GameCraft Furniture Review Followup - More Happy Fun Time

If any of you read my previous review of the furniture that Allen over at GCMini makes (http://store.gcmshop.com/) you'll notice that I ranted and raved near the end about a shelf for the paint bleachers that wasn't available at the time of my purchase. He makes two versions of the paint bleachers happy fun time shelf.

Version 1 here http://store.gcmshop.com/p/1981/shelf-unit-for-paint-racks-version-1
Version 2 here http://store.gcmshop.com/p/1982/shelf-unit-for-paint-racks-version-2

Well version 2 arrived last Wednesday but I'm only now getting around to building it tonight due to the holidays and the gluttonous fat laziness that followed.

First of all, this is a very simple piece not only in design but in function but how it does that is the real beauty of it. It not only utilizes space already occupied by his paint bleachers but creates space above them. Desktop space comes at a premium and when ordering some paint bleachers for yourself you should definitely consider adding the happy fun time shelf to the order.

Secondly, I built this piece with thick CA glue instead of the 2 minute Loctite wood bonder I used on all of the other pieces. The bonder was a wonderful glue but it expands when it comes into contact with air so that required a significant amount of cleanup after assembly. It's just easier to use CA glue even if you have to hold the parts together a bit longer.

Lastly, function. What can you use the shelf for? Well I bought some more Vallejo paints and have filled my paint bleachers to maximum capacity. So until I order another one, my extra paints will sit on the shelf. I have also moved some critical bitz boxes onto it and used the top shelf for some really tall bottles of Elmer's glue (I love Elmer's glue! Ever spread it all over your hand, let it dry, and peel it off? Yeah, I never grew up). I intend to fill the shelf up with bitz boxes and Lifecolor paints once I've bought them.

So in short since the paint bleachers are my favorite piece, by proxy the shelf that goes around it is also my favorite piece. I should probably mention that Allen also sends some hard candies with his orders (at least lately) and not only are they tasty but somewhat nostalgic at least for me. Now we just have to get him to replace the cinnamon or peppermint with some butterscotch :P

He's made a lifelong customer out of me and I'll be review more of his products as I can afford them. I am eager to do up some of his buildings and I've caught whispers of things everyone except me wants that I will probably end up buying just to show off.



One last thing. I accidentally bought some 15mm Israelis for the new Fate of a Nation supplement from Flames of War. If I was spread thin before, I'm doubly so now.

Freakin Sharks with Freakin Lasers on Their Heads

Today I've got a super happy fun time product review from two companies.

First up are some bases by Litko at http://www.litko.net/. Using their basemaker app you can have custom designed bases in circles, squares, ovals, and pill (similar to Flames of War bases). I needed circles for my 6mm Israelis and decided to ignore the suggestion for 1" bases since a Merkava will not fit on a 1" base. You can get your bases made in different colors of acrylic or in MDF board and in different thicknesses. I picked up 100 1.25", 50 1", and 25 1.5" bases in 0.8mm thick MDF. Infantry will be mounted on the 1", vehicles on the 1.25", and larger vehicles and artillery pieces on the 1.5". I got all of that for about $45 after shipping but it's custom made to order so I had to wait almost 3 weeks for them to arrive. Nowhere near as fast as Shapeways but I'm happy with their product and my purchase. Will be buying more.

Next product review is much more exciting. If you head over to GameCraft Miniatures at http://store.gcmshop.com/ you can find not only one of the largest and most unique collection of buildings and terrain accessories for sale in various scales but tabletop hobby furniture as well. Now I am one hell of a messy dude. For me it is an ordered chaos. My desk may appear to be a complete disaster but I know where everything is...most of the time. It's those few times that I didn't know where I set down my hobby knife at that drove me crazy. Here's what my desk looked like before I bought Allen's products.

You can see I've got models in various degrees of completion being worked on, glue, bitz boxes, cat combs, a cutting pad/work area, paints completely in my way, my wet palette, dremel tool, tape, rulers, files, knives, clippers, tweezers, a lamp covered in magnets, and a kitchen sink. This is ground zero of the nuclear disaster that is my miniatures factory and I needed help bad. So I bought 3 pieces of furniture from GameCraft.

