"10/12mm WW2" Topic

A few notes about my recent experiences with 1/144 orders:

Anschluss: I love these miniatures, and I appreciate a manufacturer trying to fill the gaps in the market, so after an small test order, I ordered a bunch of one-piece vehicles (StuG IV, Soviet artillery tractors) and a couple set of turreted vehicles (KV-2s and Ostwinds). I've had two problems with Anschluss orders:

1. The gun didn't fit into the turret of the Ostwind without some sanding and cutting, but it wasn't too hard to fix, and the owner thanked me for telling him so he can try to improve the print.
   
2. The KV-2s had some liquid resin on them. An alcohol bath and scrub fixed that and no more appeared (or undermined the primer), so I'm calling that problem resolved.

Kamiya: I love these too, but they are expensive (about $10 USD each). I bought some Russian SU-76s and SU-85s, and they look amazing. Two of the four Su-85s came with a commander torso and hatch cover so I could portray them opened up.

Scalefiend: I really like the prints and the prices from Scalefiend. The trucks were all great, but I've had a couple issues with the tanks:

1. The M3 Stuart and T-34/85 had an undersized turret peg, so the turret rattles around in the hull and falls out too easily. I could fix this, but I don't want want to fix it 60 times, so I'm just not ordering any more of these until the problem gets fixed. I told the owner about the problem and he does want to address it.
   
2. The M4A3 Sherman 76mm turret fit great (so I know they can do it), but the treads were separate pieces that need to be glued on, and have no locating pegs or slots. The owner told me he plans to redo all the Shermans so the treads are one piece with the hull (as with most other 3D printed tanks), so I'll just wait. I have a lot of other projects ahead of my US forces anyway.

Victrix:I placed a Victrix order on November 25, and it still hasn't arrived. Since then, there has been a strike and cyber attack shutting down the Royal Mail and my state was declared a disaster zone because of severe weather, so all my orders from the UK were delayed by weeks (my Dec 5 Kallistra order took 7 weeks to get here). However, I've emailed Victrix a few times now asking them to trace the package, since the tracking link hasn't been updated since Dec 6 ("Sender preparing item"), but… no response. I'd be annoyed that it's taking so long to get the Soviet tanks on the web site, but I'm not placing a second order until I've successfully received the first.

- Ix

YA, I've had the same problems with recent UK shipments.

One order is being re-sent, two pending in 'transit', but small firms shouldn't have to take sustaining these hits for failed deliveries (and repeatedly).

Added my input to your suggestion Yellow Admiral. Now if everyone else would please jump in…

I have also bought into Skytrex 1/200… often with new turrets from Butlers as special orders, although hulls need to be drilled out to accomodate. Bigger than 1/285, you can add some stowage or commanders much more easily! Some 6mm inf 'fit' in OK, Adler esp as do some of the ranges of 6mm buildings.

1/200 is really a topic for a different thread, but briefly: I was very seriously interested in 1/200 scale as a compromise scale to consolidate on (replacing both my 1/285 and 1/144 collections), but I just couldn't love it. It made sense, because I'm already heavily invested in the rapidly-expanding market of 1/200 planes, and the vast world of 6mm terrain items would work right off the shelf. Unfortunately, I never liked the Skytrex Action 200 miniatures, substitutes seemed rare and uninspiring, and 1/200 infantry aren't any more inspiring than 6mm. For me, there seems to be some magic spark missing from 1/200 that I get from both 6mm and 1/144 scale.

FWIW, I also find most 10mm and 15mm WWII miniatures to be similarly uninspiring. Again, missing spark. That's a shame, because both scales are very well filled-out (esp. 15mm). I built a Pacific War collection in 15mm because that's what there was, and I'm using 10mm miniatures to plug gaps in the 1/144 market, but at the rate 1/144 is expanding, I may yet reverse either of these decisions.

I find 1/144 does have the spark that motivates my painting and collecting. The availability of vehicles with good proportions and details seems exceptionally high. Victrix infantry are the first miniature human figures I've looked forward to painting in almost 2 decades – they haven't even arrived yet and I've already collected the paints for them. A lot of 15mm painting techniques just work, and there seem to be an awful lot of exquisitely painted 1/144 tanks around the Internet. I can say from experience that I prefer 1/144 decals to 1/200 (lots of practice building planes), whereas 1/285 decals are likely to leave me gibbering in the corner, rocking and hugging my knees.

There is quite a lot still left to create in 1/144, but 3D printing seems to have started a boom in 1/144 miniatures. It doesn't seem to be slowing down any time soon.

- Ix

My Victrix order finally arrived last night. I'm immersed in other projects for the next few weeks, so it will be a while before I try assembling any of the tanks, but I'm going to get primer on the infantry as soon as it stops raining. I desperately want to try out my custom ink mixes.

