Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Resin is Dead, Long Live the New Plastics!

Hey All!


Its a good time to be a 15mm Gamer! With the new Kids on the Block, namely, Plastic Soldier Company and Zvezda, putting out better and better (and cheaper) products, Battlefront has had to shake up its product line. Life is too short to spend HOURS cleaning up a pair of tracks to assemble a poorly cast and detailed miniature.  So much of the sculpting on resin is crooked and skewed or frail and prone to breakage.  

After assembling Battlefronts T34/76 - 85 all-plastic kit, I realize it is going to be damn near impossible to go back to the resin/metal kits...
Battlefronts All-Plastic boxed set, the SBX30 T34, is in a word, AWESOME! And the detail is borderline fantastic! Even 'straight-out-of-the-box', you will have in your mitts a damn good rendition of the T34/76C M42  or T34/85 M44.  

Things like tracks and boggies are complete as soon as you remove them from the sprue.  Detail is crisp, straight and accurate. Sure there is always room for improvement but this is a winner! 
I added grab irons to replace the simplified ones on the turret and hull and also have begun to replace the overly-simplified light.   I find the hard plastic is of a good quality, think more of a PVC than a polystyrene.  All parts are virtually flash free and fit is very good although you will have to sand the joint on the turret. Price is steep but cheaper than the resin-metal. 

I am a convert - for me its all plastic from now on.  Yes, I have a shit-ton of resin unbuilt so I will still be building them (or flogging on eBay) but my money is now only going to be spent on plastic vehicles.  I still think that metal soldiers are the way to go as the current plastic offerings from all companies are too brittle for small parts and gaming and some major detail is lost due to the plastic mold process but for tanks and trucks, plastic rules! 

As I said, its a good time to be a 15mm Gamer!

Cheers,

Troy