Battlefront Humber Armoured Car Troop (BBX34) review

Hi folks,

Apologies for lack of regular content currently. A bit of time away from home and prep for a game tomorrow has meant I've not spent a lot of time painting.

I wanted to get a quick review of one of the newer Battlefront products I'd picked up recently. I 'needed' a further three Humber armoured cars to get my planned 2nd Derbyshire Yeomanry force to the point that the vehicles are correct for the Totalise period. Seeing that Battlefront have released these vehicles in packs of 3, I grabbed a pack on Ebay for £18 including postage.

As described, the pack contains 3 Humber Armoured Cars. These would be the Humber III version. They come with a unit card and a commanders sprue, and have options for the commanders hatch to be open or closed (the open option is actually a separate part).

The resin is crisp and clean and there was barely any flash on the metal parts. As usual, I ran over mould lines with a knife, just to get rid.

Now, three nice new armoured cars, suitable for me to use for my Normandy force - the old resin and metal blister was sold as a Humber III/IV and had the option for the 2pdr with littlejohn adaptor - which I hadn't used.

However, nowhere had I seen any mention that these models were re-sculpts of the older ones rather than re-packed models. And they are fairly large re-sculpts at that. Here is the newer model (in the darker grey resin on the left) against one of the older blister pack kits.

These shots show the increased quality of the newer kit versus the old - but also the increased size. Unfortunately, I can't cope with having the different sized vehicles in the same force, so the new ones have to go (it would be too costly to replace all the older ones I have). Thankfully some of the chaps from the club, having gotten into Battlegroup, have use for single armoured cars. This lets me recoup some of the money spent. I've still got one to get rid of, so it looks like I will be out of pocket slightly.

All in all then, a great kit - very nicely detailed and I'm very impressed. Just not so impressed with the sudden change in size, which make my earlier models look tiny in comparison. No decals in the pack either, which is a shame. But a quality product and decent value for money.

S&S Models 15mm Churchill SBG conversion kit - review and step by step build!

Hi folks,

I posted a little teaser at the end of my last blog article, showing a work in progress shot of my newest acquisition. A 15mm Churchill SBG Conversion kit from S&S Models. This kit was then added to a 15mm Plastic Soldier Company Churchill kit I have had sitting around since the model was announced by Shaun on the S&S Models Facebook page over a year ago!

The perfect kit to form part of my contribution to the Miniature Modelling Mayhem groups 'Novelty November' challenge!

I thought it might be useful to go through a bit of a step by step of the process I went through up until painting.

First up, what is a Churchill SBG? Well, they look like this:

Image used without permission for reference purposes - no ownership of the image is claimed.

And a description from http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2011/12/uk-military-bridging-equipment-assault-bridging/

"Introduced specifically for D Day and the 79^th Armoured Division it was designed to support a Class 40 load over a 30 foot (9 meter) span, or more specifically a 12 foot high sea wall. The bridge itself consisted of 4 Small Box Girder hornbeam sections connected together to form a twin trackway bridge, connected with crossbeams." "It was carried by a standard Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE), not a specialised bridgelayer and thus the carrying vehicle was able to be used in other engineering roles once the bridge had been detached."

A Class 40 weight would be up to and including a Churchill tank - with the Sherman coming in at class 30 (or 33 for the Firefly).  The SBG Churchill was designed by Royal Engineers Colonel (later Major-General) Millis Rowland Jefferis (KBE MC), who was the same chap who designed the PIAT and 290mm Petard Mortar in the AVsRE tanks. The bridge was designed to be deployed in as little as 30 seconds.

I love this model, and the idea of having one of these in my army just grabbed me as soon as they were announced. This, and it's sister the Fascine tank. So as soon as they were available, I grabbed one of each.

I had a couple of aims with this model - One, it should look cool! Two, that the bridge should be detachable and the tank capable of continuing to be used on it's own after the bridge had been deployed.

