First to Fight - first stop for 20mm wargames interested in the German invasion of Poland 1939 (and some housecleaning)

First up, I'm having a good day, so I cleared the jumbled mess that was the front attic, broke down all of the larger boxes, tossed the broken ones in the recylcing bin and made sure what was left (and will be needed to ship stuff) was put away neatly(ish).

This morning you could not see the floor and it was stacked with boxes and filler material up to the roof. So yeah. I then labelled the first row of boxes with a numbered sticker so Kim can follow the progress more easily when she is up in the attic. That is the first part of my hobby chores down, so now I can grab crate 1, sort in sell/keep and trash, and continue. The plan is to do 1 crate a week minimum so it would be roughly half a year till I have checked and cleaned every single one, with a few to spare, but quite a few crates have very little or non hobby related content so I think I can progress faster then that. Well, best laid plans and all that, so caveat empor......

The now cleaned area will be used to put the stuff I want to take down to sell. (not all at once mind you, just grab this and that and keep listing stuff every night for a while. If I would try to drag a full crate down the stairs with my knee as it is, the next Blogpost you would read would be my obituary, and that would seriously piss me off :P

But this Blogpost is not about that. It's about First to Fight. A general overview and a order review sofar, plus some more samples..

Who are First to Fight? Well, they are a Polish company and they have a nice if wat unreadable website as the translator icon only seems to work for the shop part >> http://wrzesien1939.pl/

 They produce kits for the German invasion period, with period vehicles for the Polish and German forces (and maybe Soviet ones too eventually?) and recently they have released a card based wargame as well that you can use their models for. They have a steady release of roughly 1 new kit a month. Each kit is a well detailed fast build kit in the geste of S-Models (if you have ever bought those).

My most recent order was made on the 9th of January this year as I got a reminder on their FB page that the 3 box discount was about to end. I received a email from them that the order was being processed later that day. Making an order is rather simple, you can just click on the items you want and they put them in a cart (pretty standard stuff) and then fill in your details and pay with Paypal (again, pretty standard). For this particular discount you have to select the discount option in their shop, select how many times you want to use their 3 for 13.99 euro offer and then process the order. You can use the note-boxes to fill in the code and name of the articles that you want. Easy- peasy.

The email you receive will look like this.

I've ordered from them 2 times now. Both times you get this email, and within 2 weeks you receive your items in a sturdy box. You can checkup your order online if you make an account, but the last time I checked was 2 days ago and it was still listed as processing. It arrived yesterday :D

First to Fight doesn't just send you the kit. No, it sends a box with the model and a booklet detailing the vehicle in question and its use during the campaign.....sadly all in Polish. Very neat though.

In this case we are looking at the 4th kit in the series, so a early release.

Basic Panzer 1B sprue, SdKfz 256 parts sprue, a vial of glue (long evaporated as mine was empty other then  a strong plastic glue smell), a toothpick and a decalsheet with 6 white German crosses. Highly detailled yet fast build. Only 1 nit picking point (well, 2), side hatch is closed version only (but can be cut in 2 and opened if needed), and no functioning top hatch so you are going to have to do some cutting as well if you want a commander in the hatch. Which adds some time to the build but is nothing earth shattering now, is it? Also, making the uparmoured variant for the French campaign is just adding a thin sheet of plasticcard to the front (or don't bother).

Sofar, they make 2 Polish trucks, one being the Fiat 621, and they make 2 variants....or do they? Kit 011 has a painting on the front of a truck with a tarp cover, and kit 017 has a open back with a MG mount. But be assured, if you are ever in the shop and want this truck, both boxes have exact the same content.

No more glue and toothpick though :) No decals either, but this problem has been solved according to Braille Scale >> Link so at least you have options. I picked these up for parts, wrecks and captured vehicles so no real problem for me. But FYI :)

Next reason for the purchase is the FtF PaK 36. I have a chronic shortage of these as the Matchbox/Revell Protze with PaK 36 hardly ever props up on our sales groups and for some odd reason people keep insisting on collectors prices for that kit so I own a whopping 1 (one). FtF has solved that problem by releasing this one, two in a box, with crew.

Even with 4 sprues in a bag, it must feel lonely in that large box. You get 2 crew sprues and 2 gun sprues.

 Minor sinkmarks on the underside of the carriage....which you will never ever see, so no worries. Nicely detailed and thin shield, everything looks the part. To make a towed version cut off the legs and pin them in place or use another brand for it, whatever works for you.

Here's a comparison of the gunshield to other brands just in case you are interested

 The Matchbox is much smaller (as it should be, being 1/76 instead of 1/72, but I wasn't expecting such a big difference)  and has almost no detail.

PSC makes the 37mm for the 251, which was unavailable atm, so I grabbed the 47mm Russian which is basically the same thing (is it?) and it looks gooed enough for government work :) (Edit: of course, when I'm just about finished I spot the 37mm gunshield on the 251C. It is only a teensy bit smaller (yes, that's a measurement) then the Russian 47mm shield so no problem.)

The crew.......yeah, about that. I don't buy plastic kits for the figures. Never have, never will. Me and plstic figures never seem to get along, and this one is no exception. This is much softer and bendy plastic (not as bad as Revells Gay Gunners (their 105mm gun kit with horses) or HaT stuff though)
Well, they will go in the spares bin or I'll sell in a lot with my surplus PSC guncrews.

Next up is the 7TP tank. I picked this tank up, not for the Poles, but for police actions against Partisans in Eastern Europe.

 Finally a tank kit that fits comfortably in the box it is shipped in :D

Again, not too many parts. Again, no opening turet hatch but nothing that can't be sorted with some minor cutting work. Since I don't own any S-Models or Minairions T-26, I cannot compare the trackwork to those (everytime its Crisis they are either already sold out or sell out during the show), but I can compare them to parts of the UM kits.

