Front Page at Battlefront!

It's Thursday, update day, at Battlefront and I must say it is an amazing week for me! Product spotlights are out for a whole slew of new stuff in preparation for Devil's Charge. First up is something I have eagerly anticipated since March when I finally got into FoW. We get Konigstigers WITHOUT zimmerit and the world's first operational (Me-163 wasn't used in combat as far as I know) jet fighter, the to-this-day ultra sexy Me-262!

Next the Americans get a huge release of loving from BF. There's Chaffees and Calliopes and winter troops oh my! There's also this crazy thing I've never heard of called a Xylophone which is pretty much two Calliope rocket launchers mounted in a single truck! These sculpts are amazing!

Battlefront is also releasing apartment buildings now for those of you without the time, ability, or want to make your own terrain. I prefer to make my own terrain but the quality of these buildings are really making me want to just buy theirs.

For pictures of everything, head over to Battlefront's site at http://www.flamesofwar.com/ or to the product preview page at http://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=3344 to see all the glorious stuff going on.

Finally, a few posts ago right before my Panther G debacle started, I had made a post on this blog and on Battlefront's modeling forum about how I used the spare Jagdpanther plastic barrel from the Panther G boxed set to modify my Konigstiger barrel. This post has made the FRONT PAGE at Battlefront and is this week's modeling tip! It is an honor to be featured here and I hope to come up with more great stuff in the future. You can view my blog post here or view the original thread at http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=126&aff=9&aft=543772&afv=topic. Needless to say, I am elated by this. I followed up that thread with a few more pics of the conversion and am including them here for convenience and or posterity.

 

Thanks for the views!

**Coming Soon** Review of FOUR different kinds of epoxy putty you can get at Walmart for $4 or less per tube to create extra stowage and pictures of those finished Spetsnaz I promised (college biology class is whuppin my ass /sadface)

Updates, Repairs, and Despair

Still trying to figure out a way of attaching these Panther G skirts. I super glued the rear end on and then attempted to use some of my epoxy putty to bridge the gap but the putty just isn't cooperating with me. The skirts are on, I just have to make it look good now since that is too much to ask of BF.

Next, the staff car I got in my Flak36 boxed set had a miscast base. Something I really hate about most of the transport vehicles in this game and the Panzerwerfer and Katyusha boxed sets is that the vehicle is molded onto the base. This is all good and gravy unless you either don't really want the base on (if for some reason you wanted to field Panzerwerfers without 5 or more crew), the base is damaged (which happens all too often), or if like me you simply hate all that resin under the vehicle that shouldn't be there. Since the staff car is a cheap replacement in case I screwed it up, I set out to test out what I could do about the damaged base. Here is how it looked before.

I got my dremel out and cut off what I could with a cutoff wheel. I then used a cutting bit to chunk out more of the larger material. Finally I used a grinding wheel to core it out and smooth it over. The only bad part about this process is the wheels are now flat at the bottoms (not such a big deal if you're mounting it on a new base with grass), and it is extremely time consuming. Honestly, I would rather pay more for the Panzerwerfers and support vehicles that aren't cast onto their bases than deal with anymore resin dust. I think it turned out ok. At least this vehicle won't have a mishapen base anymore.

Last up is the King Tiger you see behind the staff car. This is my first KT and I just love the model. It is such an awesome looking tank but for some reason it just doesn't look as scary when you put it next to a Panther which is pretty much the same size model. You can see the converted to plastic barrel from one of my previous posts, plastic hull MG from the Panther kit, and white track links. I reheated the mold of stowage I had cast in previous posts and made a cast of the track links for the KT. I think it could be better but I'm hoping some paint will make that happen for me. I am still undecided as to what paint job I will be using for my Germans. As of right now I am leaning more towards generic grey as opposed to building an army based around a specific unit. It isn't flashy but it is something you don't see often, if ever, and I don't have an airbrush to do the 3 tone paint job everyone else and their mom does.

Later!

Panther G Platoon Extras

Got my Panther G platoon box today and I absolutely love it. The quality of the plastic parts is exceptional and so so crisp (eat your heart out Plastic Soldier Company). As I was building my first Konigstiger I was dreading the fact that I would have to drill out the sides of the muzzle break. I am inexperienced at this and was worried that I would destroy the barrel like I did one of my IS-3 barrels. But then I noticed that the bits sprue that comes with the new Panthers has an extra 88mm gun that is meant for the Jagdpanther which of course is a tank destroyer that shares the chassis of the Panther. This extra gun happens to be identical to the Konigstiger's gun except for how it is mounted to the hull. This was a no brainer...

I cut each of the barrels of as straight as I could and then used the dremel to get them even. I then glued the upper portion of the extra plastic barrel onto the lower portion of the Konigstiger's metal barrel. This is the result.

I think it is PERFECT! Since the Panther G platoon comes with 5 of these extra barrels, you can easily convert an entire platoon of Konigstigers in this manner. If you're like me and collecting Germans for the eastern front and using Grey Wolf (meaning you can't even take Jagpanthers in your lists) then this is a very nice way to spice up your KTs. Another thing worth noting is that the Panther kit comes with two plastic hull MGs one without zimmerit for the Panthers and one with zimmerit. Other than having a longer MG barrel, the one with zimmerit is identical to the poorly cast metal hull MGs that come with the Konigstigers but is full of crisp detail.

If you havn't already, pick up a box of these Panthers. They are freakin sweet!

(Soviet 80mm mortar teams work in progress in the background)