Warlord Games 1/56 Panther Ausf A review

Firstly, my apologies to Warlord Games who supplied me with a kit of this vehicle sometime ago, however I'm only now getting round to writing about it... 

Warlord's Panther tank is produced by scale model manufacturer Italeri, and I believe this kit is a pretty much direct descendent of their mid 1990's 1/35th scale kit scaled down to 1/56, and simplified for Wargamers.                                            

The kit comes on 2 sprue, with a small decal sheet and commander figure included. Use of slide mould technology is evident too, as the gun included a pre drilled muzzle. 

Assembly is quick and simple, though attention needs to be paid to the tracks as they are handed, and also need dry fitting. I found fitting the top run, then the lower run, and then the outer part of the drive sprocket the easiest way to assemble them, and used plastic weld to assemble the kit. 

Fit was good, and a little flash was present in places, but nothing major. Only issues I found were the towing shackles were a little small and fragile, and most of them either broke or snapped, so I ended up ditching them completely. 

Detail is generally nice, though I found the tools a little light in relief, and could do with either being a separate part, or moulded a little deeper. The Zimmerit also looked a little too neat on the sprue, but painted looks good, and it also saves a vast amount of work creating your own. 

To paint my Panther, I used Vallejo middlestone sprayed over black primer as the basis for the dunkelgelb, then mixed increasing amounts of pale sand in to get a fairly high contrast graduation in the colours. For the camo pattern, I used Vallejo Mahogany and Luftwaffe camo green, before using a fairly big range of MIG washes, pigments and filters to weather the tank.

Foliage is made from sea foam sprigs, and you can find a guide to how I do it at the Warlord Games site here. 

Overall, this is another good kit from the Warlord/Italeri partnership,

You can visit the Warlord Games website here, and as ever, more of my work can be found at Volley Fire Painting Service.

Rubicon Models 28mm Panther D review

In Plastic Soldier Company's Black Friday sale I picked up a couple of Rubicons kits at a fantastic price. For a long time I'd been tempted to do an early Panther Tank as seen at the Battle of Kursk and this seemed the perfect opportunity to do so.

Rubicon actually produce 2 Panther kits, one that produces an Ausf D or A, which I have built here, and another kit of an Ausf G, which I've not got (Yet...)

 The kit comes on 2 sprues, and is exceptionally well molded and detailed. I found the kit very quick to assemble, maybe around 20-25 minutes, and the only thing to be careful of is identifying the parts for the version

your wishing to build. The kit does have Schurzen plates, however I left those off this particular build.

 The models builds into an accurate and handsome model of this famous vehicle, and also comes with a comprehensive decal sheet full of numbers and crosses, of which you will have plenty of spares. 

I painted the tank using the techniques I used on my Cromwell . I favourVallejo Middlestone as the base for my Dunklegelb, then mixed Iraqi Sand into this to create a highlight layer. On top of this I sprayed Vallejo Yellow Olive in a disruptive pattern. Weathering again followed the techniques of the Cromwell.

For those who are interested in seeing how the model matches up to Warlords Resin Panther A I have included a few comparison shots, and in terms of size difference there is very little in it. I don't have one of Warlords new plastic Panthers yet to compare with, however when I do I'll do another comparison then. 

All in all I can't recommend this kit highly enough, it's fantastic!More info on Rubicon can be found on their website here and as ever more of my work can be seen at Volley Fire Painting Services.