First up is what I call happy fun time corner at http://store.gcmshop.com/p/1769/paint-rack-45-degree-inside-corner. It is a small utility rack with a 45° angle. You can put your water dish, brushes, files, knives, glue, and whatever else you can think of that fits in it. Love this piece especially for the water cup slot which will reduce spillage not only from me but from my cats should one be stupid enough to forget how fearful they are of the noises I make when they get on my table.

Up next is the happy fun time desktop organizer found here http://store.gcmshop.com/p/1766/workbench-organizer-org001. This thing is extremely useful for its size. I have shelf space on top of it for larger paints and homemade washes, my dremel tool and its accessories, bitz boxes, and the damn thing has drawers (DRAWERS!) to put whatever you want in them. I have my clippers and tweezers and things in one drawer and some hobby putty in the other. Another benefit of this piece is the space beneath it is also useful. That's where my wet palette goes and some of the larger things like scissors and rulers and such. This is the only piece out of the 3 that I've cleaned and painted so far.

The last piece I got is what I call the paint bleachers and it is hands down my favorite of the three. You can check it out here http://store.gcmshop.com/p/1768/paint-rack-unassembled-kit. This thing is AWESOME. It is made to fit right up alongside the happy fun time corner and all of your paints fit on it in clear staggered view for easy color selection. This thing was the most important piece I got because my paints are always in my way and I end up just shoving a pile of them around which results in several being knocked over which I hate. The best part about the bleachers? The holding area is cut specifically to hold YOUR BRAND OF PAINTS! I'm a Vallejo guy so I ordered that one and it holds 43 Vallejo paints. Don't like Vallejo? Pick one of these up in any of the following sizes,

32mm (1.26") fits Testors Model Master (Acryl and Enamel) and similar sized bottles
34mm (1.34") fits Games Workshop Citadel .4 oz (12ml) bottles*
36mm (1.42") fits Tamiya's 10ml bottles and Polly Scale and Floquil sized bottles
40.6mm (1.6") fits Tamiya's 23ml bottles

Outstanding. I will definitely be picking up a second paint bleachers but I think I need a bigger hobby table now.

I got all three pieces I think for just over $70 shipped. Well worth it. You can spend more to have them shipped to you pre-assembled and pre-painted but I actually had fun putting them together myself. No instructions included but once you see the pieces getting them together is really a no brainer. A 20 piece puzzle would be harder to figure out.

But wait, when I ordered these wonderful items there was a FOURTH piece that wasn't available. I think it's new because I really doubt that I would have missed it and now that I've seen it, I have to have it. It's a super happy fun time shelf for your paint bleachers which you can check out here http://store.gcmshop.com/p/1982/shelf-unit-for-paint-racks-version-2.

Give his products a go. They're all awesome and I now have about $3000 worth of his terrain just sitting in my shopping cart waiting for me to win the lottery or find someone stupid enough to give me a credit line that high. Hope you guys found this review entertaining and or insightful!

Oh and I almost forgot! Here's how my desk looks like NOW!

Product Review - 1/300 F Toys C-130

I've been keeping an eye out for a C-130 for some time now. You can get one in 1/300 at http://www.armamentsinminiature.com/ for the great price of $12 but as with my previous review of their aircraft, the model will be devoid of any panel lines or cockpit or any real detail at all. You are expected to paint those details in yourself. I ended up finding some nice Russian planes on Ebay in 1/288 scale but it was nothing I could use for my Iranians or Syrians. Finally I found some C-130s by F Toys. I bought one from this guy and he has one left here http://www.ebay.com/itm/F-toys-1-300-Famous-Wing-Collection-Vol-2-C-130-Hercules-Blue-Angels-1C-/121099967563?pt=Diecast_Vehicles&hash=item1c321edc4b. Obviously that link won't be valid for long and I am seriously considering buying another one just to make an AC-130 Spectre Gunship out of it.

Anyway I got one like that as they have several colors available. With some searching you can find other "flavor" aircraft you may want including civilian aircraft to populate an airport map. 1/300 DC-10 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hobby-Craft-1-300-McDonnell-Douglas-DC-10-CP-Canadian-Pacific-Airliner-/330693141813?pt=Model_Kit_US&hash=item4cfed8e535 and here is a E767 AWACS http://www.ebay.com/itm/Doyusha-400333-E767-Awacs-1-300-Scale-Plastic-Kit-/320756539329?pt=Model_Kit_US&hash=item4aae945fc1 I mean who DOESN'T want an AWACS?