I still have to choose an infantry and artillery basing scheme. I hate to use thick bases, but I don't think 1/144 or 10mm figures are big enough to withstand direct handling. How is everyone else basing their non-vehicular assets?

- Ix

I use modern 1/144, some I print myself but thay will not appeal to war painters as they are crude prone figures in the main on 0.6mm integral bases, at 3ft they are fine. For support weapons stuff I use AOTRS Shipyards stuff and they have an integral 1mm basees so are quite good. and though attending to their weaons they are robust enough to stand the rigure of use. I have made some 1/144 standing figures on my FDM printer designed by me and they are a bit fragiles and they were on 0,6mm small bases glued onto 0.6mm (approx) clear bases to make up fireteamd.
Thin (0,6mm) clear bases are the best possible solution but are not always practical, glueing prone figures on clear sheet in the quantities needed would not be worth the effort as for me they are just gaming pieces.

YA, here's a fast-basing technique I came up with, that uses self-adhesive materials, and with stand edge trimming able to do mostly by scissors cutting (quick).

The objective was to do a minimum of gluing when making bases, and to use the adhesive backing on these readily available products to do all the joining of the layers together.

A primary goal was to make all stands magnetic or magnetically attachable for case storage and transporting.

The assembly goal was to take advantage of a non-skid tape product, that has a grainy surface, to perform as a "flock-like" layer easily applied for the tops of miniature bases, and to make this stand assembly easy and consistent to replicate (so production-compliant).

I use two bottom materials for these bases, either magnetic sheet (above left), or metal stands (right). The self-adhesive magnet sheet is used when wanting easy, custom-measured stands.

The disadvantage of magnet sheet, is that it can warp if there's not a stronger core material to maintain a flat stand (so I use custom-cut plastic sheet for this inner core on stands backed with magnet).

Another efficiency that is used, is fast trimming of a bases' joined layers, aimed at making as few scissor cuts as possible (one cut along all edges of each stand being possible if using a steel base as the bottom layer "guide").

After the bases are made, figures can be glued to them, and then the whole piece sprayed with primer (if there's enough room allowed for painting between figures).

When ready for coloring the grainy top surface, additional sand, flocking rocks, etc, can be glued around the figure bases to smooth those into the tops of a stand, before the ground-color painting and dry-brush highlighting applied, and final texture is attached with flocking, static grass, and tufts.

This anti-skid tape material can be left unflocked too, if that's wanted (example for the look on small scale troops).

This quick-basing idea can work with single figures on round bases also – just punch out the anti-skid blanks using a hobby punch, peel the adhesive backing off the rounds, and stick these to matching size washers.

Hope this idea here might help get some of those future or on-gong projects up and running all the quicker.

Make this stuff as easy as possible Guys!

I use Litko bases. They come in a wide range of sizes and I use the basing sizes suggested in Blitzkrieg Commander. I glue a metal washer to the bottom of the stand and use self adhesive magnetic sheets in my boxes for storage. The metal washers also give a bit more weight and help the base stand up a bit more "proud" which, along with the thickness of the Litko bases, makes it easy enough to grasp by the stand.

Victrix just put the 1/144 T-34 kits on the web site.

- Ix

Tank riders a nice touch

I'd rather have the extra pieces to make two T-34/85s, and buy the tank riders separately.

Or two separate kits:

• 6x T-34/76s with tank riders, or
  
• 6x T-34/85s with tank riders

But that's me.

Buy 2 boxes and you end up with 6 of each.

I have 30x T-34/76 models already, and need none; I want 30x T-34/85s, and have none. I can't solve this problem by buying boxes of mixed Victrix models, so I'm more likely to buy T-34/85s from somewhere else, in the quantity I want. I might have to do the same for tank riders, if Victrix doesn't sell them separately.

- Ix

This shop sells individual sprues. They are new so he doesn't have them yet but you can preorder although 30 is a large number. link
This seller on Ebay also sells sprues but too early for the T34s.
auction

Cool! I had no idea. Thanks!

Also!

Great tip Ed!

Yellow Admiral,
You can get 3D printed T-34/85 turrets that can be put on your T-34/76 hull. It works for me. I think I got them from BashyBits.

Wolfhag

Royal Mail parcels being sent overseas are subject to delays dues to a cyber attack . Victrix do use Royal Mail and that could be the reason for any delays some of you guys are experiencing .

They had multiple cyber attacks and strikes. My Victrix package took over 9 weeks.

T34/85 turrets to convert T34/76s. Look in 1/144 wargames accessories, conversion kits as I can't direct link to it for some reason.
link

T34/85 turrets here too.
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Guys,

I'm currently painting up some 10mm Perrin Miniatures' US Infantry figures, that I bought from Noble Knight, but are also available from the manufacturing source – The Last Square.

