T is for Tiger

So, to the second of two posts on the new Airfix 1:35th (nominally) Quickbuild kits, and we have the mighty - and flawed ('IRL') - German Tiger. Like the Firefly we looked at a few days ago, this definitely looks the part, and while having some problems, is not as poor as the Sherman. Possibly less blurb as most of the points carry-over.

 

As the Firefly was a game-changer, so the problems associated with the production of these slow, heavy behemoths could be argued to have contributed to a shorter war, and the fact that combat-wombats all over Europe are digging them up to restore, shows how difficult they were to deal with once the engine stopped, and even after the war, people had a tendency to dig a hole next to them and push them in rather than recover them!

 

Big bag o'bits, for a big bugger!

 

The same Lego style instruction sheet and simple sticker card, the most obvious flaw with this model, is two pairs of little 'nipples' either side of the turret, with an additional mould-line running through them, which render the placing of the relatively stiff vinyl turret-numbers almost impossible, so I placed mine on the rear of the superstructure - I believe there is evidence of this having happened, in real life, especially where turrets were changed-out in the field.

 

Small parts, note the identical (with the Sherman kit) accessory runner in the centre of the shot. Track-links are, again, a softer, harder-wearing polymer, like a hybrid ethylene, a nylon or polypropylene?

 

The rest of the gubbins, again, not much compatibility with Lego, or other leading bricks (Cobi have a large 1:12th Tiger out with over 8,000 pieces!), although you get the same direction changing block, which may have a more general application with other bricks/projects, and if the axles are the same diameter as Lego technic, you may have a whole bunch of wheels to use on other things?

 

You can clearly see the crap on the turret side which results in a lifted sticker and air-pocket, if you apply the turret number as instructed, and to do it justice, you'd have to remove both (all four) nipples and the lines connecting them, and then professionally polish the scraped/sanded plastic to take the cheap sticker. And, if you were minded/qualified to do all that, you'd have bought the Dragon, Nichimo or Tamiya (et al) kit, in the first place!

 

There are spare track sections with this kit too, and to be fair, the main difference between this and the Sherman, is that while the connecting nubs are the same design, once you've got the tracks on, they do stay on and together, under slow, measured progress, but rough play on an uneven surface, would still shed both in seconds!

Also, is it me, or should the tracks be wider? Maybe that extending beyond the wheels was on the later variants only, this being the early one, with the higher cupola . . . it's been a long time since I read-up on such things!? All in all, a marginally better effort than the Firefly, with slightly better track-action! Full 8 out of 10!

C is for Colección de Indios y Cow Boys Humorísticos

This is a weird one? Firstly, it was intended to be the fourth post in the sequence when we looked at the Lik Be / Gordy sets of Wild West kids and knock-off cake decorations, back in June (although I don't think these have any connection with LB, beyond the humerous and Wild West subject matter), and secondly, because I don't seem to have shown my trio on the blog, when they only came in recently, and were intended for this post, whenever I got round to posting it?

 

I've checked the recent show report posts, I've checked the donation stuff from Chris and Peter, and can't find them, so I suspect they may have been a private purchase, which got sorted into the collection, in the normal rhythm of things, and while I would have intended to shoot them, I must have sorted them into the 4x5½ bags I use, and sent them off to storage without shooting them?

 

Anyway, I found them last night, looking for something else, over at the storage site, and brought them back here, thinking maybe I'd posted it all, but 'just in case', and sure enough, no sign of them on the Blog, and the specific post, still in Picasa! So shots taken and we'll look at them and the Jecsan catalogue first, then a bunch of Internet scrapings found over the years.

 

Jecsan catalogue scan, the full set of figures goes to six foot and three mounted each for the two lots of protagonists, with one horse pose each; bareback for the Indians, and saddled for the Westerners. The card for the separate Tipi seems to be designed to make a lithographed 'paper flat' totem pole?

