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.

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.

.