So, on with the detail. The kit came in a small bag, well packaged and without any damage from transit. Some clean up was required, but the flash was pretty minimal - there was a small amount of miscasting in the metal parts - but nothing serious. Mainly just 'thin' ends (as can be seen below on the rightmost central bridge connector. My main concern out the box was that the A-frame was very soft and easily bent - I think I had to bend it slightly back into shape when taking it out of the packaging. Again, to be expected on this scale of a model.

The bits!

The first step was to build the base hull. As I mentioned, I used a PSC Plastic Churchill sprue and built a Mk.IV Churchill armed with a Petard mortar. 

Once the hull was built, I set about adding the AVRE conversion bits.

This involved a small about of work on the hull side, removing some protrusions on each side so that the fittings... fitted. These were standard AVRE fittings that would allow the Churchill's to be easily converted to a number of roles.

A close up of the work done to remove the side hull details in order to allow the side fittings to be added.

I also began to attempt to build the rear winch framework. Now, at first I tried to build this separately from the tank. This didn't work, as trying to build a box made from metal parts using superglue is a bit tricky. Eventually I gave up on that and instead decided to start building the box on the hull itself. Which was the sensible thing to have done from the start.

This went a lot more smoothly and I had the frame built in no time at all.

I then built the bridge. This was a little fiddly, but mainly because I was stupidly trying to do the central sections first (the rectangular cross pieces). After applying a little brain power, I glued the end section on each side, then did the central sections once the parts were in the correct shape.

Do these bits first!

The inner frames go inside the bridge itself and attach just below the upper surface. one on each end, closest to the bar which joins the two treadways.

Here you can see the central supports are at the top of the gap between the treadways.

The A-frame then fits into the holes at one end of the bridge.

I then began work on the front of the hull. There is a element that attaches under the front hull, and another that attaches to the end of the bridge. The connection is a simple one that acts as a hinge and that allows the bridge to pivot. As I wasn't planning on gluing the bridge in place, I went with a magnetic solution.

I had purchased some 'bar' style Neodymium magnets from e-bay specifically for this build. Off the top of my head these are 1mm thick, 3mm wide and 8mm long and were very reasonably priced. I knew that they would not be strong enough to hold the bridge in place, but they should be enough to help form a hinge.

Hull connection and bridge connection, shown the correct way around!

One magnet was glued to the underside of the piece attaching to the hull of the tank, the other to the underside of the piece attacking to the bridge. Note that I did end up revisiting the hull connection and adding some small spacers - as I think one side of mine had been slightly miscast and I trimmed the longer side to match. This resulted in the bridge touching the tracks of the tank and I had to add spacers to correct this. It is possible this issue could also arise if the hull connection is too low on the Churchill's glacis plate.

Make sure the polarity of the magnets is not at odds!

Adding the magnets to these parts did involve some trimming, in order to give a smooth surface for the magnet to attach to. Not much! But each part was a I shape (in traditional iron girder fashion) and one edge of each part required shaping. this wouldn't be required if you were just gluing the bridge in place.   

This was then strong enough a magnetic connection to keep the parts together and act as a hinge, while also allowing the bridge to be disconnected. Make sure the glue on each part is dry before you check that it works! These magnets are strong!

Front hull of the tank, with front attachment. The magnet is visible under this attachment, as well as the 'spacers' onto the hull I mention later.

The underside of the bridge, closes to the tank - not the magnet under the connection point.

The next section was then to provide a method of keeping the bridge elevated when attached to the tank. For this, I used some fishing line (the same stuff as I use for my tank aerials), ran it through the hole at the top of the a-frame and made sure it was long enough to reach the winch unit at the back of the tank. I then fashioned a small hook out of a small staple, and attached this to the end of the line - I found the section of staple could be made into an S shape, and the top of the S bent down to help grip the line - along with a small knot and a dab of superglue.

One thing to look out for here is to make sure the line is long enough - you can always trim something that is too long, but make it too short and it is a wasted effort. You can get a small amount of change to the angle of the bridge by hooking onto the front, middle or rear of the winch cage. I also considered using a couple of magnets to trap the line rather than a hook. Possibly attaching the winch cage to the hull using magnets?

