Review of Warlord 28mm Resin WW2 Vehicles Pt 2

On July 11, 2018October 23, 2021 By NuadaIn Review, WIP, WW2Leave a comment

Part 1 can be found here.

I’ve assembled 5 of the vehicles and have some more points to note. That Opel will be tackled. Someday.

Sdkfz 222

No issues to report. This is a solid kit that is easy to fit together.

Pz II Luchs

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

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.

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 fingers

My 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.

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.

Review of Warlord 28mm Resin WW2 Vehicles

On July 9, 2018July 12, 2018 By NuadaIn Review, WW2Leave a comment

PSA: This review has a number of pictures.

Note, this review is continued here: Review Pt2

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

Note, this review is continued here: Review Pt2

Sarissa Precision Review

On July 5, 2018 By NuadaIn Review, Terrain, WIP, WW22 Comments

I bought some Sarissa Precision buildings for the upcoming Arnhem campaign that Lucius and I are going to be playing. I’ve managed to get my hands on some of the aerial reconnaissance photos and that, plus the Arnhem campaign in WSS 74 have made it easy to plan for the terrain we need.

In any event, here are the first three builds:

The small house, ruined house, and ruined farm house

These three buildings were fast, easy builds. I have left off the window and door treatments as I’m getting together bits of cast-off MDF to make some rubble piles etc before painting. I am very happy with my purchases of these, especially considering the postage (through Warlord) was free, which isn’t nothing considering Vancouver Island’s distance from most places.

The chateau though, well, had me calling it Sarissa Imprecision and using choice sailor-language (in my mind only, of course). I have built Warbases MDFbuildings (excellent), Terrains4Games MDF buildings (also excellent), and the above buildings. I guess I got spoiled as this kit is terrible.

Let’s start with the ground floor. I put on the door and window treatments (thank goodness) as I figured that they would possibly interact with the construction. The back doorframe prevents the attachment of a whole railing piece and needed to be cut down to size. Which was frustrating and an indication of things to come. When putting the ground floor on the base, the floor wouldn’t sit all the way down. I tried everything, including disassembling the whole thing, but the way it is, there is a small gap at the bottom. Not enough to cause a huge issue as I’m sure it will be covered with flock.

The middle floor was okay, though the walls don’t sit IN the floor (the other kits have two walls sitting in holes, with the others coming on as end pieces so they are much more solid), which makes their placement fiddly. The floor itself though, won’t match up with the walls of the ground floor. The 2mm MDF walls just aren’t true enough and the placement of the holes is off just enough. So I figured I’d have to trim the tabs (I’m calling them tabs/joining lugs for lack of better term) to make it sit flush. Not the end of the world.

Next the top floor with the pretty garbled windows. That is not a typo. I had to use sandpaper and a modelling knife to get the roof pieces fit over the frames. This wasn’t a small misalignment but a major oversight. Fixing it was quite fiddly work and really annoying. If I’m paying $40 USD for a product I expect it to actually do what it is supposed to. I finally convinced the roof to fit on, and used the widow’s walk floor to help keep things aligned. Incidentally, if you want to remove the top and place troops inside, well, bring a lever. I’m not sure how or if this is going to work once this is painted as the roof top is not easy to remove. It may involve me cutting tabs off to make this go.

From a distance, it looks good, but it will need the joining lugs cut on the walls, floors, roof supports. After finishing, I took a look for others with issues, and it turns out that I’m not alone, another blogger noticed the same railing issue. That was enough validation for me to tell me that there are more issues with this kit than with my modelling skills.

So, if you are looking for good MDF buildings, Sarissa’s smaller models are great, and worth the money, but avoid the chateau until they sort out of the problems.

Downed Pilot – A Chain of Command narrative AAR

On July 3, 2018 By NuadaIn AAR, Chain of Command, Play Report, WW2Leave a comment

A narrative of the scenario described here, played out. The Chain of Command ruleset worked beautifully. The Chain of Command dice added a lot of uncertainty, and the interrupts used by the PIAT team saved the day for the Paras. The narrative flowed naturally from what the dice were doing that day. The mobile patrol inched along except when facing the sentry at the road, so it only make sense that the sentry was in for a dressing-down. The picture above is the Para’s Vickers on overwatch. The picture below, the layout of the ground.

The village. The sentries were placed at the edge of the stone wall and the road, and then next to the old farm house on the far side of the table. The HQ is at the lower right. The hill to the left of the bridge is where the annoying 2″ mortar and Vickers/sniper were set-up.

