The Seleucids; 1/72 conversion of Bum Spartans - Hytty Carthaginian mercenaries

This was, really, my first conversion project. I bought a box of Bum "Spartans", as the title just hooked me :P . I was rather flabbergasted by the contents inside, puzzled, with very mixed sensations. I inmediately saw that was hardly Spartans, although a roughly similar shield was provided. Upon searching I learned their true identity as Carthaginian Mercenaries of Hytty. But I wasn't very convinced either, considering some of the strange looks of a few soldiers, which even now I couldn't hope to identify (celtiberians? italic peoples?). I was given by Christmas another box of them, and this definitely only enlarged the puzzle and doubts about what to do with them! the shields and weapons falling apart were also a big part. Anyway, after much debating in those so far away times, I decided they could pass as Seleucids, with some able modifications, considering a good few of the poses were definitely greek, and the rest could be mercenaries used by the Seleucids. I printed shields from the Hat website, did some slight conversions with epoxy putty, and made some other shields. This was done about 20 years ago! hope you find them amusing to see ;-) .

 

Indo-Greek Kingdom Yavana 1/72 25mm Soldiers Ancient figures miniatures figurines Zvezda Alexander

This are some soldiers I painted a very long time ago, but only made pictures this last week.

They depict some of the many Indo Greek Kingdoms that appeared after Alexander, properly the Yavana kingdom more likely.

Inspired by Rome II, and as much historical sources as possible. Not much is known about them, Greeks in the area intermixed gradually until losing their language and culture.

I had these spear Macedonian Cavalry with some damage, and I thought it would be cool to paint them and modify them a bit. I added two foot slingers that had around, and made some slight modifications to make them more "Hindi", and with their skin colour, considering there had been intermixing for a good few centuries.

Hope you like them  :P .

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Hasegawa M3 GRANT Medium Tank Mk.1

My first Hasegawa review, the M3 Grant.

Let's see the boxes;

BOX ART >> All Hasegawa boxes are quite the same, here the box art is maybe better than average, although they show you different men from what you get in the box.  I've never cared too much for the blue-grey around the box (I prefer the green older one), but that goes for all Hasegawa boxes. Forgetting the typo on the title (Gramt instead of Grant) a good box all round.

THE KIT - 4.8 >>

A standard good kit, which starts to show  it's age a bit (beginning of the 1980s). It is a simple kit to build. This is a kit I first made when I was starting in the hobby, and I did again recently (and is still available in shops).  It has good detail, but perhaps it needs a few more attachments, such as a machine gun, and the box on the back should be better done. For those who like to glue (or not to glue them) all the bits like shovels, axes, etc, you will be disappointed as they are in one piece with the main body.

Generally everything fits ok, but with so many reissues some parts of the hull are starting to leave gaps, so you will need a filler or a sand them thoroughly until they fit.

But now, it comes the terrible revelation; this kit has half the proportions all wrong. Yes, I didn't notice until I made this review, but you have only to compare with a real wartime picture;

The turret is far too flat, and the whole body seems too high. I am not picky with these things, but this is just very obvious, at first I thought it was another version! they also suggest that you glue the  visors on the turret in a wrong position. 

EXTRAS - 5.0 >>

They don't give you too many, but you do get two drivers. The problem with them comes that they are American, and even if the Grant was built by the Americans, it was the version made for the British forces. So you can use the drivers for other american tanks, or simply paint them as Britsh and say that they have borrowed some gear from their American friends.

POSSIBILITIES - 3.0 >>

There is not much you can do with it. If you want to escape the plain green for Burma and the desertic tone, there is just some additions to the desertic ones, like this;

And some other variations with two tones of browns, or another one like the one above changing brown for green.

PRICE/VALUE RATIO - 8.0/5.0  >>

Don't be fooled; if you see it for more than 8 pounds, don't buy it, or at least try and compare with other physical retail shops. I bought mine recently for 6 €, and I think that now in a retail shop it isn't very much expensive, but if you search by eBay, the cheapest shipped is 11 GBP.

HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE - 7.5 >>

"The historical importance score is determined by how many were built, and how much operational service they had, and how much influence they had on the conflicts they were involved in"

After reading too many books about the North African campagin, maybe you tend to maximize the historical weight of some of the types, but the M3 Grant was very important at a stage in the war when the British army didn't have anything capable of blasting the german Panzers. So, even if the type had several problems, and  was soon substituted, it had it's time of glory.

WARGAMING - 7.5 >>

A sturdy and fast build, it is very good for wargaming, although the inaccuracies with the turret and hull will annoy the perfectionists.

OVERALL - 7.0 >> 

It is a nice model, and if you forget the turret proportions (I have now the proportions of the model kit recorded in my mind, and it seems more natural to me the model than the real one!) this is a very nice kit. If you seek more accuracy, there is the Mirage kit, which for 14 GBP shipped roughly you will have lots of detail and no big inaccuracies. For wargaming and newbies in the hobby this kit will be good enough. Then there is also the Airfix one, but it is 1/76 and I think it has even bigger inaccuracies than this one.

                 IMAGES OF FINISHED JOBS

Model kit made by myself.

Another depiction made by Miniaturas Aconcagua

AIRFIX-JB MODELS VICKERS LIGHT TANK MK VI a/b/c 1/76 desert ww2 world war II

Let's review a great small tank, the Vickers from Airfix, which is a reissue of the JB Models kit.

Today we see the box in 3d;

BOX ART >> A nice realistic illustration, a bit simplistic maybe. The JB Models is curious indeed, as it is drawn, it gives the sensation that it is a modern tank. All the same, if I had to choose, I prefer the JB Models box, as it has the style of 90s comicbooks, and the Airfix seems too plain, as though made by computer.

THE KIT - 7.5 >>

A correct and regular kit, a bit deprived of detail compared with kits from other manufacturers. The wheels and the track are all in one piece, which to some modellers might seem outrageous, but I am quite happy with it, as with a so tiny vehicle, and made in 1/76, it would have been very tedious to build the wheels and attach the small track, and probably it would have looked worse.

The kit itself is easy to build, and probably a good starting point for newbies in the hobby

EXTRAS - 4.0 >>

Nothing too exceptional, but at least you can choose between different versions, the short or the long cannon. With a so small vehicle, a couple of figures or a small diorama should have been included.

POSSIBILITIES - 5.0 >>

Besides what is suggested in the box, there are three other possibilities;

A cracked camouflage for the desert, also used in Malta.

Two-tone green for the defense of France.

And finally a three-tone "Indian Pattern" for the desert too. There are also other variations with light blue or maroon instead of purple.

PRICE/VALUE RATIO - 6.0 >>

You can get this tank easily for 10 GBP on eBay, and probably less in retail shops. The JB Model maybe you can find it cheaper, but at least, before the reissue of Airfix, it was about 12 GBP in retail shops, and this, 5 years ago for a tiny tank, put me off buying it, and I really wanted to have this tank.

The price-value ratio is not very good, as it is a very small tank that can leave you a sense of "where have my 10 GBP  gone?". For the amount of plastic involved, they could have given you two kits, like Pegasus do with their tanks. All the same, if you can get it maybe a bit cheaper in a retail store, it is a good model to complete your British tank collection.

HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE - 8.5 >>

"The historical importance score is determined by how many were built, and how much operational service they had, and how much influence they had on the conflicts they were involved in"

With 1,682 examples built of the type, it is a must. It also helps to represent other marks of Vickers tanks which were used, as this is the only regular release of a Vickers tank, so it is this kit or nothing. 

WARGAMING - 7.5 >>

It is a correct and easy build, with not too many parts, but the price for just one unit (you would probably need at least two for wargaming) and the fact that it is 1/76 (which I don't think it is too important, but a bit annoying with a so small tank) lowers the wargaming score.

OVERALL - 8.0 >> 

With it's historical importance, even if the price and the quality of the kit aren't perfect, it is still a must for all 1/72 WW2 collectors.