This is where I encountered my first major issues. The weight of the bridge meant that the tank tipped forward (as you can see by the modelling tools in the above picture keeping the rear of the tank on the deck). As I had built the tank, adding ballast was a non starter. I would have had to build one of the spare hulls I had and move the various section over. I tried:

- Cut up metal sprue sections
- Filling the hull with sand
- Lead fishing weights (several different types) where I found the weight required to balance the bridge was somewhere between 41 and 60 grams.

I realised that  trying to weight the tank down was going to been impossible. There was not enough room in the hull or under the hull for the amount of ballast I would need - so I had a think and came up with a solution involving a larger than normal base. If the tank was glued to the longer base, that should stop it tipping forward.

However, my aim was that the tank would be usable after deploying the bridge. But to put the tank on a base where it would not tip over meant using a large base that would look silly under a tank with no bridge. It just so happened a few months ago I had ordered bases to make minefields with for my Germans, so had some 2" by 8" bases lying around. By magnetising the base, and the underside of the tank, I could keep the rear of the tank on the base - and also remove the tank onto a smaller base once the bridge had deployed. This solved the issue of the tank tipping and the base size being wrong once the bridge was deployed.

The tank on the large 2" by 8" base. Magnets on the base keep the rear of the tank on the ground - rather than in the air!

The 'large Flames of War' base to be used after deployment of the bridge.

Magnets on the 2" by 8" base

Close up of the magnets - I used some smaller round magnets I use for turrets just to give a little more pulling power.

Underside of the tank hull - note the magnet on the far right, under the connection to the bridge - showing how the connection to the bridge is magnetised.

I had also been looking at pictures of the tank online and discovered that more rigging was needed on the bridge to make the tank look more accurate (aka, 'Cooler'). Most pictures showed wires leading from the far end of the bridge back to the A-frame. I spent a lot of time trying to get this to work, trying to use separate lengths of fishing line, then using thin styrene before moving back to one longer length of fishing wire.

Knots here did not work as they were too obvious. The Styrene did not work as there is a bit of play in the A-frame when attached to the tank. The single hole in the A-frame was also a tight fit for three bits of line.

In the end the solution was to drill two holes in the A-frame, to either side of the main hole. Using one long length of line, through both holes and back again, then fastened under the far end of the bridge, out of sight. This worked... for a while! See below...

Under the end of the bridge, I wrapped the ends of the line around each other and applied some super glue and then modelling putty to keep in in place. I had tried tying a knot, but the tension was uneven on each side of the bridge. You also have to be careful of any work you do here, as the metal of the A-frame is very soft and is easily bent out of shape.

The far end of the bridge, with the connection between the 'rigging' line. Twisting together and then gluing seemed an easier solution as tying left an ugly knot and getting the tension correct on both sides was difficult. I then added some putty to keep the connection out of site and give it some more security.

The three hole modification to the A-frame worked for a while, but then failed as the 3 holes merged... I corrected this by using a small bit of staple wrapped around the top of the A-Frame to make a U shape, which then hooked over/wrapped around the top of the A-frame. The two fishing line loops (from the end of the bridge rigging and from the connection to the rear of the tank) were both closed loops, so I slid the end of the loops through the hole so they emerged on either side, then put the staple between the end of each loop and the hole - stopped them from pulling through and meaning the tension of the loops held the metal in place. I don't know the technical name for this, but it works! The picture below probably explains better!

I also added a small bit of green stuff to the fishing line running from the A-frame to the rear of the hull, in order to resemble a pulley.

I also replaced the section of fishing wire back to the rear of the tank at this time as I felt the original was too short and the angle of the bridge too tight/high.

The repaired A-frame - with small metal staple wrapped around the 'catch; the various wires. Green stuff also added as a pulley, and the wires from the ends of the bridge crossed before the A-frame as it looked a little cooler!

'the Hook' - connecting the A-frame of the bridge to the rear of the tank.

As I mentioned earlier, on mine the bridge was also touching the front tracks of the tank, so I added small metal spacers made from some old metal sprue between the hull connection point and the hull of the tank. I think this may not normally be required, but that this part may have been slightly miscast with one end of the attachment being longer than the other - and I think I trimmed the longer one back.

