2006 July » Tabletop Terrain

Review: EBob 1:56th Opel Blitz

Jul 132006

Prompt service as usual from Ebob Miniatures! My order took less than a week to travel from the UK to New Zealand which is very quick. This post is a little late (curse World of Warcraft), but here’s a mini review of the Ebob 1/56th Opel Blitz!

Packaging

All of Ebob’s products come packaged in nifty sealed clear plastic packages. I wouldn’t call them ‘blisters’ because they lack the traditional cardboard backing. They’re more like the packets used to contain fresh herbs in your supermarket (at least locally in New Zealand). They’re sturdy, give you an excellent view of the contents and are handy for storage too, being resealable if you open them carefully.

The Opel Blitz comes in a large packet with the smaller parts also contained in a plastic baggie which is thoughtful. No assembly instructions are included, but the artwork directs you to the web address for the downloadable PDF instructions which are excellent.

Parts

I ordered two but have only opened an assembled one Opel Blitz so far. All of the pieces were well formed, with nothing bent or miscast. There was a little filing to do around the edges and there was an acceptable amount of flash and molding lines. There was one annoying line that ran across the bottom of the main cab which had to be removed carefully without scratching the doors too much.

The pieces all dry fit fairly well, with the only problematic piece being the rear axle diff which didn’t quite drop into the position it was clearly intended to take – a little filing of the chassis fixed that. The three main pieces (chassis and two part cab) are very solidly cast and give the vehicle a nice heft which is important for a gaming piece as you want it to stay put while people move figures around it.

Putting it Together

I pinned the cab floor to the chassis and built up the front and back axles and transmission. I also pinned the cab top to the cab floor but didn’t glue it on yet as I want to paint the interior leather seats and dash board which is built into the engine hood. The pins just mean everything will be nicely aligned for the final assembly. The dashboard is detailed except for the fact there’s no steering wheel included! I thought that was a bit of an odd omission but hopefully it won’t be too noticeable in the finished vehicle.

There is a nice level of underbody detail with a molded on exhaust system running the length of the vehicle and separate diff and transmission axle pieces. Check out the instructions I mentioned above for detailed photos. The engine bay is left empty, but has been constructed in the same manner as a real vehicle so if you’re really keen, or want to use it for a diorama piece you could scratch build an engine to drop into there.

The Ebob site mentions there will be variants and passenger/drivers for this kit in the future so I wouldn’t be that surprised if we also see a white metal engine as well. I guess Ebob is just trying to gauge how well the ‘basic’ Opel Blitz will sell before committing any more valuable sculpting time to it.

The rear axle has leaf spring suspension cast into the chassis, but the front leaf springs are actually separate pieces you carefully glue over the front axle along with the steering bar. The instructions suggest you can build free running wheels with a couple of pieces of brass rod and tubing. There’s certainly enough clearance to do just that, unfortunately I didn’t have any bass rod handy so just went with fixed wheels. In my experience fixed wheels are easier to paint and game with as well, again because you want things to stay in place on the table.

The one bugbear with this kit is the back tray which took more time and effort to assemble than I would have liked, mainly because the tray floor comes in two thin halves which need to be glued together before you try and build the walls up. It’s a pity the floor wasn’t cast as a single piece because it would make the whole tray considerably easier to assemble and give a more sturdy end result imho.

The Opel Blitz

The real world Opel Blitz is a mid-sized truck judging from these photos of a restored version. However the Ebob Opel Blitz is 1/56th scale designed for use with 28mm figures which are technically closer to 1/48th scale. This scale difference of shows in the first photo on this post, making the Ebob Opel Blitz look more like a pickup truck against the Artizan Design 28mm DAK German.

I’m confident this is a deliberate choice on the part of the sculptor as a 1/48th Opel Blitz would be quite large on a gaming table given the height of the real thing. The scale issue is a minor concern but to be honest it’s hard to tell if anybody is really going to care during play.

It certainly doesn’t detract from the fact this is a lovely little white metal creation from Ebob Miniatures and I found it interesting to compare the model to the real thing and see how close a match Ebob’s Opel Blitz is, even down to the radiator grill detailing!

Warhammer 40k Ruins Site

Warhammer 40k 1 Response »

Jul 112006

www.fantasy-gelaende-modelle.de is a German hobbyist site with some absolutely lovely Warhammer 40k city ruins.

Definitely worth checking out if you’re a 40k gamer. I’d love to have a 40k table like this in my garage. Check out the rest of the links too. Some fantastic stuff in there and great inspiration!

Kim’s Painted Trench Kits

Flames Of War 3 Responses »

Jul 082006

A while back Kim from Kreative Scenery and I swapped some of our terrain pieces for Flames of War. Kim’s actually got around to painting the trench kits I sent him – whereas I have barely assembled the farm houses he sent me.