The ground was soft after two days of rain and it squished underfoot as 5 Platoon made its way up to village where the Maquis were sheltering the pilot. The Lt looked as his watch and gave quick and quiet orders and then it all started. The bulk of the platoon stepped into the swollen stream and fought their way slowly through the mud. 2 section made their way to the old stone bridge nearby and quickly hustled over it before dropping to the wet grass. Up ahead, silhoutted by the lights of the town, a sentry lit up a smoke. On the left flank, there was a stone wall with an orchard behind it. Behind that was a German HQ. On the right was an old farm house, and somewhere in the town the pilot.

* * * * *

The oberst laughed loudly as the hauptman got the wine by the window. Karl paused to look outside. It was still raining lightly, which meant that Allied aircover would stay grounded and his troops might have a bit more rest. The reports of resistence fighters in the area was concerning, but he had a platoon out in force tonight. One section beyond the stream, some sentries and roving patrol. Lieutenant Max Schertze had a section with the hanomag, and the mechanics had repaired the STUG and were putting the schurzen plates back on. That should be enough. Karl turned back to the table of officers and forced a smile onto his face.

* * * * *

The unteroffizier moved with a purpose along the stone wall when he saw the young sentry he had posted earlier light up a cigarette. The verdamt fool! He was making himself a target!

* * * * *

2 section watched the German NCO tear into the sentry before leading his patrol down the fence line to the farm to the right. Then it was up and into a ruined house for a bit of cover and a look at their next bound to the old wall ahead.

The Lt pulled himself and the Vickers gunner out of the sucking mud before signalling 1 section to head towards the farm house slowly. He nodded to his sergeant and led the PIAT team up. The sergeant scrambled up the hill and then set up the 2″ mortar and gave the Vickers its arcs.

* * * * *

The unteroffizier was in a mood. After that young fool with the smoke, now another staring into the farmhouse instead of looking out towards the stream. He cursed him out and the troops on his patrol sighed and didn’t see the Brits crawling up. Another curse and the NCO ordered his patrol up and back to the main road where the sentry had lit up ANOTHER cigarette! The MG gunner wondered aloud where he got them all…

* * * * *

2 section lined up along the old tall stone wall. The section commander saw the sentry struggle to light his smoke and turn his back to the wind. Now! The section moved through the gap in the wall.

As the patrol moved up the unteroffiziersmacked the cigarette out of the sentry’s hand and then paused. The old MG gunner shook his head at the sentry as the unteroffizier shouted, “ALARM!” Tommies were moving through the wall into the forest – and towards the HQ! Quick, back to the town!

* * * * *

The Lt heard the shout and 1 section followed his lead and their fire smashed into the farmhouse and the inattentive sentry outside of it. Up and over the fence. PIAT team to swing left and 1 section right. The sky lit up.

The platoon sergeant saw the para-flare streak up and the roving patrol dash down the road. He calmly told the 2″ to drop smoke on the far side of the wall. Then the Vickers was signalled and the sentry by the road jerked and fell, his outstretched hand seemingly reaching towards the cigarette in the mud.

* * * * *

Karl’s head pivoted sharply at the sound of gunfire. A squad testing its weapons the Oberst suggested. Then again. This time it sounded like a heavy machine gun, much slower than his own MG42s.

Karl stood up and moved to the window. The rest of the officers laughed and carried on drinking the wine.

* * * * *

The patrol moved at the double as the gunfire rang out behind them. To the left smoke rounds from the mortar hid what seemed to be a full platoon of Tommies. The corner store had good sight lines. If they could make it there they could hold long enough for the rest of the company to come up. The sky went dark as the flare burnt out.

* * * * *

Crossing the farm’s fence, the PIAT team took a bound in the darkness into the rough ground by the farmhouse and crouched behind a large wheelbarrow. Another paraflare went up and a smoke round landed ahead of them to the right to shield 1 Section. The two men leapt over the wheelbarrow but tripped up and rolled on the ground. By the time they found their feet, an MG42 opened up and killed the loader as the team lead tried to bury himself in a furrow and cursed himself for joining up.

* * * * *

The unteroffizier smiled grimly. The Tommies had gone to ground when his patrol opened fire. His men were watching the crossroads from inside the old store. There was some smoke covering some movement to the left, but the QRF must be on the way.

* * * * *

As the para-flare flickered out the Lieutenant was already in the hanomag and the rest of the troops were climbing on the STUG. Another paraflare went up as the QRF stopped by the HQ. Lieutenant Max Schertze looked at the terrifed sentry and bit back an angry remark. He quickly ordered him to watch the woods with the STUG. Then he bent down and the hanomag shot down the road towards the crossroad. The trooops on the STUG dismounted and doubled up the street. The heavy assault gun pivoted to the right and then loaded HE.

