I’ve been slowly increasing my terrain holdings and recently turned to on some of my Timeline Miniatures. I have never built any of their offerings, but I saw some great designs on their website and pleased to report that they are excellent in “the real.”
The outbuilding is excellent. It’s a great piece for northwestern Europe across a wide variety of time periods if you vary your roofing material. I’m intending on using it for WW2, so may be doing a tile roof on it eventually.
The product out of its bag
The pieces go together perfectly, and unlike some of their competitors, Timeline includes detailed instructions with every kit. They recommend, (and I always find it useful – even with such solid kits), to dry fit everything first.
The building dry-fitted but not gluedThe fully built building
The building is a good size for a section to take up cover, or for an objective if searching for downed pilots or resistance fighters.
Some FJs to show scale. The figures are Warlord (metal and plastic)
Overall, I’m very happy with this piece. It was only 9 pounds, and was a steal. It was simple to assemble, and has great detail. I will be ordering more of the modern line from Alan (his Normandy farmhouse looks amazing).
Next up, a simple fantasy piece: a well.
All of the Timeline products come in plastic Ziploc bags with instructions
The well is a good piece, but nothing spectacular. I forgot how much I didn’t enjoy sticking MDF parts in a circle formation (as with Warbases Celtic houses) and this was no different. I prevailed and the piece is nice. It was relatively quick to put together and will do the trick.
A 28mm Blacktree Saxon for scale
Last, but not least is the Timeline Watchtower.
The beautiful watchtower kit
I was trepidatious about ordering this as many of the late Roman watchtowers on the market look wrong. They are too squat, or the tower walk is too wide etc. This tower is great.
The nicely proportioned tower. Warbases low walls in the background. More on Warbases in a future post.
The tower walk is supported by 24 supports, which was worrying. They fit in so well that it was simple to affix the walkway. In fact, everything fit wonderfully on this kit.
The view from below showing some of the many supports for the walkThe watchtower has an entrance room with fixed ladder into a guard room on the main level of the tower
As you can see, the tower makes sense. There is a ladder to get into the tower, with a lower room that can be fought over. Then another fixed ladder leads to the guard house (with a cutaway for those entering from below). Then the walk itself with its nice railings wide enough for 25mm bases. This is a perfect piece for Dux or any fantasy/medieval gaming. I highly recommend it.
Having built Warbases, Sarissa Precision, and Terrains4Games, these are by far the best quality MDF kits I’ve seen. Each company has some good points and some points that could be improved upon, but Timeline’s attention to detail, design aesthetic, and price point are excellent and outshine their competitors. I shall (to my wife’s chagrin) be purchasing more of their terrain in the near future. I hope that you check them out!
My extended family went off to Maui for a reunion and we had a bit of a trip. First there was the individual who decided to steal a Q400 Dash-8 and crash it into Puget Sound the night before we left. That was the plane my family was supposed to be on early the next morning and so we were delayed by a day and a half trying to get flights to line up to Kahalui, Maui.
Once there, it was beautiful.
A view from our lanai (balcony). It was a rough go.Evening view from our lanai towards the island of Lanai
We had a great first bit which included snorkelling with sea turtles, but sadly Hurricane Lane decided to head towards Hawai’i in the second week. I watched with great interest as its pressure went from 950mb down to 929mb, which is quite the low. Luckily the easterly trades broke up the hurricane into a storm before it really got us, but we were confined to our accommodation for a bit as the winds and water rushed by.
During this time, I played a game that I must mention here. It is an escape room game called Exit, the Game, and it was wonderful. By far the best and most interesting board game I’ve played in years. It’s a cooperative game in which everyone is working at solving puzzles to get more clues with a view to escaping a themed area (in our case a castle). There are logic problems, ciphers, and really neat puzzles. I cannot say enough about how fun it was. The one downside is that each game is only playable once – you actually will be cutting up cards, weaving bits of paper together, tearing apart the box etc in order to get out. The games are about $15 – 20 CAD online, which may seem pricey, but for 4 people to play for an hour or 2, it works out to great value for money. I’ll be posting more about this as my group plays it.
As for the storm impacts, there were high winds and lots of water (and a massive brush fire nearby). Interestingly, as soon as the run-off increased, the water got murky and the sharks popped up right near us just as the shark experts said. Funny that.