Front of the tank fitting with 'spacers; where the fitting joins the hull.

Primed and ready for it's 'Russian Uniform' coat!

Additional stowage has been added, in my usual style.

More pics to follow once it's all painted and properly based up!

As for reviewing the kit, I'd give it a massive thumbs up - 10 out of 10. Brilliant and simple conversion (which I have made a bit more complex, but that was my choice!) that will add a huge amount to the table top and provides something not readily available elsewhere. Fingers crossed Shaun at S&S Models has some success with this, and the other 15mm conversion kits he has. I'd love to see more of them in the future - especially for British tanks!

I hope this walk through, while a bit rambling, was useful. Hopefully it will save someone making the same mistakes or hitting the same snags as I have!

Team Yankee: Afghansty review

Hi Folks,

So with me dipping my toes into Team Yankee - although not in 15mm, check out this video I made yesterday here detailing a quick game of 3mm Team Yankee:

Anyway, with my interest in the game, I decided to pick up the Team Yankee: Afghansty. Having checked prices and such, I was tempted to get the digital copy on my Ipad and then order the printed cards. However I also checked the Flames of War online store - and the printed copy with cards was actually cheaper with free postage than the Ipad version.

The book arrived within a couple of days, and included the unit cards.

The book itself is only 12 pages (including the back page) and includes:

A page briefly detailing Soviet involvement in Afghanistan and the VDV as well as Soviet Air Assault tactics and how they would be Incorporated in a 'hot' war in Europe.

The standard army list diagram, showing the Air Assault Battalion and higher level support options. As well as the Air Assault Special rule:

"An Air Assault unit can only be held in reserve if all other units deployed on table are Air Assault units."

Basically, the way the army list works is that it is assumed the troops have already been dropped on the objective, and the aim of the NATO troops is to smash the VDV forces before the 'Main Body' of Soviet troops can reach and relieve them. As such, the army does not include enough helicopters to transport the whole army!

The base Air Assault list is A Battalion HQ with a min of two (max of three) Air Assault Companies and a similar number of Hind Helicopter Companies (with 4 helicopters in each).

Air Assault Infantry companies have the same weapon options as Motor Rifle companies, but seem to be slightly better in close combat, with a Skill of 4+ and Assault of 4+ (as opposed to 5+ for the MR company), counter attacking on a 3+ (the same as a MR company). The company does have the option to take some different heavy weapon upgrades. These include AGS-17 teams (Automatic Grenade Launchers) with a RoF of 9 halted and 3 moving, AT3 and FP6. As well as AT-4 Spigot ATGW teams (RoF 3 Halted, AT19 and FP3+).

Beyond this, the rest of the army list (support options) are the same as those for the army list in the main Team Yankee rule book.

The booklet gives a short painting and basing guide:

The cards seem to be decent quality and include:

- 1x Afghansty Airmobile Brigade force Card
- 1x Afghansty Air Assault Battalion HQ Card
- 3x Afghansty Air Assault Company Heavy Weapon Cards
- 3x Afghansty Air Assault Company Heavy Weapon Cards
- 3x Afghansty Mi-24 Hind Assault Helicopter Company Cards

The Brigade force card has on the back of it a list of the various special orders that all units can be issued (I've no idea if other TY cards have the same).

Overall I was happy with the quality of the product and the delivery time. I do feel that it's perhaps not worth £8 - I think £6 would have been a more reasonable price for what you get.

The army list doesn't seem to be hugely different from the main Motor Rifle lists, although there is the option for a lot more helicopters. I suppose it may signal the way Battlefront want to approach the introduction of new armies. Only a single blister of VDV heavy weapons needed to be produced for this list to work. Similarly, how much would be required to do a US Armoured Cav list or other similar divergent list from the main ones.

For my own projects, this army should be easy to do with both 3mm and 6mm troops! 

Flames of War Pacific - Gung Ho and Banzai!

Hi Folks,

I picked up the new issue of Wargames Illustrated today and thought I would post a little bit of a review of one of the articles. This issue has a couple of articles about the upcoming Flames of War Pacific Theatre releases. I know there are a couple of great blogs out there that have been covering these releases 'officially' so for those of you paying attention none of this will be particularly new (as far as I am aware!)