UM in grey, First to Fight in green. The differences appear to be miniscule (good!). This means (to me anyway) that in theory I could use the basic chassis to build the UM AT-1's and not have to spend a lot of time putting together a very fiddly undercarriage, but I will do some more measuring before I'll get to that. Then again if I could have easier acces to S-Models T-26's that might be a better option.

Last but not least., the SdKfz 251A. I picked up 2 of these for use as Forward Headquarters vehicle for France and Afrika, maptable and all, maybe eventually a third for the same goal in 1945 as a batterd survivor. Not sure if I want to pick up a frame antenna for any of these, but we will see

A nicely filled box, and as a added bonus decals for the Poland campaign and several WH licenceplates. As was expected the frame and tracks are seperate as they also do a SdKfz 11 now who shares those basics.

Now, I want to use these with PSC offerings, so I grabbed a 251C kit and snipped off the most important pieces so you can compare them. It's not perfect though (in which I mean my comparison, not the kit, that is gorgeous)

Wheels are only slightly but visibly bigger, and the same goe for the trackunit.

The PSC kit overall is a bit beefier, the FtF one is only a tad smaller, but the difference is almost all in the hood as both fighting compartments are about the same size.

Does this matter? Well, how often will you mix a A with a C or D? The B started production in 1940 and is visually not that different from a A, mostly confined to the nose and removal of the vision slits on the sides of the fighting compartment, so with some minor cosmetic surgery they are just fine for wargames purposes. Unless you are a purist but I highly doubt you would be reading a wargamers Blog to begin with? The C starts mid 42 so you are fine mixing them from that period onwards, but if you stick to the A (or modded to the B) for a command or radio variant and use the C's for the grunts you won't bat an eye at them in the field. At the table I mean.

Right, that is it for today. I'm very pleased with First to Fight as a kit producing business, they make some very fine items that, albeit it focused on the Polish campaign, have plenty of use outside that campaign as some of these items lived long lives well into the war. Service is fast, quality is high, shipping is more then reasonable The magazines are a bit useless to non Polish speakers other then pretty photographs and the painted example, but hey :) Taking advantage of the sale meant I paid just under 6 euros per kit, or under 3 euro per gun plus crew. For a pennypincher like me that is great value.

The upcoming release is the 4CP  halftrack unit and should be out soon.

I'll go and enjoy the sunset now for a bit :) Till next time!

Great start to a new year!

Well not.

Managed to go through 2016 without seriously cutting up my fingers during hobbytime, and tonight while cleaning out the dishwasher I grabbed the foodprocessor blade in the exact spot where I should not have grabbed it. Well, at least Khorne is happy now with blood all over the kitchen, I've got a bandaged finger, Kim turned out to be a great if a bit haphazard nurse and I have felt pain in a different place then my knee and back for a change. Hurrah......

I've spent the last few days chasing payments from people who wanted to buy kits off of me (which makes me wonder why I buy second hand stuff and pay immediately when I get the invoice, when it seems to be the norm to wait up to a week to do so now? ) so I was very relieved to have just sold some Mordheim models to Asutralia and James not hassling, giving me complete adress details and paying for it in one go. That made my day, as did the hobby chat we had after he paid for it. Lovely.

Speaking of Australia, I received a package from down under just after Christmas. I've bought from BNA Model World in Australia a couple of times cause, weird as it sounds, it was actually cheaper to get certain items there including shipping to my adress. Nothing overly large, some resin upgrade pieces, so quite lightweight, but for some reason their postage for small items is way less the what I pay for from the UK. Well, BNA announced a Christmas sale with up to 70% off certain items. Never one to pass up a good deal I browsed a bit and found that they had very good deals on some resin upgrade packs, so I selected 3 packs and ended up paying less for the 3 with shipping then it would have cost me locally for the 3 without shipping. On my budget, I call that a good deal.

So, what did I get?

A Blackdog upgrade pack for the French UE (beute).

I picked it up just for the spotter version for my Normandy Germans, the PaK version is not needed as the S-Models UE that I have already have the PaK with them and I only need one of those for my Early War Germans. So if anyone wants it, pay me for postage and I'll send it to you for free. The resin is very clean and well cast, no to very minor moulding lines and no bubbles to speak of. This kit sells locally for 12 euros.

Also, I got 2 Value Gear truck upgrade packs, 1 for the Germans and 1 for the Americans/British.

German Truck Loads - GT3

You get 2 German stowage loads in this one plus 4 pieces of rolled up tarp. Munitions, spare parts, fuel and lubricants all in one go. I picked these up to make a few more interesting German supply trucks, I should have no problem filling the back of a Blitz with these. Clean cast in grey resin, I could see no mould lines and only 1 of the loads has a small piece of ripped mould rubber in a corner....easily removed with a sharp blade.

Allied Truck Loads AT1

You get 2 Allied stowage loads in this one plus another 4 rolled up tarps. Essentially the same contents, but aimed at Allied vehicles, 1 of the loads even has a truck wheel on top of it. Same quality grey resin, not a mould line in sight but again a bit of ripped mould and some open areas have a bit of resin fill in, but again nothing that can't be removed with a sharp blade and some care.

Everything was well packed in a oversized box with air sacks to keep everything from rattling all over the place. Order was made on the 5th, shipped on the 6th and arrived on the 28 which is what is to be expected from a package from the other side of the world in December.

I could not find a local retailer for this (well, I did, but only 1/35 scale), but my favourite Irish shop, the Hobby Den, sells them too so I might add a few sets when I order some resin vehicles from Bryan again.

And that is it. If you were expecting a lookback on 2016, I won't be doing one. I hardly painted anything worth mentioning and I hope 2017 will show a marked improvement in that department. Fingers crossed!