The final variants for the original tanks and a shipping update:

L-62

 As you may have seen a number of 'part ready' backers have received their first shipment (though not of the new designs), and most seem pretty happy with the vehicles. The questions I see asked in response are often variations on 'when will I be receiving mine?'
The November 'Part Ready' shipping wave did not go entirely to plan. Most was sent out before the end of November, though some got held up until early December. Large scale production and finishing up the backer kit both presented a fair number of challenges.

Stretch goals

If you have contacted me recently and have not had a reply, I'll get back to you soon. I have been somewhat overloaded by the success Hungarian tanks Kickstarter, all the preplanned stretch goals were reached in the first 48 hours.

The current set set of stretch goals are aimed at Hungarian prototypes, but after that I am adding in some items for those not interested in Hungarians.

A couple of new items and a Release schedule

 I have been asked to give a full list of what I produce and a list of planned releases. There are a couple of items that have been released very recently and a couple of items due for release within the next two weeks. I shall start with images of items recently released.

Lorraine 37/38L (without trailer)

The Big Update

Two months and quite a bit has been going on. I'll start by updating you with what is already done and available. All the items I have been casting that are already available to buy, I've sold quite a lot since the end of January so many out there will already be familiar with what I have produced so far. Let's start with the artillery:

Canon de 105 mle 1913 Schneider - French Medium Howitzer

 

Designed by the French Schneider arms manufacturer during the Great War, this gun was widely sold between the wars to many European Nations. After the fall of France the Germans used captured guns under the designation 10.5 cm K 331(f), with many being used to equip the Atlantic wall emplacements.

Soviet Starting Forces (Painted!)

This is a rather basic force I put together from the late war Forces book. Just Infantry, nothing special that might create confusion whilst learning the basics.

Strelkovy Battalion 500pts

 

Strelkovy Battalion HQ

Left to Right: Company Command Rifle team, 2iC Command Rifle team, Battalion Komissar team

30pts

Strelkovy Company with two MG/Rifle Platoons and Komissar team

 

255pts

Strelkovy Company with one SMG Platoon

130pts

Strelkovy Machine-Gun Company with one Machine-Gun platoon

80pts

Total 495pts

I painted a few other models that didn't make it into the list:

Anti-Tank Gun Company with four ZIS-3

Anti-Tank Rifle Platoon 

There are also a couple of spare infantry teams for when this force expands. I have a lot of spare 'odds and sods' that will form some more command teams, but I will need another box of PSC's soviet infantry to make a true hoard.

~ Bob

 

Zvezda Katyushya

I was hunting around for paints the other day (how many colours of Khaki can there possibly be?) when I came across this little gem hidden in the corner;

Zvezda 1/100 BM-13 'Katyushya'

I had made a deal with myself not to buy any new models until I had painted the current force, but at only £3 I could not help myself.

I have seen the Zvezda models on the Plastic Soldier Company's website, and even considered buying a platoon of the KV-1e models, figuring that it would be rather unique compared to the ubiquitous horde of T-34s.

In the end I demured on three grounds,

1) I never buy a model unless I can see what it actually looks like, PSC only show the bow art

2) While the KV-1e served for most of the war, the KV-2, KV-1s and the KV-85 superseded it, and I would quite like some of the later options.

3) I heard that PSC might be making their own version, with the additional options

 The Katyusha, on the other hand, is a rather standard piece of kit that changes little over the years and is the most iconic piece of WW2 Soviet artillery.

 The sprues are rather simple, snap fit so little chance of variation from the basic model. The most annoying part of the construction was the bonnet, which needs to be carefully bent into shape. Some of the components were very tight fitting, requiring a little shaved off for them to fit snugly.

The same master must have been used for the ZIS truck Zvezda also sell, as the cab lacks the blast shields normally mounted on the Katyusha. Some of the other simplifications of design that are aimed at making it work as snap fit kit also reduce the accuracy of the model. The most obvious chose is to have all eight top missiles connected together rather blatently, and to not include any missiles underneath the rails. With a bit of cutting and glueing this can be partialy corrected.
 

 The model fits well on the large artillery base, with enough room either side for addition crew.

Conclusions

Cheep and cheerful, there are some obvious inaccuracies to aid the snap fit system.


