If you asked me in the morning to make a list of the ten top things I’d like to do that day I’m pretty sure nowhere on that list would be “Bail out of a burning T-34 in the middle of history’s biggest ever tank battle”. What this kit does for me is to bring home the reality that many men did just that, not just at Kursk but anywhere that a tank saw action.

This comes in the usual Masterbox open ended box on a single dark yellow sprue containing the four figures. The mouldings are pretty much what we’ve come to expect from Masterbox, good detail with a little clean-up of light flash and minor mould seams, and minor filling and sanding required to eliminate the join lines when assembled.

The uniform details are very good, being sharp and clear with good looking folds and creases. The faces have individual looks  and I particularly like the expresion on the figure with the PPsH 41. The hands are all nicely moulded and the tanker helmets come with separate parts for the side flaps which allows them hang with a natural look.

No personal equipment is provided other than a pistol holster for the Tokarev pistol that one figure holds. Also included is a PPsH 41 sub-machine gun for one figure.

Assembly and painting instructions are provided on the reverse of the box giving the paint numbers for Vallejo, Tamiya, Lifecolour, Humbrol and Agama paints.

This is a very good set of figures that acheives well the sense of urgency and tension that you would expect to see in a tank crew abandoning their vehicle in battle. The moulding and the detail is very good and the poses just really help this set to take any diorama of a Russian tank from being just a tank sitting there to really telling a story. 

Click thumbnails to enlarge images.

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Classed as a work in progress so no release date yet though with the cover art done it usually means the final rendition of the figures has been decided upon.

Masterbox, masterbox counterattack

If you’re looking for a WWII subject that’s something a little bit different then this is the one for you. Whilst the image we have of the German army in WWII is charging Panzers and mechanised Infantry the reality is that the lowly horse and wagon still performed a large part in the movement of troops and supplies and images abound of German soldiers getting from A to B via horse transportation.

So Masterbox’s “Road to the Rear” is a brilliant little snapshot in time with the added benefit of coming with a variety of options. 

One of Masterbox’s few failings is their failure to emphasise the full strengths of a kit so they have sold themselves short here with cover art that only shows the cart and five figures. In fact the box itself states six figures and no mention is made anywhere of the seventh. But she’s there. Yes “she” as this kit includes both the farmer and his daughter from the “Somewhere in Europe” kit from which the hay-cart and horses originated.

So, what you get – one cart, two horses, one prone wounded soldier, one medic, one farmer, one farmer’s daughter ( a small girl with pigtails designed to be seated beside the farmer ), one seated figure who can be driving or just seated, one seated wounded figure, one walking figure that can be wounded in the arm or carrying a rifle.

The parts are very well cast, the detail is sharp and well defined - especially the faces and hands which are so important when it comes to figures. Clean-up is minimal and assembly is quick and easy with the rear of the box provding one set of basic instructions for the figures and an enclosed simple line drawing page providing the instructions for the rest.

The figures include parts for what MasterBox call “multipose” by providing extra arms, in this case allowing the walking figure to either be wounded or unwounded and carrying a rifle, and the seated figure to be either holding the reins or with his hands on his legs ( whilst the farmer figure is used to hold the reins ).

Everything on this goes together well with only minimal cleanup/filling etc. Some of the figures include such nice deatils as seperate collars and skirt flaps for the uniform jacket which is something usually only seen in the Dragon Gen 2 figure sets. There’s also nice touches like a wristwatch on the medic at the rear and optional hats for the farmer.

The horses are also well detailed including seperate ears which gives them better definition. The wagon has seperate parts for the rings through which the reins are fed. No reins are included but cotton works fine. I find it best to roll it between your fingers while lightly soaked in PVA glue to get it to stay rope like without the fraying. It will also then stay in the position you want it to.

 The wagon depicts a wooden hay-cart style wagon and whilst there is no wood grain texture to the mouldings I for one don’t mind. I know some people feel all wooden items should have wood grain but I feel this is overstated and gives the parts a very rough hewn look. On real finished wood the grain is visual not tactile and properly paited wood parts look more effective than something that just adds grain to say “look I’m wood”. If however you like your wood with grain then this would be the kit’s one negative.

All in all a great value kit depicting a part of WWII not often seen in modelling.

FURTHER IMAGES : Sprue 1 – Wagon : Sprue 2 – Horses : Sprue 3 – Figures

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Scheduled for release sometime in April is a six/seven figure set of Commonwealth troops and AFV crew figures. Included are a four man tank/afv crew in the process of having a cuppa, an indian soldier, a bedouin arab and a camel. The photos of the actual figures that I’ve seen do look slightly different from the box art ( mainly minor variations in poses ) so don’t go expecting Monty till we’ve seen them in the flesh so to speak.

MasterBox Commonwealth AFV Crew

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We have new stock from Masterbox on the way including these three great new kits :

Masterbox Motorcycle troops

Kradschutzen. German Motorcycle Troops on the Move – Four Figures, One motorcycle, PE Parts for the Motorbike.

MasterBox Deutsches Afrika Korps

Deutsches Afrika Korps – Four DAK AFV Crewmen, One Bedouin figure plus a Donkey.

MasterBox Who’s There ?

Who’s There ? – Three German Figures Plus Three Russian Figures

 

So keep an eye out for them mid-March.