Wayne Turner has written an article which covers the contents of the two books. I'll try and summarise what is covered in the article.

Gung-Ho, US Marines Corps in the Pacific

This book covers the Marine Corps in the Pacific, their tactics and methods and looks at two of their campaigns - Saipan and Okinawa.

It includes two missions - Island Landings and Atoll Landings. Both use different terrain (with or without a coral reef or lagoon). This allows for different types of landings (using landing craft or using amphibs).

Points wise, the lists are dual pointed. Points are provided specifically for Late War and specifically for the Pacific War - which also appears to be pointed the same as early war (only with units not present in early war unavailable).

US Special Rules: The US Marines use the US special rules from the rule book, in addition, they use 'Gung-Ho' (German Mission Tactics rules), 'Semper Fi' (re-roll motivation to counter attack), BAR Automatic Rifles (BAR Teams retain full ROF when moving with a +1 to hit and re-roll failed to hit defensive shots) and 'War Dogs' (ambush range extended to 10" if ambushing from concealment).

Army Lists: Most are Fearless Vet.

Marine Rifle Company - Rifle teams or for later forces BAR teams. Can be mounted in LVT(4)s. Up to three Marine Rifle Platoons, Machine Gun Platoon with LMGs and a Mortar Platoon with 60mm Mortars - these can Combat attach to the infantry platoons. Support includes Weapons Platoons with HMGs or 81mm Mortars. Assault Sections with Bazooka, Pioneer Rifle and Flamethrowers, Anti Tank Guns, Scouts and Self Propelled guns (75mm M3's or 105mm M7's).

Image from Wargames Illustrated/Battlefront Advert - used without permission

Marine Tank Company and Marine Amphib Tank Company - These use the same company diagram. One with M4A3 (Late) and M4A2 Shermans. The other with LVT(A)4 (75mm armed) or LVT(A)1's (37mm armed).

Image from Wargames Illustrated/Battlefront Advert - used without permission

 Corps Support includes: Light tanks, anti-air, artillery, Recon, engineers, rockets, AOPs, Flame Tanks (Satans and Zippos), War Dog Platoons, Marine Engineer Assault Platoons, Marine Rocket Launcher Battery, F4U Corsairs and Various options for Naval Gunfire Support. Interestingly there are different levels of this, and the article mentions that both sides can take in an an attempt to 'disrupt your opponents Air or Naval Gunfire support'. The options include Carrier Group, Aircraft Carrier or Destroyer Squadron.

Banzai, Imperial Japanese Forces in the Pacific

This book covers the Japanese forces in the Pacific. The book includes the history and background of Japan's Pacific War, Japanese tactics, Full Japanese National special rules and four intelligence breifings.

Detailed accounts for Guadacanal and Iwo Jima - apparently with Scenarios and background for both.

Special Rules: Banzai Charge, Kendo: No Surrender, Seishien, Human Bullets, Banners, Regimental Standards, Hell by Day - Paradise by night and Envelopment.

Army Lists: Options for Fearless Vets OR Confident trained versions of each list.

Hohei Chutai (Infantry Company) - rifle and light mortar teams. Banners which make them harder to pin and can use Human Bullet teams (basically anti tank assault troops - improvised tank assault 5). Machine Guns, Battalion guns, anti-tank guns and regimental guns - so a lot of firepower.

Image from Wargames Illustrated/Battlefront Advert - used without permission

Sensha Rentai (Tank Company): Variety of Japanese or captured tanks (M3 Stuarts?). Fearless Vet or Fearless Trained. The best anti tank option appears to be AT 8.

Yosai Hohei Chutai (Fortified Infantry Company): Defensive infantry company with trenches, MG bunkers that can be upgraded to other weapons and pillboxes, Barbed wire, anti tank defenses, etc.

And SNLF (Naval Landing Tank Company): Amphib tanks!