Here is the box I got. I couldn't read a lot of the words because it is in French language.

And here is the back of the box showing several other aircraft they make in this line. Again, much of it is in Spanish.

Here is the instruction booklet. Couldn't read any instructions because it is in Russian language but thankfully pictures transcend all language barriers. Honestly though you don't need instructions. The model is a snap tight model that I only glued to be permanent.

The aircraft comes in several parts protected in a compartmentalized container and has two sprues, one for the landing gear in landed and airborne configurations and the other sprue for the turbo props. I was too excited to get it put together so I didn't get pics of the plane until I had finished it. Sorry about that. But here she is next to a 1/285 GHQ Israeli Namer HAPC and a GHQ AH-64D Seraph attack helicopter.

As you can see from the gears I have opted for the landed configuration. The model will need to have seams filled and sanded but after that she's good to go with a primer coat so I can get her in Israeli colors. Now about that scale. A C-130J's wingspan is 132'. At 1/300 scale this model comes out to just over 5.25" wingspan so it is just about dead on scale wise. However, if my math is correct, at 1/285 scale the wingspan would need to be 5.55". Basically this model is only 0.25" off scale wise which equates to 8' in real life. I can live with that seeing as how the C-130's wingspan ranges from 97' to 132' depending on which version it is B/H/E/J etc..

Anyway my final verdict is that this is a worthy product as a flavor aircraft for any 6mm army that uses C-130s (and there are LOTS of them). You can either have it on display with some units or you can use it as a transport to airdrop infantry or supplies, or even as I stated earlier convert it into an AC-130 gunship and actually use it on tabletop as a combat model which is represented in GHQ's rule set. Would buy again.

Product Review - AIM Fw-190 A3

My Armaments in Miniature Fw-190 A3 arrived today and I couldn't be happier about my purchase! It arrived safely and was well packed. I paid $12 + $7 priority shipping with delivery confirmation which gets you the model, two centerline bombs (SC500 I think, two different kinds), centerline bomb rack, external fuel tank, and two nose cones one with props and one without. I also had Dave add a couple of 30mm wing pods. Here is what you get.

Closeup of the accessories. Note again that this model does NOT come with the 30mm wingpods. I think they come with the AIM Me-109.

Couple of shots of the detail on the model.

Now if any of you know me by now, I am a BF fanboy. I generally refuse to buy products from competitors unless BF does not make a product I need, hence this purchase. However there is another reason behind it and as before that is uniformity. BF models are around 1/100 scale but for some reason their aircraft are 1/144. Sorry but that just doesn't jive with me. If you're going to spend $18 on a single little figure it damn well better be an impressive piece. The next few shots are comparing the AIM Fw-190 A3 to the BF Il-2m Shturmovik.

The significance in these shots is that the Il-2 has a wingspan of almost 48 feet while the Fw-190 has a wingspan of almost 35 feet yet the Fw-190 by AIM is bigger the way it should be and better scaled to BF tanks and infantry. The only downside to the AIM product is that you can see some slight warpage in the tail section but this is easily fixed by heating it in boiling water and moving it to the shape you want (instructions for that were included with the model). Also you'll notice that the BF plane has more details on the wings and fuselage. I asked Dave about this and the Fw-190 is one of his older sculpts so the panels weren't sculpted it. I may use my engraving attachment on my Dremel and attempt to put them in myself, havn't decided yet.

I would have also liked to see just a couple more accessories. Wing mounts and SC250 bombs would have been great for variation as well as two external fuel tanks instead of one (if I chose to mount two on the wings instead of one in center).

Here is a pic of the models in their completed state with paint job and propless nose cone. Dave gave me the link to a photobucket with many pics of his model as maintained by a friend I think. I will provide that below.