This local resident was much more interesting than the sharks, but disappeared before the storm hit:
Honu – a green sea turtle on our beach
All in all, it was a good time out and about. I even got a little bit of wargaming done! My uncle, who shall be known as Gruncle on this site hereafter, painted up some Essex Franco-Prussians as a (very kind!) gift, and we duly threw them at each other to learn the nuances of The Men Who Would Be Kings (TMWWBK). It is very similar to Osprey’s other offerings so easy to learn and quite fun, though definitely aimed at a heroic skirmish rather than grand battle style. The artillery is excellent for pinning units, and seems to be most useful in preventing activations rather than its shear damage output. This game would be great fun with varied terrain and some clear objectives.
15mm French enjoying the sunshine having survived the several thousand km trip and customs agents in good shape
As for the gift – they are lovely miniatures, and I’ll be posting more of them here shortly. I do have some 15mm armies, but the focus has been Chain of Command and Dux lately, so they’ve been sitting neglected (if unpainted) or ignored (if painted). The weather here is nice and cool, and the terrible smoke from our forest fires has dissipated (for now), and I hope to get more time moving my 15mms around the table and the Prussians and French will likely be first up in a week or two.
I’ve assembled 5 of the vehicles and have some more points to note. That Opel will be tackled. Someday.
Sdkfz 222
The Sdkfz 222A nice and simple kit
No issues to report. This is a solid kit that is easy to fit together.
Pz II Luchs
Good detailA nice kit
This tank needed some work with the tracks to get them to sit properly. Using heat to warp the pieces to make them fit does work, but track pieces are short and so harder to fix. Otherwise the kit is solid and VERY quick to get ready for priming. This is my favourite kit of the 6.
Tiger II
A beast!
I like this kit, despite its problems. The turret plug is too large for the hole, so I filed it down – a lot. This is not a big deal, but it detracts as it shouldn’t be hard to get the measurements a little more correct. The tracks needed a lot of cleaning and to be warped back towards true, so they were run under hot water as I watched the World Cup on my computer. The track shields/schurzen were frustrating. They do not fit on well, and so are super-glued on there well enough. I dislike doing things ‘well enough’ but hopefully attention will be drawn by the size of this beast and its main gun. Of all the kits, this one needs an assembly guide and hints on what to put on first. I luckily dry fit most parts but had I not, there would have been much sailor talk.
Track problems. And yes, I did try everything to get a tighter fit. I will fill some gaps and leave the rest as I bet these weren’t soldier-proof in the real world
Sherman V
The Sherman has an alignment problem with its track pieces. The holes and joining lugs do not line up. See the picture below. This is amateur hour and disappointing on what is otherwise a good kit. The folks at Warlord should look at redoing the moulds to fix simple errors like this (and to reduce the amount of flash and sprue bits). It detracts from the kit and once something obvious and simple like this is seen, the natural tendency is to look for other issues. Luckily, the problem was simple to solve: I simply cut off the alignment pieces on both track pieces and put it together.
Pretty obvious issue here…
The drive lights and light guards are really fiddly. Too fiddly in fact. But they’re on there. Having worn green for a few years, the typical way of unbreaking a vehicle was brute force, (the vehicle techs use a slightly harsher verb of “unf%^1ng”. Seriously. I’ve heard a senior NCO yell at corporals to take a mobile repair team or MRT out to unf$#* a truck many-a-time). Please, don’t do that with these parts of this kit, either with the language or with the brute force bit. It won’t end well. Tweezers will drop. Fingers will be used to save the day. Your fingers may end up glued together. Or to the glacis. Just saying.
A Sherman, glacis is free of all fingersMy second favourite of the bunch, but design issues should be corrected
Humber Armoured Car Mk II
This kit is very similar to the Sdkfz 222 and simple to assemble. The extra hatch on the turret (that is for some reason not part of the moulded turret) has gone missing or never arrived. I will be filling in the gap before priming. This kit really could use an instruction sheet for what goes where, as there was much googling, just like with the Tiger II.
The car with missing hatch
I will be doing a bit of filling with green stuff and then priming. I will keep reporting on these to the painting stage.
A final note: condolences to England fans. I’m not a great fan of football, but I have been following this World Cup. England did very well (in my amateur estimation) and have made me interested in following the sport more closely. It was a good run.
In order to beef up the support for my FJs, I took advantage of Warlord’s 3 for 2 resin vehicle sale and bought:
Sdkfz 222
Pz II Luchs
Tiger II
Opel Blitz Truck
Sherman V
Humber Armoured Car
The allied armour is to support Lucius’ Paras and also to start to build up towards an Italian Campaign Canadian force.