There’s also some great new kits in the pipeline from Masterbox including 8th Army troops, Commonwealth Tank Crew in North Africa, Italian Troops, US Artillery Crew, US troops in Europe and more German troops in non-combative poses.

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For those who missed it the 2010 Nuremberg Toy Fair has just been held and there are a few goodies to behold on the “coming soon” lists.

I’ve already covered the upcoming Artillery bonanza so here’s what else there is to look forward to.

In what looks to be a continuation of the 2009 trend towards more wheeled vehicles ( think Tamiya Citroen 11CV, Bronco Staff Car, Bronco Adler, Miniart British Staff Car, Zvezda Mercedes L4500 ) Tamiya brings us their new Austin “Tilly”, ICM a Kfz. 1 Staff Car and Kfz.2 Radio Car, Bronco a radio version of the Adler and most interestingly IGB enter the 1/35 scale market with an Einheitsdiesel in two versions, Telephone Truck and Cargo truck.

Why is that the most interesting ? Because IGB do a large range of 1/72 scale Bedford QL series and Chevrolet 15 trucks and it looks like they will also be upscaling some of those with a 1/35  Bedford QLD and a Chevrolet C15A No.13 listed as coming soon.

In other kit news …

Tamiya will be bringing us some new – and some new look make overs – with a Japanese Type 3 and  a Type 5 Tank as well as a  the JagdTiger “Otto Carius” – which just looks to mate the figures and bike from their King Tiger Ardennes kit with their new JagdTiger. Figurewise there’s a US Field Maintenace set which whilst it appears to be made up primarily of the figures and accessories from the Red Ball Express kit does have a much welcomed frame and hoist included.

Trumpeter has their eye on PaperPanzers it seems with an E50 and E75 as well as the Grille 21, and some more bits for those of you building Armoured Trains.

Dragon is possibly playing it close to the chest with only the Nashorn that we already knew about ( going head to head this time with AFV Club’s own Nashorn ). A little dissappointing for me really as Dragon seems to be sticking to the tried and true and we aren’t really seeing anything innovative and exciting, more StuG variants upon variants, Sherman variants upon variants and old kits given a make-over into Smart Kits or Orange Box. Hopefully it is just a case of keeping things hush hush and this year will still bring us more fresh kits from them like last year’s Sd.Kfz 7 range, and the Pz.Kpfw IV based variants like the Ostwind, Bergepanzer and Wirbelwind ( I’m still holding out for a Mobelwagon and an Sd.Kfz 8 )

ICM as mentioned have the Kfz.1 and Kfz.2 as well as a nice looking set of Russian Field Medics and of course their recently released Studebaker with the Stalin Organ rack. More expensive than the Zvezda one but then the Zvezda one is the wrong type of vehicle for WWII.

Miniart will be bringing us a Valentine Tank, initially as a lend lease Soviet version but I assume there will no doubt be a standard British/Commonwealth service version not far behind.

Masterbox have their DAK panzercrew with a Bedouin on a donkey now out and still to come are a set of Soviet and German troops in urban fighting, a British 8th army tank crew with bedouin on a camel, US Artillery crew as well as US Infantry with nuns and there’s still hope for a 2010 release of the Horsa Gliders and possibly also the long awaited Ju52 and C47.

So plenty to look forward to this year.

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Well last year we saw the release of the Dragon M1A1 75mm as well as the Vulcan version, some big German guns from Trumpeter, the absolutely beautiful Dragon PaK 43/3 L/71 and the Bronco Bofors to name but a few, and that trend looks to continue.

AFV Club’s 2010 line-up of releases includes their own Bofors and an M1A1 75mm Pack Howitzer as well as a new German S.IG 33 Field Howizer and a US M2A1 105mm Howitzer. They also have a new Flakveirling 38 in the pipeline which will be a welcome replacement for the somewhat dated Tamiya kit which is currently our only standalone offering  and the icing on the cake is a planned ammo accessory set for the Flakveirling 38 as well. I for one love the prospect of that having spent a fruitless year trying to get ahold of the Tristar version.

Trumpeter is also to release their 37mm FlaK 37 and Flakveirling 38 as seperate kits together with an Sd.Ah 52 trailer but no word yet on if they have corrected the inaccuracies in the Flakveirling from the Sd.Kfz 7/1 kit - though no doubt Dragon will be racing them to the post to get the Flakveirling 38 and FlaK 37  from their  Sd.Kfz 7/1 and Sd.Kfz 7/2  kits out as stand-alone kits.

Add to all this MasterBox’s US Artillery Crew Figure Set, Dragon’s own S.IG 33 and a new PaK 36, Trumpeter’s Soviet 122mm and 152mm Howitzers – and does the proposed 21cm Grille portend a freestanding 21cm Mortar ?

All that’s left to ask is with all this US, Soviet and German Artillery where is a up-to-date retake on Tamiya’s venerable 25pdr and a decent 6pdr in styrene ( apologies to resicast’s beautifully rendered resin North African version ) ?

With Tamiya’s trend of late to target the North African campain with their new releases - albeit usually existing kits made over with DAK themes – is there hope for a rejuvinated 25pdr ? Or am I just asking for too much in the midst of what already looks like an artillery fan’s paradise of a year ?

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