I find they scale nicely with MiniFig WWII infantry, with the Perrin figs a tad bit more robust, and this slightly thicker sculpting also makes them look ok when in opposition to my Pendraken Wehrmacht troop stands.

I know Perrin Minis have been around for a long time, but since they're still available here in the US, this has made them a viable option for me. (sorry, no pics yet of the finished stands – still in the middle of their 'WIP')

Any impressions of Perrin infantry from anyone else here?

1st GI platoon completed, and happy with how the figs painted up!

Stands are mostly Perrin Miniatures, with a few Minifigs included.

I'd like to know how Perrin figures compare to Pendraken 10mm and Victrix 1/144. Do you have any to compare to?

Can Do.

The two thick-based metal minis scale nicely in height together, with the Pendraken figs being more characterful (with bigger helmets, faces, weapons, and limbs).

The thin-based Victrix figs. are taller, being scaled at 1/144th scale, or that '12mm' wargaming size conversion/convention.

You rock!

You also just saved me money. The Perrin figs look much too slight next to either Pendraken or Victrix, which is what I feared. Your superb paintwork on them isn't enough to convince me to buy any.

YA, it is still such a dilemma isn't it, even in this 10-12mm size range, where we're encountering more figure detailing, but then such sculpting style differences too.

Lancer Miniatures makes characterful WW2 infantry similar to Pendraken. I don't have enough of the Lancer figures to make same-posture comparisons, but would wager the two lines would be compatible.

If you can get Victrix infantry, as I think you've mentioned, I'd stay with them.

It's when we acquire bits and drips of one line, and then can't get them readily again, that we have to scurry around doing all these figure/sculpt comparisons/discussions.

This is all the more difficult here in NA, where distributors are lacking, you don't see the figures at retailers or conventions, and it takes a month (if you're lucky) to see a sample order delivered from overseas, to discover – that was a waste of money and time.

This is where Warlord or Battlefront, with any perceived warts, have long penetrated the NA market with better visibility and availability.

A side note – just now contemplating Warlord's newly-announced Pike & Shotte Epic Battles ECW line. A first question I have, and not gotten an answer for yet, but may soon, will be if these will be available directly from Warlord USA, or retailers like Miniature Market.

If not, I may not get in this time (it's all a legitimate concern, or an indication of frustration perhaps in the hobby 'pipeline' with 50+ years involved simmering over). ;)

BTW, I did go a lighter color on the helmets for those Perrin US Infantry above. The green not being that accurate, but it's the tabletop *pop* the color gives off that helps the eyes distinguish the figs from off their stands (we'll call it 'fire for effect' licensing). :)

Those Perrin figures above look superb. At really small scales, colors have to be many shades too light or too intense to get across any impression at all. One of the things I like about 1/144 tanks is that they're large enough to show off fairly accurate color choices, but the 1/144 infantry have so little surface area that the palette verges into cartoonish.

It turns out they're also too small to use a single-coat ink wash as the uniform color – the contrast between low and high areas isn't really enough to build a good color contrast. I have a bunch of "slapchop" style experiments lined up (like in this video) to attempt to increase contrast, but I may yet end up using paints instead.

- Ix

YA, here's some WIP on the 2nd Perrin platoon (warts and all).

I apply a glaze & dark wash mix after I've primed the whole stand, and after a brush-on of acrylic white paint over the figures.

Hoping you'll see the subtle 'dark lining' along the sculpted features – this to create my own shadowing affect, that will work under the colored washes I'll apply.

Btw, this is very WIP, as you might be able to see the glaze/wash mix hasn't even dried yet (so it's still migrating into the low spots, and will darken a bit more in the crevices when finally dry).

This is the inverse of layer painting (of applying successive layers of lighter colors) to accentuate highlighting.

With washes, that can show through under-colors or 'dark lining', some of that layering effect can be achieved without precision painting.

If only to make the areas of small figures more delineated, and easier to see with the eye, this pre-wash lining is helpful.

I of course didn't paint these figs to show off closeups pics of them, they're for the tabletop after all – but I do think there's painting techniques that can get good fast results, and that I find valuable for wargaming purposes.

Idly browsed Ebay for prepaint Takara WTM 1/144… not looking. Have all that I would EVER need.. and my old CHEAP Japanese source has gone… costs prohibitive for UK, now, US, Canada sources around… but expensive! Postage! And then UK import duty… and Collection Charge!!!

BUT, if UK… and want Basic Dunkengelb Tiger II or Jpz IV… or 3 gun ATGs sets… HUNT on 'Magister Militum'! Prob not much left but DIRT cheap! Not sure if in stock, but I could add and delete from basket. Takes some navigating, but page seems there still. Might be Lucky! :)

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