The Silent Treatment

Hi, it's been a while. Waiting for my latest Old Crow order really drained my enthusiasm - it took no less than 5 weeks this time. But now it's finally here and I can pore over some more cool models!

Starting with the sculpts we've already seen, here is my second Sabre. A great cast with no bubbles this time.

Two more Gladius tanks, this time with "tank hunter" turrets. I wasn't too impressed with the design of these turrets from the pictures on the website, but they are really nice in person.

Gecko scouts, pick-up version. One of them has two bubbles on the underside, the other one is perfect. The rear compartment fits a (unbased) GZG guy perfectly.

Halberd assault guns. Neat design with two barrel options (the same as on the Sabre, I think) and a metal top hatch. This could probably be replaced with one of the tiny turrets that come with Old Crow's APCs. The hull consists of two parts, with the bottom being the same as on the Glaive and Gladius.

I also wanted to try some if the fancier turrets that don't come with any tanks and have to be purchased separately, so I got two "Tac Missile" turrets. These come as a resin sensor array with 4 impressively large missiles cast in metal (with barely a mold line to be seen!) Mounting these on a Gladius chassis makes for a pretty interesting support platform.

Since I now had two extra turrets, I also got two immobile turret bases. They look nice and chunky and will make a nice addition to my forces when they have to defend a static position.

There we go. Another batch of great casts (I'd say maybe 8 bubbles in this whole lot combined, and nothing in critical places) from Old Crow. I own almost their entire 15mm catalogue now, so I guess I'm done until they make some new stuff!

That's it for now. Thanks for reading and happy gaming.

Microupdate: Old Crow grav armour

Just a quickie today. While I'm waiting for my next Old Crow order (which I expect to arrive in about 10 more days) I managed to find the time to mount all my grav vehicles on old GW flight stands I still had lying around from Battlefleet Gothic days.

Old Crow vehicles come with their bottoms sanded flat, leaving basing completely up to the customer. I went for something simple and just drilled a hole for the flight peg, making sure to place it right under the centre of mass. Consequently these tanks sit on their stands far more securely than any of GW's spaceship models ever did, despite the tanks generally being a fair bit larger.

Microupdate: Old Crow Progress

One afternoon after reviewing my latest Old Crow order I'm about halfway done with cleanup and assembly.

The single-piece scout vehicles weren't much of a challenge, of course. It took me a few minutes to fix the uneven sanding on the grav scouts. I must say that Old Crow resin sands really nicely.

 I spent a while trying to bend the grav plates for the Glaive and Gladius with limited success. The resin does soften up a little bit when heated but remains largely elastic (meaning it snaps right back into its original shape). In the end I assembled the tanks by heating up the resin and gluing the parts together while they were a bit bendy. Considering how strongly superglue bonds resin, there is little fear that the bits could bend back and come apart.

 The Lancer actually took less work than expected. I did have to sand down the armour plates a bit, then I heated them up before gluing, just like I did with the Glaive/Gladius parts. There is just some gap filling left to do now. Once assembled, the heavy APC looks like a really mean piece of kit, larger even than the Sabre. When I first examined the parts I did not think that I would ever want to buy another one, but now that it's assembled I think it's worth the extra work.

Well, that's all for today. I'll post the other half when it's done. Ta ta!

Old Crow Reinforcements

Like I said at the end of my initial Old Crow review, I placed another order that same day (the 14th) and it arrived on the 5th, 20 days later - two days faster than my first order.

The packaging is again commendable, with each vehicle individually bagged and the entire batch encased in bubble wrap and packing peanuts.

Going roughly from smallest to largest, let's start with the Goanna Scouts. These come two per pack and are really nice sculpts, especially for single-piece models, but I would prefer separate wheels. I feel the block of resin that extends to the floor is a bit too much of a compromise, simplifying casting at the expense of aesthetics.

As with all Old Crow models, the underside is sanded flat, but unfortunately one of the Goannas does not lie level with the ground, looking perhaps is if the tires on one side were flat. Apart from that, the casting itself is every bit as flawless as I came to expect.

Second come the Outrider scouts. I opted for the grav version but Old Crow also offer them with hover-skirts or wheels. I was pleased to note that each vehicle comes with a choice of gun turret, missile turret or access hatch. This leaves me with some spares for the Goannas (which come unarmed).

Sadly the sanding is again uneven, as can be seen on the following image. Note the different thickness in the grav "flaps" on the two vehicles.

Next up are the Trojan APCs. These look very much like Slingshots but come with single-piece hulls and yet more spare turrets.

Unfortunately the casting on these is considerably worse than the other Old Crow models I've seen. The underside of one vehicle is absolutely pitted with bubbles and a fair few smaller ones extend to the sides of the hull, as well. Looking at this model reminds me strongly of GW's ironically named "Finecast" range.

Well, moving on to the Gladius grav tanks. Their hulls come in an upper and lower half, but unlike the Slingshot the pieces are not joined with the sanded sides, instead the sanded side of the upper hull goes on the smooth side of the bottom piece.