IMAGES OF FINISHED JOBS

Model kit made by myself, next to 1/72 figures Esci and Airfix miniatures.

Atlantic Nexus ANCIENT LIFE GREEK LIFE IN THE ACROPOLIS 1/72 diorama set figure miniatures soldiers army athens sparta

Now comes a true classic, this time from Atlantic (reissued by Nexus), Greek Life in Acropolis.

This is how  the Atlantic box looked like;

And this is the reissued Nexus box;

Atlantic boxes didn't have box art, but instead a marvellous pic of a painted example of the figures. They are very nicely painted, with a great level for being so "vintage". And it is a great source of inspiration. Normally I prefer box arts, but when the painting is so well done, a photograph works very well.

This is what the figures look like;

(They are tan in Nexus reissue, and there is some other Atlantics set with a sort of orange colour)

SCULPTING - 9.5 out of 10

These Atlantic figures have some of the best sculptings that have been made. They are crisp, they have a good 1/72 height, good anatomical proportions, and the folds of the clothes have been nicely done. They don't score 10 because some of the plates and vases they are holding are a bit flat or without detail, more a problem of the mould than the sculptor's work.

In the case of Nexus, it seems there were some problems with the moulds, and in my set, 3 of the 4 guards had their shields half missing or completely missing. I don't know if this is a general issue or just a error of a few.

HISTORICAL ACCURACY - 8.0 out of 10

All the civilian figures are correct, as the spawn of Hellenic civilization is very big and covers many centuries. The only problem comes with the armed guard, which is a bit like the Greek Warriors set from Atlantic which is very ahistorical. Perhaps we could fit him in as a temple guard, or from the Succesor states of Alexander, or some polis far away from central Greece, but he doesn't work very well as a regular Greek because of his shield, lack of skirt and chest armour.

ARMY REPRESENTATION - 8.5

"The army representation score is the potential of the soldiers to be used for other purposes different to the one originally intended"

They could all fit, except the guard ,as Romans, or to represent all civilians in nearly all hellenic or hellenic influenced states. And some of the figures, like the seated woman, could work for nearly anybody in the ancient world.

FUNNESS - 7.6

"I feel that many reviews are oblivious to this point - there are fantastic figures, which you can´t say anything against, but they are just too "correct", maybe too static, and so just boring. So I feel that this is an important consideration on deciding if you buy this set"

You could say that a set with only one military pose is boring, but when you have a lot of soldiers, you need civilians to suffer the consequences of war! And the priests would have accompanied armies in war in some cases, or to represent sieges, etc... possibilities are only limited by your imagination. I would have liked some more poses, 7 figures are a bit too few.




WARGAMING VALUE - 1.0

Besides the guards, and maybe the priests, they have no wargaming value, as with all civilians, except for decoration and environment. 



PRICE-VALUE RATIO - 8.0 

"The price value ratio of these soldiers will vary between every shop you got o, and the best I can do is judge by their average price on eBay"

 Finding the original Atlantic set MIB (Mint in Box) could be really hard, and there is no point in doing it with the Nexus reissue. The reissue can be now a bit hard to find, as it is now discontinued, but with a bit of patience probably you will find them for 10 GBP (I paid like 8 GBP in a retail store). It is a set of a nearly unique nature, one of the few sources for ancient civilians, so the price it's not that bad.

Nexus gives you 6 sprues, that is 66 pieces, that is 36 figures.




PAINTING AND GLUEING - 5.5

Both the Atlantic and Nexus are not very good to paint or to glue, flexible and slippery. 



OVERALL VALORATION - 8.0

Even if they have few poses, it is a fun and very useful set for dioramas and the like. It is not a set for the collector who is only interested to the pure military figures, but I think it is a very good addition to any collection of a Greek culture fan.


PAINTED EXAMPLES
"Your figures could appear here if you want! just send me a email with the pictures to tam_cob@hotmail.com and I´ll gladly include them"

These figures have been painted by myself.

Thanks for reading, and see you in the next battle!