On the plus side, the supports for the missile rack are in far better proportion than I have seen in any metal or resin model of the same vehicle.

I will be buying more in the future, but I will have to do a fair bit of conversion work to make them look proper, and to create variation within the unit.


The problem with the PSC Russian Infantry Company may well be that it offers too much indirect artillery, 4 light mortars, 4 medium mortars and 4 heavy mortars up to plus 8 battery guns, how does one expand into rocket artillery without going overboard?

~ Bob

Unboxing the Soviets (part 2)

This is the Russian infantry box, and today I'll be showing you the models from one of it's five sprues.

The Box art is just that... art... so I can forgive them showing models that aren't included, such as the Maxim and PPSh officer.

Now to the Sprues.

Russian Infantry

On the top row we have the Submachine gunners all armed with the PPSh-41, on the second row we have the Riflemen.

Quite a few duplicates here, abet with a change of hat for each:

S1 & R1 are the same pose, but have the weapon separate. One has to have the Spagin and the other the Rifle.
tPSC missed a trick in not offering multiples of both.

S2 is pretty cool, the head is separate for casting reasons, I can see using him as a junior officer

S3 & S4 both two part models with the arms and gun separate

R2 & R3 two part again, each with a join at the waist, so at least you can twist them to look different

R4 has a separate rifle for casting reasons

S5 & S6 in the awful "disco dance with a grenade" pose


 R5 & R6, and R7 & R8, are twins, but in fairly standard poses.


S7 & S8 & S9 & S10 are all the same kneeling position, I suppose there are only so many ways you can kneel.
 

 The rest of the sprue is officers and specialists:

The obvious Officer, pointing and shouting, has a separate shouty arm. This will get repetitive once you have all 5 commanders in the same pose. Again PSC missed a trick; alternate left arms with a Spagin or Tokarev to liven things up.

The Female (M) in the group is a fair addition.

The soviets allowed women to serve in frontline infantry units as medics, snipers, radio operators and machine gunners, all tasks that would keep them just behind the cutting edge of a fire fight.

This model seems to be a medic, directly correlating to the medics in the German box set.

Tokarev man 1&2 seem to be junior officers, but there are too many in the same pose for my liking.

The 2 Degtyaryov gunners each with their own loader are fairly good, the firing pair both have separate heads, and the walking gunner has a separate arm with the gun on.

45mm Anti-Tank Gun

The 45mm Anti tank guns, this time with 4 sprues in the box. I have some problems with the box art now that we have photographs of actual models.

It's obvious that they used a larger scale model for the photo, possibly their 28mm (1/50ish) box. The loose shells are a clear give away as they aren't in this set.

I can forgive that on the aesthetic grounds, but the fact that the photo has also been reversed annoys me.

 The crew is fairly good with one more model than necessary for Flames of War, so I can add one to a command/spotter group or to the heavy mortar teams

The gun here is assembled with the later long barrelled 45mm, at the front are the early short 45mm and the 76mm infantry gun. It is nice to have the extra options.

The to ammo crates, one open, one closed, are another good addition.

ZIS 2/3 Gun

The ZIS 2/3 art, again 28mm scale, and again it has been flipped left-to-right.

The  Gunners are exactly the same as in the 45mm gun set.

I don't think they've even changed the shell size, not that I'd notice the difference much at this scale.

Rather lazy mister PSC.

The guns are rather good, again select the gun you want to build, but this time the wheels (and shell boxes) are specific to the version. A nice bit of historical detail that I didn't know. 

Infantry Heavy Weapons

 

4 Sprues again, well at least this time the artwork hasn't been flipped

 A lot of multi part models for the heavy weapons, as is to be expected.

Not sure I'll use the 50mm light mortar as it only appears in a few lists, it would have been better to have a moving maxim in it's place.

The PTDRs are in exactly the same poses as the Degtyaryov gunners (D1, D2 and L1) from the Infantry box

The second Anti-tank rifleman (PTDR2) has no loader, but I'll probably use some of the Degtyaryov loaders (L2) for the task.

This time PSC is taking the biscuit, all these guys have twins on the same sprue and half of them are just copies of the artillery crew (G1 & G4).

Of the new guys I like Gunner 6 and his twin, but  not Gunners 7 who is about to throw his binoculars at someone.