The bottom halves aren't cast perfectly flat, so there is a bit of a gap at the join. Since the piece is fairly thin, this can probably be easily fixed with a little heat-bending.

With the addition of a standard tank turret the Gladius makes for a really nice grav tank.

The Glaive APC is based on the same shape as the Gladius and uses identical lower hull pieces. Again, those are a bit warped. The Gladius comes with yet more spare turrets.

At this point I finally remembered to place an infantryman  in the shots to give a sense of scale. The Gladius is really chunky and looks like it could fit 10-12 soldiers in full gear quite comfortably.

The Sabre heavy tank comes in one piece plus turret. Its turret is much larger than the others and is the only one not compatible with the rest of the range.

The details are good and the sanding seems fairly level here. The hull is cast well but the turret has one huge bubble up front.

Once that is filled, the Sabre will make a really impressive main battle tank. I really will have to pick up a few more.

One thing to note about all these grav vehicles is that, with their bottoms being sanded flat, you are left completely to your own devices if you wish to mount the vehicles on any sort of stand or base.

After all these one- or two-part hulls I was quite surprised to find that the Lancer APC comes in 7 parts.

The top and bottom hull piece join with their sanded faces. The bottom piece is hollow, probably to save on resin, or perhaps so that an upside-down Lancer can double as a jacuzzi. The bottom hull is a little smaller than the top and I'm not sure whether this is due to uneven shrinkage or perhaps intentional.

The armoured panels attach to the sides, but came noticeably warped. The curvature is very obvious in this top-down picture. To compound the problem, the warping happened before the back was sanded flat, so if I bend the panels so that the detailed side becomes flat, the sanded side will curve. The Lancer is definitely  the "expert level" kit of this batch much like the Crow Lander was in my previous order.

(Update: assembling the Lancer was actually easier than expected)

I also got a "Comcen" turret for the Lancer. It has a simple but effective design, with a chunky support structure and a simple dish.

Lastly, Old Crow threw in a hand-signed note and two infantrymen as a freebie. These compare favourably to GZG's New Israeli (far left). The detail is considerably sharper and the metal looks to be of higher quality. Unfortunately the mold lines as every bit as heavy as GZG's.

And here is everything an hour later, after being scrubbed in detergent to remove any release agent. The parts did not feel at all greasy and it's possible that this step was unnecessary, but it's always better to err on the side of caution. You only need to see the paint peel off one model to never risk it again.

Based on this batch, I'm afraid I have to dock Old Crow a point in Casting (down to 9/10) as there were some quality control issues (uneven sanding, excessive bubbles on one vehicle) but so far these are still the exception and for the most part the casting remains well above average for resin models and I will happily place another order with Old Crow very soon.

Modeling update: Crow Lander

It's time to take a few pictures of my almost finished Crow Lander. The land vehicles have been covered already but I left the dropship for last because I could see right away that it's going to be a fair bit trickier to put together.

The main cause is the join between the front and back half of the fuselage. As with all Old Crow pieces, the surfaces were sanded perfectly flat, but unfortunately at a slight angle. This meant that the assembled hull seemed to curve slightly to the left (when viewed from the back). I solved this by putting a blob of ProCreate putty between the pieces and aligned them properly. When the putty cured, I filled in the rest of the gap with more ProCreate, as well as some Vallejo Plastic Putty (by the way, I'm not paid to drop product names, I do it for the benefit of readers who might be unaware that such materials and tool exist). I didn't get it absolutely perfect, but at least now the curve is slight enough not to be obvious at a casual glance.

Another thing I did early on was to clip away the rather unimpressive chin gun and replace it with a spare gatling gun that came with one of Old Crow's tank turrets. I pinned the new barrel and fixed the gaps with ProCreate.

A view from the front reveals the downward slope of the wings. The mounting spots have a bit of flexibility, so to get the angles symmetrical I bonded all the pieces with ProCreate and a bit of superglue. Before anything cured, I made sure the ends of both wings were resting on the floor at a right angle.

To add some potential flexibility to the lander's loadout I decided to magnetize the cargo compartment. After unsuccessfully trying a few other methods I ended up just drilling a 6mm hole in both ends and placing a single rare earth magnet in each (I initially wanted to avoid doing it this way because there was no surefire way to align the holes. Luckily I got it right.)

The cargo compartment itself is pretty neat, it's actually hollow and the ramp can be glued closed or opened (although the latter option would be uncomfortably fragile, I think). The size is nice, it could believably fit 10 soldiers in full gear, although they would not be very comfortable. It's also a good fit for two of these GZG drones.

A view without the cargo pod. I used a thin piece of plasticard (0.3mm, I think) to cover up the raw sanded backside of the cockpit piece. The lander looks reasonably airworthy without the pod and is slightly reminiscent of the Carryall from the old Dune games. You can also see the metal thruster bits here - I'm not quite sure why these were made in metal; I imagine it has more to do with balancing the mass of the model than with adding any real detail compared to casting the same thing in resin.

