This post is for several 28mm WW1 tanks that I picked up from a Kickstarter last year from Trenchworx and one 18mm tank from the All Quiet on the Martian Front.
Starting with the WW1 tanks and vehicles, here is a group picture of the lot of 7 vehicles that I got from Trenchworxs. There are 3 British tanks (2 MKV's and 1 MKIV), a German A7V, a French FT, a Crossley tender, and a Rolls Royce armoured car.
I have been wanting to get to these for a long while now, but have been waiting on some paints from Mig that I ordered long ago but somehow got misplaced and sent back to them. I think I may have had Greg's postman that week, since I was around and I never got a notice or a knock on the door. Anyway, the paint set got to me the second time it shipped out, and I have to say I am very impressed with the paints.
I have used Mig's weathering products before, but never their paints. I tried these paints as they had a complete set of the 6 primary colours
used by all nations for WW1 vehicles. I figured it would be the best
way to ensure getting the right shades. Wow, excellent stuff. They come in eye droppers, same size as Vallejo, but also come with ceramic mixing balls in the bottle and are the right consistency to put straight into an airbrush, which I did. All of these vehicles were airbrushed (colour of chips, chipping solution, tank colours), then weathered, all with Mig products.
Here are the three British tanks. They were done by airbrushing dark grey and black, then a chipping solution, then the paint colours (including the front stripes that were done with simple masking tape and airbrushing while at the base colour stage), then actually chipping them, clear coat, inks for weathering and streaking, clear coat, then muddying them up, and done. Here is a closer view of one of the tanks.
I know the process sounds complicated, especially to Greg as I think as soon as I say airbrush all he hears is the Charley Brown teacher waw waw waw sound, but it really isn't. Painting all of these vehicles to the point where I could start chipping off paint and weathering was less than 2 hours of work (for all 8 vehicles in this post). Chipping took about 2-3 hours for the lot, then the same for streaking, dust, and mud, and then they were done. So overall time, probably less than 8 hours for 7 vehicles, and while they are certainly not show piece quality, they are a very good table top quality and are pieces that I am quite proud of for small amount of time invested.
One great thing about these tanks is that Trenchworx did the sides in a modular fashion, complete with magnet holes (and included the magnets in the kit!). This means that any tank can be a male, female, or hermaphrodite version for any game. As shown above I painted all the extra side sponson sections at the same time so that they all look the same. One tricky part about this was the weathering. While I wanted to really muddy them up, I had to keep it down to a lower level so that nothing would come up onto the sponson sections otherwise they would not be able to change over.
Next up is the German A7V, or as I like to call it the Lunchbox. Probably one of the ugliest and least successful tanks ever built. I am pretty sure the Germans used more captured British tanks than they ever used of their own in WW1. The learned from that for WWII though!
Here is the ungainly A7V in all its glory. The camo was painted by once again starting with a dark grey for the chips, the chipping solution, then the base colour (beige), then blue tac to cover sections, then the mossy green, then more blue tac, then the brown. Once that was all done I peeled the blue tac off and got to work with an old brush and water to chip it up. After that, it was a clear coat, inks and dirt and all done.
Next up was the French FT tankette. While very small next to the German and British tanks of the time, it was an extremely useful vehicle that was essentially an armoured and mobile machine gun nest.
This tank was done in the same method as the German one, using blue tac to mask the camo pattern. Again, this vehicle came with gun options and magnets to ensure you can change them up ant any time.
Last of the Trenchworx vehicles that I had picked up are the Crossley Tender truck and the Rolls Royce armoured car. Both were done in my normal method.
The only issue I have with this pair of vehicles is that it would have been nice to have a driver available for the Crossley and potentially some cargo options as well. Other than that though these two vehicles are really nice options to have for a game.
I especially like the Rolls Royce, after all who would not want to ride in style like that!
On top of raving about the Mig products use to paint these vehicles, I have to rave about the vehicles themselves. All of the Trenchworx vehicles are amazing quality. When I ordered them, I knew they looked good, but online picture only tell half the story, especially when some of the pictures were renders of the 3D models. When I actually got these vehicles in though, I was blown away!
They came with almost no visible mold lines (the only place I actually saw any were on the wheels of the car and truck), no marks, no bubbles, no flaws of any kind! They were the cleanest, crispest, resin models I have ever seen. Every rivet and seam is there perfectly, in fact almost too perfectly, its scary.
They are some of the best kits I have seen, and were extremely well priced for that quality. If there is one knock on them, I find them a bit small. They are advertised as 28mm, and by measuring them, they are, however, when was the last time a 28mm figure was sold to scale. They look like they would fit in better with 25mm figures and look OK next to even 20mm figures (for the tanks not the car and truck). Next to my WW1 figures from Musketeer, Great War, and Renegade (the last being admittedly very large figures) the tanks look too small by about 15%. I would have rather seen all of these scaled up to fit with the normal heroic 28mm (closer to 30 or 32mm) scale that is prevalent. Even if these are perfectly correct scale compared to a 28mm infantry man, once you put that figure on a 3mm thick base they look too tall to the vehicle. Many companies purposely make their vehicles over sized for exactly that reason, and I wish Trenchworx would have as well.
Again though, that is a personal thing (kind of like my comments about true scale weapons looking too small) and not a knock against the product. They are stunning in their detail and quality and would suggest them to anyone!
Next up, and in the complete opposite direction of my scale issue, is a 18mm (no really!) tank for All Quiet on the Martian Front. In theory it is an 18mm tank, but that is a 40mm base next to it, and the tank is almost 4.5 inches long and 3 inches wide and tall!
The stand is put in for scale purposes only, not for points, and is an AQotMF machine gun team. The game is in theory an HO (18mm) scale game, but look at the size of this beast! It is supposed to be that size to help deal with the Martian threat and sports a huge number of 18 pounder guns in addition to its main cannon. Almost every tank in AQotMF is over sized like that to accommodate the large boilers that the Americans use to power these steam driven monstrosities.
That takes this post to 7 WW1 vehicles and 1 AQotMF vehicle. Due to the size of the AQotMF I counted it as a 28mm vehicle, but that may not be correct so change it if required. I am also not sure on the extra sponsons, so that could just count towards the 18mm to 28mm upgrade.
Just marvellous Byron - that is a wonderful collection of armour. There is something about quantity and quality as well . I have added in some extra minion bomus points for the AQotmf vehicle as well. Good to hear about the Mig set too , got my eye on those as well at the moment.