Image from Wargames Illustrated/Battlefront Advert - used without permission

Divisional Support: Self propelled guns (AT 10 and AT 13) that can fire bombardments, Tankettes, Scout Platoons, Field Artillery, Medium Mortars, Anti-aircraft, Naval Gunfire Support and Zeros.

It all sounds very interesting. and note that these books 'mark the first step' into the Pacific Theater of Ops.

Review - Waugh Games 15mm Resin Cromwell and Churchill

Hi folks,

A week or two ago I saw a request on some of the Flames of War pages. Brian over at Waugh Games was asking if any bloggers would like to review some of their new 15mm resin tanks, and given that Waugh Games is just down the road from me, I thought I would volunteer.

A quick run over to the other side of Middlesbrough later and a little chat with Brian, and I had some samples to paint up and review. I'll state up front that the models were provided for free for the purposes of a review, but that I have no other connecting to Waugh Games other than replying to the request on facebook!

Waugh Games are in the process of producing a range of resin vehicles in various scales. The models start as 3D sculpts, which allows them to be scaled quickly. I had a quick Q&A with Brian tonight, which I will detail later in the blog.

Anyway, on to the models. Brian provided me with a 15mm Churchill (I think a Churchill VI) and a Cromwell. Both are early prototypes although Brian does have them available for sale. I believe these retail for £4.50, although Brian stated that there were discounts available for models bought in bulk - the more you buy, the cheaper they are individually. Some shots of these 'naked'.

So starting out with my trusty craft knife, I set about cleaning up the resin. Cleaning and prepping the models was pretty quick. I decided to go two different routes with these two models. With the Churchill, I would give it the same treatment as my Battlefront models. With the Cromwell I would paint it straight from the pack with minimal prep or other work.

The resin itself was pretty easy to work with. It cut very easily without being brittle, and I was able to apply downwards pressure to clean up some of the sections that had resin in them - like on top of the tracks on the Churchill.

The other positive side effect of this type of resin is that should you dislike the cast on base, it would be easy to cut off. Of course, I base all my vehicles anyway, so the bases were no issue for me. Brian mentioned that the standard thickness for these is (I believe) 3mm.

With the hull, turret and gun, there was no major construction of the model, so it was very quick to assemble. The Churchill turret had a very short 'stalk', so I wasn't able to magnetise it. At the other end of the spectrum the Cromwell's turret had a long 'stalk' and sat quite deeply in the hull. This would have been easy to magnetise, should I have wanted to. I drilled out the gun barrels myself in order to make them look like the typical muzzle break 75mm.

No spares came with the tanks, so no crew or turret MG's.

Having cleaned the models up and given them a wash in warm soapy water. After this I took some plastic putty and filled in a lot of the larger bubbles in the resin that I could see - I gave the Churchill a lot more attention here, leaving the Cromwell as it was from the packet. I also added stowage to the Churchill from my collection of Battlefront, Skytrex and Peter Pig parts.

I then primed them with some black brush on primer. The models certainly looked better with some colour on them, the white resin hides a lot of the detail on the model. I applied a coat of Russian Uniform (Vallejo Model Color 70.924) as a base coat. At this point I noticed a lot of small bubbles. Having discussed this with some fellow painters, the consensus was that the models had not been 'de-gassed'. My conversation with Brian tonight confirmed that, although he did say that this part of the process was being introduced within the next few months. To help with this issue I gave the models a coat of Vallejo brush on Gloss Varnish.

Once that had dried, I tidied up the Russian Uniform, painted the tracks Black Grey (Vallejo Color 70.862) and the stowage various shades of Khaki. I then gave the models a wash of Army painter Dark Tone and drybrushed them back a bit with Russian Uniform. I then highlighted with a mix of Khaki and Russian Uniform. Tracks I highlighted with a lightened Black Grey. Stowage was also highlighted.

I drilled out a couple of holes in the Churchill turret and put in some fishing line. I then painted this black. I also weathered the tracks and hull slightly, and added some rain water streaks for the first time.

I glossed the areas where the decals would be going and applied them. The Cromwell is marked up as a tank from 1 RTR, 7th Armoured Division, while the Churchill is 7 RTR, 31 Tank Brigade. I drybrushed the decals with some Russian Uniform to tone them down a bit. I then matt varnished both tanks.