 

The toymen of Hong Kong took two of the foot Indians and one of the mounted cowboys for some revenue generation, probably at the request of a Western buyer, that's how it worked there, but gave the mounted cowboy the Indian horse - presumably because that's what the sample they were given, to pirate, contained?

 

A decent rear-shot

The hat of my cowboy is lacking the mark seen further down the page, he being marked on his back, instead, suggesting at least two lots/tranches of these, with either changes to the tool, or separate tools, a quandary not made easier by them all sticking to the same paint-scheme . . . multiple cavities maybe?

 

Paint, and markings have some similarities with Blue Box production of the era, think either set of Knights or the Jean-cloned Wild West, so these (or 'some' of these) may have come from one of the Tai Sang factories, but we'll probably never know?

 

Looking at these 'Comic Coyboy' cale decorations, from Carrousel, but not owning them, I can only suspect that A) they may be hard polystyrene, against the soft Polyethylene of all the others seen here, and B) might be smaller sub-piracies - a second/third lot/set.

 

The painting is simpler, and indeed, it appears one mounted cowboy/horse combo' is undecorated, but big may/mights here? They also look similar in general execution, to the HK copies of Ajax base-ballers, American footballers and other cake decorations in the same vein?

 

 

There seems to have been one of the many copies of the Britains Herald totem pole also associated with them, but paint differences and plastic colour might point to them just being 'chucked in' to online auction images?

 

A pair of Indians, presumably a similar card has the cowboy and horse in a different blister? The "Cowboy [singular] and Indians [plural] in that heliotrope/carmine-red 'ink stamp' effect font, is found on other Wild West rack toys, and may be another clue to producer, or more likely wholesale agent? But again we're unlikely to ever know!

 

Another pair.

 

The different mark of the possible second lot, I mentioned above. A separate tool or later change to the existing tool? Sadly the pictures in this auction lot (final five images), didn't include a decent rear-shot - as they hardly ever do!

 

The only paint variation with the commoner set, is this cowboy with a red shirt, suggesting a larger set, although a horse is absent, but it makes for a more balanced 2:2 fight in the icing around a chocolate-finger 'log' fort!

 

They aren't really compatible with the Lik Be sets, being more obviously caricature adults, than the cubby-cheeked kids of the LB set, but are cartoony enough to compliment a display of them, should someone want a display of infant-oriented cake decorations! And there's the Lucky Luke figures from Comansi and similar figures from Exin (which may have been sourced from Comansi too), to consider in this genre.

F is for Fattypuff, T is for Thinifer

The last of the First Wave stuff from Mattel on the subject of the sequel/prequel/spin-off/arse-tear which seems to have been the movie Lightyear. I didn’t get all of them, there was a 'dogfight double' with Zurg's ship (see below and Buzz's XL-15, it came with rocket firers which could apparently be fixed to the locating divots under the four smaller, single pack vessels, which we've seen in the last few days.

 

Zurg's fighter, as far as I can tell, Zurg is some counter-Buzz from a paralell or alternate universe, but as Buzz is a toy, it's all in his head really!

 

There was another, bigger Zurg-related toy in the First Wave, which is called the Mothership, and comes with another Zurg figure, and - I think - a couple more Zyclops, to even up the score a bit, with five vessels in Buzz's available fleet, and four from Zurg's faction, two ships, two pods, and six figurines apiece, if you get all bar the twin-set?

 

It too was remaindered, a year later, over Christmas 24/25 (the fighters were, before their reappearance in Home Bargains last week, cleared in the autumn of '23), in TKMaxx, but because TKMaxx is never as cheap as it should be for a supposed 'clearance' model, they started them at something really silly like 70-quid? It came down to about £35 within a fortnight, and was further reduced to about 25 Pounds, in the after-Christmas sale, but for something which originally retailed at about 17-23 squids, I wasn't biting, and let them go!