Finally, a scale shot with a GZG infantryman and an Old Crow Slingshot AFV. The lander straddles a happy middle ground between being unrealistically small and impractically large. If it were up to me, I would make the cockpit a little bit smaller (it's unnecessarily roomy) and the cargo compartment a bit larger.

That's it for now. I initially felt like this model needed a fair bit of effort to get right (and I still have some gap filling left to do) but then I realized this is mostly due to the rest of the Old Crow line requiring waaay less work than your typical resin model while the lander is just about average in that respect. I can still heartily recommend Old Crow, lander included, to anyone interested in building a 15mm army.

Old Crow second impressions

So here is a little follow-up to the last article now that I am done assembling the three ground vehicles.

Upon closer inspection I found a few more tiny bubbles, but not nearly enough to change my opinion that these are the best resin casts I have ever seen. I filled those up with some Procreate putty, which is a lot like green stuff but less sticky and easier on the eyes. You can see where I fixed a bubble on the hubcap of the Claymore's front wheel in the first picture. I also included a GZG New Israeli guy for size reference - I will share my thoughts on that model range in a later post.

The Slingshots also needed a few bubbled filled, but otherwise went together without a hitch. 

Size comparison. The Claymore is quite a beefy vehicle compared to the Slingshot.

It is worth noting that there is a substantial size difference between the two Slingshot casts I got, as I was surprised to find when I tried matching the top and bottom hulls together. I would say one is roughly 1.5mm longer, enough to be obvious at a glance if I were to match the wrong hull parts together. Luckily each bottom part matches its corresponding top part perfectly.

And a scale shot with one of my Space Marines to give the GW crowd some idea about the size of these minis.

All in all I am still very happy with these kits and look forward to receiving my next order. When it arrives, you can expect similar a similar review of the following models:

Sabre Heavy Tank (Grav)
Lancer Heavy APC (Grav)
Gladius Medium Tank (Grav)
Glaive Medium APC (Grav)
Trojan Light APC (Wheeled)
Outrider Scout Vehicle (Grav)
Goanna Scout

Wow, that'll be almost the entire range then, won't it? What can I say, when I get into something, I go all the way.

Stay tuned, there will be another interesting review tomorrow. Ta ta!

Old Crow first impressions

 Now with actual content!

When I got home from work today there was a little package waiting for me from Old Crow. Let me share my thoughts while the parts soak in detergent.

First of all, I made my order on the 23rd of January, so it took a lengthy 22 days to arrive, even considering international shipping. I would say it took Old Crow about 2 weeks to dispatch the order. Now, the website does have a notice on it saying that orders take longer than usual to process, so it wasn't really a surprise, but it didn't make waiting any easier!

Okay, so all the parts are packaged quite nicely. Every vehicle and turret comes in its own little ziploc bag and there's plenty of bubble wrap around it all, leaving no room for bits to slide around the box. There are four vehicles in the box - two Slingshot AFVs, a Claymore APC and a Crow Lander.

The picture below shows the contents of one Slingshot baggie. The hull consists of a top and bottom piece and the wheels are all separate. I'm guessing Old Crow mostly use one-sided molds, but unlike some other companies, all the parts come pre-sanded. As an additional nice touch, the missile turret comes with two styles of missile pod.

The quality of the casting is outstanding here. The details are, for the most part, very sharp, and defects practically non-existent. In fact, I can say with no doubt in my mind that these are the best resin casts I've seen in 15 years of tabletop wargaming.

The two halves of the hull fit together perfectly (I hope you're taking notes, Spartan Games!)

 The other Slingshot was just as nice as the first, so we'll skip it except for the turret. I wanted to try as many options as I could, so I ordered different turrets. This is the "support" variant and it comes with two sets of metal barrels that fit into the recesses on the resin turret perfectly. The turret ring has a small air bubble, the only irregularity I noticed so far.

The Claymore is a bit beefier than the Slingshots, but funnily enough the hull is a single piece. A few more bubbles here in the left corner, but luckily all on the underside. We also see another turret variant, this one with three different metal barrel options.

The bits of flash seen between the wheel slots here are the only flash present on any of the models.

Lastly we come to the Crow Lander. This is hybrid resin/metal model and the only one I can see myself having some problems with. I do not look forward to attaching the heavy metal wings to the resin hull.

Additionally, the cockpit piece seems to have suffered a little bit of shrinkage. Probably not enough to be noticeable on the tabletop, but slightly annoying nonetheless.

My final ratings (I am making up the categories as I type) for Old Crow:

Sculpting 9/10 - sharp lines, great style; 7/10 for the Crow, which I find it a little bit boring
Casting 10/10 - hands down the best resin casts I have ever seen
Service 7/10 - no real problems, but a tad slow
Value 10/10 - Old Crow have some of the cheapest 15mm vehicles on the market and reasonable international shipping rates; low price combined with outstanding quality is a rare sight these days

How can I best sum up my opinion of Old Crow? Let me put it this way. Once I hit Publish on this article, I will go rinse the models, then I will log onto the Old Crow website and put in another order. Ta ta!