Conclusions

I'm rather good at poking holes in the choices PCS have made, but on the whole I like these models for a number of reasons;

1: The detail is Crisp and Sharp; no pudgy hands or swollen gun barrels here.

2: It's plastic; no worries about chipping paint, bent guns and brittle super glue.

3: It's ridiculously cheap compared to the competition

4: While I've complained about the repeat models, how many different poses do you actually get in a Flames of War infantry set.


~ Bob

Unboxing the Soviets

This set is the Russian Rifle Company Army Deal from The Plastic Soldier Company:

It costs £68, which may seem a lot for a starting force, but it contains a lot of models.

Having worked out a rough list this set can easily bring you up to 1000 points in Flames of War, with a varied and expandable force.

Now I spend hours searching around for pictures of sprues before I purchase any models so that I know exactly what I'm getting.

Time for me to give back to the community I suppose;

WW2 Russian Infantry in Summer Uniform

One box of standard Infantry containing 5 identical sprues, each with 26 guys, for a total of 130 infantry in the box. I'll show exactly how each guy is armed in a later post.

They look rather good, but some of the models seem to be cloning:

To be quite honest the instructions in this box aren't quite up to scratch either

 

WW2 Russian Infantry Heavy Weapons

One box of these in the set with four identical sprues.

No command team I note, but there should be enough guys in the standard infantry

I also could have done with a second maksim on the sprue rather than the 50mm mortar

Much better on the instructions though

WW2 Russian 45mm anti tank gun

One box of these in the set, again with four identical sprues. One gun per sprue with options for 3 different versions of the gun.

Russian Zis2/3 anti tank and field gun

Two boxes of heavy artillery in the set, my inner gunner cries with joy!

four identical sprues per box for a total of 8 guns. Each sprue has barrels for both the ZIS-2 and ZIS-3, but as the gun shield attaches to the barrel you can't swap them over once built.

I'll be showing the German sprues later today, then assemble the Soviets sometime tomorrow

~Bob

Flames of War: a backwards step

Well I have finally made the move away from 40k, and games workshop’s waning community support.

It’s time to move backwards. I first became interested in wargaming at the tender age of 10, with Airfix 1/72 WW2 models. My friends and I made up our own rule set using a hit point system without any dice, and played on a pair of pasting tables, often in the middle of a muddy field (don’t ask).

More recently I’ve invested in Warhammer English Civil War in 28mm, using the fantastic models by Warlord games. However every time I mentioned playing historical wargames I’ve invariably been asked if I play Flames of War leaving me somewhat irritated and also a little intrigued.

I’d looked at Bolt Action with some interest, but 15mm had never really stuck me as an exciting scale. I like each model to be his own man, to care if that man lives or dies and for each model to have their own character. I love converting models to accentuate their own personality, for this reason I love 28mm games and eschew smaller scales.

But looking through the Flames of War range brought back those happy memories of Airfix kits and pasting tables.

So I have brought a copy of 3^rd edition Flames of War and have begun looking around for cheaper models, mainly at The Plastic Soldier Company.

The main Rulebook is hardback, full colour and beautifully illustrated. Bundled with it comes a stapled ‘how to build and paint your army’ Hobby booklet that I will not pay much mind to, and more importantly a paperback Forces book, which gives a concise set of army lists for each of the four main powers for the Late War, 1944-1945, period.

The inclusion Forces book is a great bonus, not instantly having to buy a specific Codex is a great thing, though it has its limitations. As stated before it only covers the Late War period, focusing on American, German, British and Soviet forces, and only covers each force in moderate detail. For example the British Armoured Company list sticks to American Sherman and Stuart derivatives, with the only fully British tank available being the Churchill.

For more depth in your army selection, for, different periods of the war, and for other nationalities you have to buy the campaign books.

  

The second problem with the Forces book is the cheap Chinese binding, while the hardback Rulebook appears fairly solid, the Forces book began shedding pages within days.

 I looked at the possibility of returning the item; I would have had to send the whole three volume set back, then wait a week and hope that the replacement had better binding or be forced to repeat the whole process indefinitely. In the end I opted to have it ring bound at the local Staples for less than £5.

 At least this way I can lay it flat without worrying about the binding.

My order from the Plastic soldier company arrived early and I shall be properly un-boxing them from tomorrow.

~ Bob