The base I coated with PVA and dipped in fine sand. I then painted them Flat Earth, applied more PVA and added static grass and various tufts.

I'm quite pleased with the results, given the time I spent. 

The models actually came up a lot better than I expected, especially for early versions from a manufacturer that only started making these in October 2015. There are obviously areas where the detail is a lot less than that on Battlefront or PSC kits, but in all honesty at tabletop distances I don't think the differences are as pronounced as I thought they might be. Especially with a little stowage and the likes added to draw the eye away.

Scale wise, they also compare quite well to Battlefont (I am holding off on building my PSC Churchills until S&S models bring out their AVRE conversion kits next year).

Waugh Games Cromwell and Churchill

Tabletop distances, BF churchill on the left.

BF on the left. 

BF on the left.

BF on the left.

BF on the left.

BF on the left.

BF on the left.

BF on the left.

BF on the left.

A side shot for better size comparison. The track details on the WG tanks were lacking, but I honestly didn't mind that as I hate painting tracks...

BF on the left.

BF model in centre

Battlefront Crocodile on left, Waugh Games (WG) model on the right.Tabletop distance shot?

Battlefront Crocodile on left, Waugh Games (WG) model on the right.Tabletop distance shot?

Battlefront Crocodile on left, Waugh Games (WG) model on the right.

Battlefront Crocodile on left, Waugh Games (WG) model on the right.

Battlefront Crocodile on left, Waugh Games (WG) model on the right.

So, some nice models at a price point lower than that of Battlefront - and bought in bulk, potentially PSC.

Having had a quick Q&A session with Brian tonight before publishing this article, he was happy to acknowledge that these are prototypes and that there are areas which still need work. I specifically mentioned the turret hatches and the likes, and a few other areas where protruding details were missing but left a bubble or hole instead. These are all things he said he would look at, and we talked about this perhaps being the reason that BF provide a lot of hatches as metal components.

Regarding my specific issued about the condition of the Cromwell turret, Brian stated that he had been trying a new type of silicone mold out and rushed to try both it and the recently received 3D print of the tank out. This resulted in some prep work being missed and the 3D printer marks showing on the cast model. There are also some holes in the hull of the Cromwell which I left unfilled in order to show the package to tabletop paint job. These were, I think, to do with the resin pouring process. 

Brian also acknowledged that the very small bubbles were a result of these models being poured resin, but that he was expecting the de-gassing process to be added within the next few months. This will help remove bubbles from the resin and prevent this issue in the future. Brian is very passionate about his products, and I accept that Waugh Games has only been working on these models since October of this year, as I mentioned earlier. He seems very keen on feedback and readily accepts that they are going through a learning process.  

The design of the models starts with a 3D sculpt, which can then be scaled all the way from 6 and 10mm up to 28mm. The 3D model is printed and then cast from the print in silicone.

Waugh Games are currently working on an expanded line of 10mm models, which he plans to do in various size packs. In early January he plans to release a range of 10mm WW1 tanks. This range will have around 16 models for both the Allies and Germans - in Company packs (12 models), Battalion packs (36 to 48 models) and blisters of 3.

As I understand it, there is also a range of 10mm resin WW2 tanks coming possibly in April. This range includes Allied and German tanks, with various Shermans and LVT's, as well as DUKWS. There seems to be a particular focus on vehicles used in the Pacific, for some reason... Brian did mention that they also have Landing Craft in the works. These vehicles will be in 3, 4 and 5 tank packs and cost around £1 per model. I have a sample of a 10mm Churchill, which is very nice. I'll try and get it finished and pictures taken soon.

In 15mm they currently have a few tanks from different nations, and are still trying out different techniques. The next big 15mm release is set for the start of the new year, with around 5 different Japanese WW2 tanks.

On the Cold War front, I saw a lovely looking Leopard 2 model, with Brian planning on doing the Main Battle Tanks of all the main nations. Possibly the APC's depending on demand.

So, that's it! A quick review of some new 15mm kit on the market. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have, feel free to leave a comment which will show up after moderation.