* * * * *

The sound of gunfire came closer. That was definitely a ’42. Karl holstered his pistol and turned to the table. “Mein oberst, it is time to return to the field headquarters.”

The oberst grew red in the face and stormed to the window and pushed it open to see a hanomag stream by, followed by troops dismounting from a STUG which traversed to face the woods across the street. A mortar shell screamed in the air and exploded nearby. He drew a deep breath.

“Very well, we will depart. A pity about the wine though…”

* * * * *

The platoon sergeant grimaced as the 2″ mortar missed its mark and scattered roof tiles across the crossroads. The sound of armour was clear in the damp night air. The Lt and the boys better be quick. At least some of the platoon were hit by the blast of MG42 fire from crossroads, hopefully they were just wounded though.

* * * * *

The smoke rounded landed in the open area to their left and 1 Section dashed forward and crossed the main road as the shadows of vehicles could be seen moving near 2 section.
“Damn.”
“Sergeant?”
“It’s okay corporal, let’s get our zoomy and get out of here.”

* * * * *

The Germans had dismounted from the Hanomag and were busy deploying into the crossroads. The armoured vehicle raced towards the lone member of the PIAT team, its MG opening fire. The Lt was sheltered by the corner of the farmhouse and ducked as the rounds came towards him and the PIAT. “Take it out!” he yelled. The PIAT streaked out and hit the front of the half-track, blowing up and causing the vehicle to catch fire. The MG gunner was hit by shrapnel and hung limply from the side of the vehicle.

“Good man!” shouted the Lt, making his way over.

He ducked instinctively as the shot rang out, but it was his own sniper, bagging the unteroffizier at the crossroads. There was shouting and no more MG fire for a moment. Maybe this would go better than he thought.

* * * * *
The smoke round blanketed the edge of the wood on the other side of the crossroads. The oberst had climbed into the staff car nearby and was giving directions to the driver. The sentry thought he heard something about “rapid fire” and at the edge of the ruined townhall he saw bursts of flame and the staff car screeched to a halt as soon as it started. He fired back towards the muzzle flashes, but too high. The oberst threw the door open and tried to run but was cut down by the Tommies. The STUG started to life, too late, and its MG cut into the troops in the woods, one of them falling lifeless.

* * * * *

Lieutenant Max Schertze moved his troops up, and deployed them quickly, attracting some fire from a Vickers nearby. His men were disciplined though, and in no time his section had shaken out and had laid down an impressive amount of fire. 2 machine guns plus the FJs FG42s cut into the Tommies on the hill and dropped first one, then another, and then the Vickers and the nearby mortar team went silent. Max stared into the night as he heard gunfire to his right. The ‘Hano’ was down but he had the initiative. Then the STUG’s MG opened up in response to some bolt action firing…

* * * * *
The MG kicked up an awful mess as the STUG lurched towards them. “Right boys, let’s get out of here!” 2 Section took off through the trees. No one went back for the body of their buddy as the STUG rev’ed up and began to crash through the trees. The squad doubled through the woods and leapt through the gap in the stone wall as the STUG’s MG continued to fire at them. A PIAT round exploded just beside the STUG and the tank destroyer traversed left and began to seek out the PIAT team. As 2 Section went to ground near the stream they heard and then saw the STUG go up in flames.

* * * * *
“Good man!” The Lt shouted. A hanomag and a STUG destroyed by one wounded man. Just the help they needed to get out of there without more casualties. 2 section was covering the retreat as 1 section and the sqn leader and resistance fighters made their way to the muddy stream to cross over in the darkness. His platoon sergeant was dead, as were the rest of his HQ section, save for the sniper who hurried up, bloodied and shaking his head.

“Over the stream now, quickly!”

* * * * *
Lieutenant Max Schertze swore loudly. 1 dead unteroffizier, 2 dead sentries, plus the driver and gunner of the hanomag. The crew from the STUG survived, but his company commander was now left with little armoured support. At least they cost the Tommies. 9 dead, several wounded. Expensive for a pilot, especially when the Allies had so damn many of them…

Gaming on Vancouver Island

Category: WW2

Review of Warlord 28mm Resin WW2 Vehicles Pt 2

Review of Warlord 28mm Resin WW2 Vehicles

Sarissa Precision Review

Downed Pilot – A Chain of Command narrative AAR