In conclusion this is one of the coolest models I have right now. As far as I can tell, Armaments in Miniature is a small company with maybe one or two sculptors. I dealt with David Schmid and his name is on everything so maybe he is the sole operator. At any rate he is very communicative via email and shipped my model promptly. I will definitely be buying more models from him since he makes A LOT of aircraft including Me-110s and I-16s, accessories, terrain, RIVER BOATS etc. He said there may be a MiG-3 coming next year as well OH EM GEE! My next purchase will be his 1/100 scale Il-2 Shtrumovik which he has a couple of variations of, the single seat and the two seat and I will do a review of that as well. Check his stuff out!

Armaments in Miniature - http://www.armamentsinminiature.com/
Photobucket with pics - http://s202.photobucket.com/albums/aa269/miscmini/Armaments%20in%20Miniature/#!cpZZ1QQtppZZ28

Later!

Product Review - QC IS-3

Since I have still not finished the Spetsnaz I have been promising, I have decided to do a product review of a tank I have had since March.

This is the Quality Castings IS-3 (JS-3, ИC-3). The IS-3 was mass produced near the very end of the war and as far as my limited research can tell they were never used in combat although some Russian sources state that they were used against the Japanese. This sexy tank sports the same 122mm cannon as the IS-2 and was later updated and modernized and saw action in Korea I believe as the IS-3m.

I bought five of these tanks at $8 a piece. The package arrived and the packaging itself was terribad. All five tanks and all parts included arrived in a plastic bag that was stapled at the top. That's it. The barrels were bent worse than any BF barrel could ever be and so were the corners of the tanks i.e mudguards. Heres four of the tanks and all parts on display. Note that each tank comes with a little figure who sits on top of the turret with his legs inside the hatch. I could not be bothered to dig these out of my bits box.

I labeled the parts so you can see what you get. 1- Hulls. 2- Tracks. 3- Fuel cans (4 per tank). 4- MG ring mounts. 5- Hatches. 6- DSHK AA MG. 7- Turrets. The hulls and turrets have some slight variations in them in terms of stowage modeled on as seen here.

As you can see everything is white metal and although it make look crude due to my bad photography, these actually paint up very nicely and are pretty easy to put together. One of my beefs is the peg and hole method of attaching the turret. I accidentally dropped the turret more than a couple of times while looking at the tank because it slides right out.

I am working on one tank and I cut down the peg and glued in magnets which works much better.

Now for some pics on the tank I am painting. I chose standard Russian Green for this one just like the tanks that were on parade in Berlin after the war. I do not think it looks good on camera but from a foot or two away looks pretty good. This was my first time ever doing line hilights and may be the last. I need to stick with light drybrushing I think. Darker pictures are without flash in white lamp light. Light pictures with odd olive color on tank are with flash. I hate that flash alters the color so much which is why I am including so many pics.

Finally it comes down to what really makes or breaks this product for me. Uniformity. These are advertised as 15mm models and I'm sure they are. But BF products really don't seem to be 15mm. I've read that the vehicles are pretty spot on but that infantry are 18mm and aircraft are 12mm or 1/144. I bought these tanks to use as centerpieces for my army but unfortunately they are just not scaled with BF products which appear to have their own scale which I will call BF scale from now on. Here is the QC IS-3 pictured with BF IS-2. Through my research, I think the IS-3 should be as wide as the IS-2, not as tall as the IS-2, but LONGER than the IS-2. The QC IS-3 just does not fit with my army and I may end up fixing this tank's paint job and sell it and the unbuilt ones and then pray that BF does a late war monsters set some day.

Overall I think the QC IS-3 is a fine product. It has quite a bit of detail, is easy to paint, and is easy to build. Unfortunately it just does not scale well with BF products and because of that I will probably not being buying anything else from QC. It is a shame too because they also make T-54s and Jagdtigers among other things. I found out about QC products from this website http://oldglory15s.com/ but purchased them from this next website because they were $2 per tank cheaper http://www.warweb.com/.

I will be doing another product review shortly. I have a 1/100 scale Fw-190 on the way from Armaments In Miniature which should be here either today or Monday so stay tuned for that. The Spetsnaz will be done when I finish them :p .

Later!

