Sometimes the world works in perfect ways. There I was, having just completed the Stuart the night before, but was now wandering lost with no new builds on the horizon. Like a sad puppy, I returned home at lunch to a package on my door step. With a serendipitous and timely resup from Meeplemart I cracked open the box and had two new models to build.
To add to my ever expanding 3rd Canadian Division, I had ordered a Humber Scout Car (featuring Brigadier JOE Vandeleur, DSO and BAR, ON), and a LVT-4 Water Buffalo, both from Warlord Games. I quickly set about building the Humber. A resin model hull with half a dozen metal parts, there was the standard resin sprue flash on the hull and some flash on the metal but nothing that a simple hobby knife couldn’t handle. The build went quickly with all of metal pieces fitting nicely where they belonged and was followed by a priming and then a final colouring in Tamiya RAF Dark Green and set aside to dry. The Brigadier Vandeleur figure is a nice sculpt which required no clean up and has an uncanny resemblance to Sir Caine, CBE. It depicts him talking on the radio half turned and sitting out of the hatch.
With the Humber’s paint dry I set about doing the blacks and browns of the wheels and Bren gun. Deciding to increase the representation of the 3rd Division units, I marked the Humber in the colours of HQ Squadron, 7th Reconnaissance Regiment (17th Duke of York’s Royal Canadian Hussars) using a mixture of Warlord (more on this below) and Rubicon Decals and my own hand painted grey 3rd Div tac sign.
For stowage, I again used packs and the shovel from the British Infantry set. I love the tiny additions and details in miniatures and attempt to tell a story with everyone I build. To add a little history and character (and reality) to the crew commander, he has his map case out in front of him (whenever I was in the turret my map was very rarely out of hands reach) and his Thompson just as close. Canadian troops used Thompsons early in the War but by June 1944 only those in the Mediterranean still carried them due to the potential logistical snafu of switching to 9mm. Starting with the Dieppe Raid in August 1942 Canadian units in NW Europe carried STENs. By adding the Thompson next to the CC it asks the question “How’d he get that?” “Was he in Italy or land at Dieppe?” Maybe it’s just the military historian in me, but the simple act of giving him a Thompson creates a much larger story then what was ever intended by a simple resin and metal model.
Final thoughts: This is a quality kit and I recommend it. It’s an easy build that produces and fine looking model in very little time. The one glaring problem that I had with this kit is that it didn’t come with any decals!! Luckily I had a few generic allied sheets to pick from but this kit had none! The box depicts the Humber with the markings of Brigadier Vandeleur’s 3rd Battalion, Irish Guards and at a bare minimum I would assume that it would include those, however it doesn’t and I feel that this is a big shortcoming in an otherwise good kit.