What’s even more ironic is I’ve only painted a handful of my own trench pieces so far too – those that appear in the product photos. Too many hobbies, not enough time!

Anyway, these photos show Kim’s painted trench pieces and it’s quite nice to see a large run of painted pieces arranged on a gaming table. I think they make quite a nice 15mm scale trench system and I really like the subtle shading he’s done on the ground myself. Looks like some ink washing over a bit of drybrushing of lighter tones to capture the textured earth around the trenches.

Care to tell us how you painted them Kim?

28mm vs 1/48th Scale

Pulp 4 Responses »

Jul 072006

Tamiya do a nice line of 1/48th scale WWII models that I’ve seen before, mainly because it includes a nifty British Universal Carrier. Now I’m slowly building up terrain for Pulp gaming using the .45 Adventure rules I’ve been looking around for suitable 28mm scale vehicles too.

The question I’ve always wondered is how close is 1/48th model scale to 28mm gaming scale? Fortunately a quick Google answered that question immediately with this excellent comparison from www.napnuts.com. Interesting name, fortunately it refers to a Singaporean Napoleonics gaming club!

It’s very handy because it shows Artizan Design’s 28mm Germans next to a Tamiya Sherman tank from the 1/48th series! Earlier this year I picked up a dozen DAK Germans from Artizan myself.

This means in the near future I’m most likely to pick up the 1/48th Tamiya Citroen Staff Car (here’s a review) and possibly a Kubelwagon as well since my pulp gaming will all be set in Egypt, Cairo and occasionally the North African desert.

Acorn Models in New Zealand stock the Citreon along with other models in the 1/48th series so I’m pretty sure you’ll see some appearing here in the future!

Flames of War 2nd Ed Rulebook

Flames Of War 2 Responses »

Jul 062006

I picked up my copy from Vagabond in Queen St after work this evening. I have to say I’m immensely impressed with what Battlefront have packed into this compact A5 package. Here it is plonked on top of my old second print-run rulebook.

The 164 full colour glossy pages (look at the shine on the cover) lend a hefty weight to the book and it reminds me a graphic novel in terms of feel and slick presentation. The rules are sensibly laid out into major chapters and richly illustrated with play examples, period photos and quality artwork that appears to have been painted by the same artist responsible for the high action cover. These new rules are so thoughtfully laid out that within the first two pages of reading I’d clarified three questions about basic unit types that keep appearing in our friendly games!

It’s a fantastic gift from Battlefront considering it’s free! These dim photos taken in my garage this evening don’t show it to it’s full advantage are really just here to tease any pour souls that don’t have a copy yet. Ahh it’s never been a better time to be a Flames of War gamer!

Cities of Death IV vs Hirst Arts

Warhammer 40k 5 Responses »

Jul 062006

A lot of people, including GW staffers, already use the Hirst Arts Gothic line for 40k City Fight terrain and indeed I created a little test piece earlier this year. I guess this is one of the motivations behind Games Workshop’s recently released Cities of Death plastic building sets.

However the first time I saw a GW CoD plastic building sprue I wondered if it was possible to use them as ‘detail panels’ set in some kind of Hirst Arts framework. I thought the complex, overly detailed GW panels would work well with the cleaner, church like GA gothic bricks to create the sort of ‘tech worship’ feel that is part of the 40k canon. This was the main reason I recently purchased a $45nz Cities of Death ‘Manufactorum’ box.

These photos show you what I’ve come up with so far, combining maybe a third of the panels in the Manufactorum box with a number of Hirst Arts ‘B’ style arches. This is an experiment, and putting this piece together has raised a few issues which are worth sharing for anybody else interesting in trying it out:

The GW panels are very detailed, and on both sides. This means there’s little in the way of a flat surface on any individual panel which makes it hard to position them against a wall or doorframe without major sanding or dremelling away of surface details. My original plan was to have the panels flat against the HA archways so there was no gap around them. Turns out I was reluctant to remove that much surface detailing from the expensive GW plastic panels I’d just purchased!
The individual panels are actually quite thick. Combine that with a wealth of surface detail and you’ve got a piece of plastic that is quite difficult to cut through, particularly if you want a straight (or even worse curved) cut. So careful with those Xacto knives.
The GW panels are inordinately annoying dimensions. Across they’re maybe 3/8″ short of 2″ wide. Just short enough to be a hassle when trying to work with whole inches. Height wise they’re not too bad, but I don’t think they’re whole inches in that dimension either. I’m convinced this is by design.
The whole annoying dimension aspect is magnified by the surface designs which of course work with other GW panels but don’t tend to fall on pleasing lines when surrounded by blocks in a different scale. It’s not very obvious in the above photo but the GW panels aren’t centered in the archways.

Still the piece is shaping up nicely. So I think it was a worthwhile experiment. Regarding painting I’m thinking of a similar scheme to this earlier CD terrain.