New Panther G Models

Despite not playing Germans, I was so excited by how great the new Panther G platoon box looked that I preordered one and then impatiently waited for it to arrive. When it did get here, it was like freakin christmas or something. I tore into the box and laid everything out and that is when the nightmare started. First, two of the tanks had their exhausts broken off. One of them was just the exhaust tips broken off and the pieces were not present in the box so now one of my tanks has no exhausts. I have filed at least 5 customer service claims with Battlefront since March and am leery of them thinking I am taking advantage of them so I did not file a claim on these models. The other tank's exhaust was completely broken off but it was a clean break and the piece was present in the box so it glued on nicely. Upon doing an inventory I then realized that every single piece of metal that was supposed to come with this kit did not get packed into my box. That was too much and I filed the customer service claim. They explained that all the metal parts come packed in a baggy which explained why I didn't receive any, magnets included. Shrugging off the initial disappointment, I set off on an adventure to get the tanks assembled. They go together extremely well and look absolutely fantastic! I am nearly blinded by the beauty of the tracks. What a great looking tank even if my home cast tarp from the previous post might be a bit big for the turret.

And that's when the real problems at least for me started. The tracks. Either they are simply way too wide or the part of the hull that hangs over them isn't wide enough. I didn't know that panther tanks tapered from the back to front either but they sure as hell do on these models.

Notice how at the rear of the tank you cannot see tracks but as you get to the front of the tank near the fenders you can see tracks? One might think this is not a big deal. Well that "one" also probably doesn't want to attach the skirts to their tank either. The skirts should be flush with the hull, not touch the tracks, and should be vertical or ever so slightly angled. The problem with this cast is that you cannot mount the skirts the way they were meant to be mounted without using a hell of a lot of filler putty (that I currently do not have available in my hobby supplies). The alternative is to mount the skirts at an extreme angle like the following.

Those are pics with the skirt sticky tacked on. I will NOT be building my lovely tank like this. How atrocious. Here are a couple of pics of how it should look but with the very obvious gap near the front fender.

I went to BF's website and looked at their web article. Sure enough they have the same tank with the taper in the hull and of course do NOT have the skirts attached because they CAN'T attach them without excessive modification.

I added the straight red lines so you can clearly see what straight is and that their hull tapers at the front leaving the gap. I then noticed on the assembly pictures that they did have one with the skirt attached and you can clearly see a gap at the front near the fender.

I then decided to look at some of their other pics and looked at the box and made what I think is a shocking discovery. They advertised their new panther g tanks right on the box art with their old metal panther parts. I couldn't freaking believe it. Just look at this picture for my evidence.

This is the picture provided on their website and the box. If you look closely where I have made the circles you can see several glaring inconsistencies with the models I have received. First look at the gun barrels. All of the black markings are holes but they are inconsistent with eachother. The new panther kit has plastic barrels so all of the holes should be identical. These are not, so that leads me to believe they are the old metal barrels with the holes individually drilled out. Next look at the hull MG on the bottom right vehicle. It looks nothing like the hull MG I received in my kit which you can see in my pics above. Why? Because it is the old metal hull MG. Next and most importantly look at the right fender area. What do you see? You see no huge gap between the hull and the skirts and that the skirts are mounted vertical the way they should be. Next you can also see that the fender light is thinner at the base and doesn't look like a glob of plastic like the over-simplified plastic fender lights do. What does that mean? It means that the fender is the old metal one and that either the hull is straight the way it should be or the track isn't too wide to interfere with the skirt. Lastly, I forgot to mark it but have a look at the tracks themselves. The details on them are nowhere near as good as the new plastic tracks have. They aren't even in the same book let alone the same page. They are obviously the old metal tracks which are thinner than the new plastic ones.

Based on this information I have deduced that the plastic parts included with the panther g box set must have been a last minute decision due to all the whining on the BF forums about how Zvezda or Plastic Soldier Company are so great and that BF should follow suit or those people will continue to buy from other manufacturers. This box has been my greatest disappointment yet. I cannot believe that a company with such excellent customer service would deliberately sell a misrepresented product to its consumers. I expect these shenanigans from other companies but not one like BF. I am deeply saddened by this. In closing I would like to share one last picture that sums up how I feel about the new panther g platoon box despite how wonderful the sculpts are and how easily they went together.

Coming Soon - Spetsnaz platoon (my first fully painted FoW models seen above the AR-15)