These kits are resin and metal, and there is an important thing to note: resin, just like plastic injection miniatures, needs to be cleaned with mildly soapy water and then rinsed before doing anything. This is to remove the mould release agent that coats the model. Warlord did a great job with the leaflet in the Sherman V that described some of the reasons for the cleaning and trimming that is needed. Sadly, this only came with the boxed vehicle, and yes, only one of these six came with a box. That means, that if you ordered a non-boxed vehicle, you could be disappointed with the castings and have issues assembling and painting. Warlord should include the leaflet with every vehicle. Also note, that unlike the plastic kits, these vehicles do not come with damage markers or marking transfers. This is a really minor point, but the buyer should be sure to acquire necessary markings elsewhere.
After doing a bit of washing up, I laid out the kits to get my initial impression.
Sdkfz 222
This light vehicle kit is excellent. It came with very little trimming or clean-up required, and all pieces fit well.
Sdkfz 222 with grenade screens on the rightAnother view of the same
Panzer II, Luchs (Lynx)
This light recce tank looks great. It comes in four main pieces: hull, left and right track assembly, and turret. There are of course the hatch, gun barrels, commander and some stowage.
The Luchs out of the package
This kit only goes together one way, but to ensure that there are no mistakes, the pieces are even labelled!
You can faintly make out “Luchs” and “Right” on the track assembly
The kit is very clean, but the turret, like many of the turrets for the other vehicles I bought, has really large pieces of resin left over. I’m surprised at their size, based on the size of the turret, but I’m not a resin caster.
The bottom of the turret needs to be trimmed and cleaned up
The only other issue with this kit is, unlike the other armoured vehicles, there is no pre-drilled hole for the main armament. I overcame this with a pin vise, but this is a simple fix and is a little disappointing considering the strength of this kit.
No place for the main armament
Tiger II
Having a Tiger just isn’t enough, so I purchased this beast. The model is excellent. The resin does a good job showing the zimmermit, and the casting is very clear. This is an excellent model overall.
The Tiger II with metal and resin pieces nicely castA size comparison with the Luchs
The detail on this tank is great and the pieces fit together well. I am hoping to have 2 or 3 vehicles ready to be primed by tomorrow.
The detail on the hull, with clear attachment points (holes) for the exhaust
Opel Blitz Truck
In contrast with the great kits above, this one was a disappointment and I will purchase plastic versions of this in the future.
The Opel Blitz
There was an excessive amount of trimming and cleaning to be done and when dry-fitting, it became clear that I would need to do some modifications to make the parts fit. Annoyingly, the back of the cab simply cannot fit. This is not a trimming aspect, but seems to be a mould problem. This vehicle will be assembled last, and hopefully my opinion on it will change.
The tabs of the can look like they fit, but sadly they do not fit over the frame below the large bump.
Sherman V
This model looks great. It is cleanly cast and all pieces fit together well. The detail is more than good enough for a wargame table, but perhaps not as crisp as the Luchs or Tiger II.
The Sherman V and its bits with track assemblies dry-fit
The tracks are in separate pieces, which can make painting easier for those that wish to paint the hull entirely before worrying about the tracks.
The Sherman V’s tracks need some fiddly cleaning but are well detailed
Humber Armoured Car
This kit is tiny but good. The detail is crisp and clean, but some instructions on to what goes in the various parts of the turret would have been great. I have had to do some digging around online to figure things out, which is a pain. I’m still trying to work out what goes in the space to the left of the main hatch as I cannot find anything that works. If I can’t figure it out soon, I’ll simply have to fill it in.
The Humber Mk II Armoured Car.
Overall Impressions
I have only begun to assemble these vehicles, but I am impressed with most of the kits. I have some resin terrain from a few manufacturers that comes with far less cleaning and trimming to do, which begs the question as to why Warlord’s products come less finished, but that can be looked past. The kits look good, fit together well, and should be fairly quick to get onto the table top (with the exception of the Opel).
Warlord should include the resin information leaflet with all the resin kits, and if instructions are too much to put in, having assembly information available on their website (much like Warbases does for their terrain) would alleviate some of the difficulty.
At this point, I think that five of the six kits above are worth the money and will be fun and easy to put together and paint. I will post an update as these vehicles move towards being ready for the tabletop.
