Sunday 19 April 2009

Progress






I have some stuff coming to me very soon from America, (which are a swop/trade thing) and 5 diecasts from a friend in Portugal (which I have to pay for)

Also got a couple more swops lined up for Deagostini diecasts which I don't want in exchange for useful ones that I do.

Yes, the Madness has definitely started again.


About the photos above:

I have been messing around with a stack of Panzer III and Stug kits. I need 4 stugs and 2 Pzr III ausf N, the ones with the short 75mm gun. I have bought all the relevant Italeri kits. But then I saw a way to improve the Altaya diecasts (I have 5 ) at the same time.


By using the lower hulls and suspensions from HAT and Italeri Pzr III fast-build kits (which are very cheap , and I have a load already unused) and mating these with the Italeri hull tops, I kill two birds with one stone.

1) the Stugs and IIINs will go together very quickly

2) the suspensions are hidden by skirt armour anyway

3) I then can use the plastic link-and-length track from the kits to replace the weak tracks on the Altayas.




The rubber tracks on the Altaya/Deagostini diecasts are the only weak point on an otherwise good model. They are very thin and I think will not last long. By replacing with link and length track it will make a very solid wargames model.

First off though is to build all the plastic kits . I have started 4 and made good progress. The different kits all scale together very well and there seems to be no trouble cross-kitting.

4 comments:

Rock Chef said...

I like Stugs and Panzers, especially the late ones with all the side skirts and stuff. Looking forward to seeing the results of your cunning plans!

Ookami Snow said...

My historical miniature wargaming knowledge is lacking. Are you working on Flames of War stuff or something else?

James said...

@John, Should be done this week. Might paint the stugs in that dotty ambush camo scheme. What do you think?

@Ookami,

Something else. FOW is 15mm and hideously overpriced. Long before FOW appeared people were playing WWII in 20mm, that is 1/76-1/72 scale. There are so many model kits and figures around that it actually works out cheaper than the smaller scale, and availability is good.
(Plus, with my eyes on the way out, 20mm is easier to paint!)
There are a couple of different rulesets that interest me.

I believe you play LOR and 40K?
Have you seen the Pig Iron stuff? I am jonesing for some colonial militia....

FIXED BAYONET METAL SOLDIERS said...

very nice