybrid, actually I made 2 of them. After it was finished, the tank commander was made from a British soldier and some Greenstuff, I may change it in the future but at the moment I did not find any other approciate mini.

While it is not perfect, for me this is good enough and that is what counts.

I planned to post on Saturdays about a Zvezda 1:144 or 1:200 "Art Of Tactic" plane expansion, but this "TANKS" expansion was still missing on the list. Tomorrow (17:00) we will take a closer look at another game expansion, then it will be an unit for "TANKS The Modern Age".

Update:
I did not see that one of the cards had text on the other side, too. Not only that, the same thing happened with the M14/41 expansion, in which this card also is included.

Zvezda 1:100 M1A1 Abrams

A closer look at the M1A1 Abrams tank produced by Russian manufacturer Zvezda for their game "Hot War - Battle for Oil". This kit comes in 1:100 scale as all Zvezda "Art of Tactic" and "Hot War" tank kits. But you may use this model for any 15mm cold war game which supports this unit.

I already read some lines about this kit and how bad it would be, and I wanted to see if this is true and ordered one of them for a (luckily) heavy discounted price.

Let us take a look at the kit from this expansion to see if it is as bad as some other reviewers say:

The kit comes in two sandcolored plastic sprues made from the usual material which is used by Zvezda. To me it feels minimal softer then kits from other makers but this opinion may be subjective. As usual there is no problem with using modelglue on this, it binds pretty fast. And as you will see on the last picture, it connects also with styrene parts from other kits.

The kit came without any flaws like mouldlines and sinkholes. My kit did not have any flash or other excess material. The detail on this kit is very shallow, I would say in part is is minimalistic.

The turret is made from only two pieces and misses some details (more on that below), especially the storage bin on the turret is badly reproduced.

The tracks are in the same style as on other 1:100 Zvezda kits, while the roadwheels are good, the tracks are very simplified.

A decal sheet with some generic numbers and tactical signs is included, and I guess it is in the same good quality as the decals from other Zvezda kits. You can use decal setting solution on them but if you use decal softer, they may get damaged by it, at least I made this experience with the decals from an Zvezda plane kit.

When I constructed the Abrams, following the well made instruction leaflet from the box, I had no issues. As usual you have the choice to use glue or build it without any glue, but to be on the safe side, I used my standard Revell modelglue.

The partly built tank looks like this, note that I did not install the bottom of the turret yet:

As you can see, the grade of detail is pretty low. In the foreground you see some leftover bits from the BFM Abrams, I tried to improve its look with them (see the last picture).

And while we are at the BFM M1A1, just look at these comparing pictures of the Zvezda and the BFM Abrams tank:

Just take a look at both tanks and you will see the low level of detail on the Zvezda Abrams. While the general proportions of both tanks are almost equal, the barrel of the "Hot War" model is way too short.

(it seems, now while I watch the pictures, that the unpainted tank hull is shorter)

To keep it short, if you need an Abrams tanks, this model kit should not be your choice. Like for the Tiger from the last review, I do not think that this kit is worth its price. Luckily I got this kit for 3.5 Euro, but its regular price is above 7 Euros. Just for comparison, if you spend one additional Euro you could get the Abrams expansion for the ww3 "TANKS" game, that is (do I repeat myself??) leagues above the Zvezda kit and it offers 3 different versions to build.

Sorry Zvezda, but I say: Thumbs down, do not buy this kit.

But I got this kit and after I added some of the bits shown, I improved its look a lot, just as you can see on the picture below (I used Revell Aquacolor Bronze Green on it):

I wrote in the November blog update that I would review Zvezda planes on Saturdays, but since I left out the missing Semovente Expansion for "TANKS", next Saturday I will show this.

For this you will not have to wait till 22:30, on weekends my posts will come at 17:00 and maybe I will find some time to write a non reviewing post.

Zvezda 1:100 Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger

A closer look at the 1:100 Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger produced by Russias Zvezda for their "Art Of Tactic" strategy game. Zvezda offers a big selection of 15mm ww2 tanks and trucks which can not only be used for their game, you may use it for any other tabletop game in 15mm scale which has rules for this tank.

This kit got my attention since it was released, and now we are have the opportunity to take a look at it, but without spending further words, let us take a look at the modelkit which come with this game expansion:

This kit comes in two grey plastic sprues, some words about the material what was used can be found in an older post. It may feel softer than usual kits, but is still hard and takes glue very well, binding pretty fast.

I never had problems using styrene parts from other manufacturers kits on any Zvezda kit.

The kit comes without any production flaws like sinkholes or flash, but you will have to remove some excess material at the ejectormarks, in some cases you will have to remove the whole thing. There are mouldlines all arround the tracks and the onepart moulded turret, which should be removed. You will have to be careful when you do this not to damage the (poorly made) hatches and other stuff on the sides of it.

While the roadwheels are ok, the tracks are in the same style as all other 15mm Zvezda tracks. Very simplified on the outside and no detail on the inside.

I would say this is the later version of this tank, but in best Zvezda tradition, the boxart was not made for this kit, instead they took the artwork from their 1:35 Tiger model kit.

Following the good and understandable instruction leaflet, after much cleaning of the parts and some actual construction, the result looks like this:

(By the way, I used glue but as usual you can build this kit as all other Zvezda 1:100 kits without glue)

To be honest, I do not recommend this kit. As you may have mentioned from earlier posts, I have a general positive attitude on these small kits, but this is an exception.

The details on the turret sides are very shallow, there is the risk to damage them while cleanup, and the tracks are bad, especially when you compare them to the BFM 1:100 Tiger tracks. The missing of decals is an standard issue with Zvezdas 1:100 ww2 kits but this is acceptable.

But what worries me more is that this kit twice as expensive as any other ww2 tank kit for "Art Of Tactic", at least in Germany. While you pay not more than 4 Euros for any other kit from this range, this stinker costed me 7,60, what is pretty high compared to its quality.

If you want a tiger, I would suggest that you get a Tiger from the Plastic Soldier Company or one of both BFM tigers, if you buy one of the Tigers for "TANKS" you would pay less than an additional Euro for a kit leagues above the Zvezda kit.

Do not buy this.

I did, as you have read, and with some modifications I turned it in the early version of the Tiger which will be the workhorse of my new Afrikakorps platoon for "TANKS" built from some Zvezda kits and "TANKS" expansions. More on that in a future post where I will show the complete platoon.

If this works as supposed, it should be 22:30 MEZ and this post is online. On Thursday at the same time we will take a look at the Zvezda Abrams, and to give you a small teaser, it sucks.