 

The Armadillo, I assume this is from the third-act too, if Buzz flies fifteen vessels, at four years per trip, the whole search for a working 'Hyperspeed' must have taken around 60 years (Wikipedia says 66)? So, the other character here. Izzy, must have only been alive for the last five or so experimental vessels, and only be barely old-enough for starship fighting!

 

Mattel's sister brand, Hot Wheels, did an Armadillo in grey, as a small die-cast, I don't know which is the more accurate colour, because, as stated before, I haven't seen the movie!

 

With four more ships and a reissue of the Zyclops pods (to maintain the balance, of a sort) in the smaller Second Wave, a nice little range, but to me, of more importance for their compatibility to the Star Wars Action Fleet stuff from Galoob and Hasbro.

 

The figures being better than the Star Wars (and similar Star Trek figures from Playmates), in having separate articulation for each arm/leg, while the others were joined pairs, although they're still pretty wooden!

 

And having mentioned the Playmates, while the figures fit the other two universes, the vessels are not to scale with the figures. Of course, Galoob also gave us Alien/s and others in the same format, while similar sci-fi, fantasy or TV/movie stuff from Bluebird, Hasbro and Mattel, means you can get a really weird Cantina scene set up, with a little imagination!

 

"Where’d he come from Obi Wan?"

 

"Infinity and beyond apparently, and those two belong to some 'Federation' in a galaxy far, far away, but not so long ago, while the red being in the corner, is rumoured to have got those scars from a kid younger than you, called Max; the Mighty Max, supposedly?

F is for Firefly

An unprepossessing name for a vicious little critter which did a lot to help win the war, and yes, lots of things make that claim, SOE, SAS, Bletchley/Ultra, Bomber Command, Fighter Command, Trinity, Boeing, Hobart and his Funnies, Rolls Royce and their wizard, and to be fair, they all played their part, but this was one of the balance-tippers!

 

Back during a more combative phase of the Blog's past, a lot was made of, and opined, about the announcement by Airfix of new 1:35th stuff, which in fact took forever to get to market, were finally released a couple of years ago, weren't model kits, nor full ready-mades', but rather clip-together, and only appeared - locally - earlier this year, in Hobby Craft, where I shelfied them.. But I thought I ought to actually get them, which I recently did, and this is the first of two posts on the subject.

 

The Airfix 'QuickBuild' Sherman Firefly, a clip-together model which uses the Lego (Hestair-Kiddycraft) mechanism, for that constructive element, even to being compatible with 'other leading bricks', but an addition to your Lego tub it ain't.

 

Everything comes in one bag, with separate instructions and a small, basic sticker sheet, the grey block to the far left is the only piece which might be useful to a Lego fan, being a large, five-way, stud direction changer.

 

My first criticism, and it's far truer for the Sherman than the Tiger, is that the track-links are a bit wank. They go together OK, until you try putting them on the vehicle, at which point they reveal weaknesses which totally destroy the 'playability' of the 'toy', as the slightest carpet-move produces breaks in the tracks?

 

The most Lego-likey element is the instruction sheet, which has full colour stages, each of which involves only three or four parts, highlighted by not being greyed-out, and tracks aside, there aren't many parts, (around twenty-five/twenty-six?), and most of them are chunky bits!

 

Second - obvious - criticism; I had a large spigot of [failed release-pin?] plastic on one of my hull sides, which prevented the construction, until removed, although it resulted in a useful piece of 'styrene rod for the spares box, so "Every cloud . . . "!

 

Turret components, result in a reasonably robust turret, with revolving action utilising the twin-lug system from Tamiya, rather than Airfix's traditional central spigot, for a firmer attachment. Frankly though it's a simplified and toy-like rendition, but that's a criticism for the whole model, and it is meant to be a toy first, and a Sherman second!

 

A small accessory runner in a different colour, this is identical for the Tiger Tank, and contans the turret-interior retaining-piece for the gun-barrel, a jerry can, two ammo-boxes and a pointed entrenching shovel.

 

Running gear; quite simple and straightforward, it took me a minute or so to work-out how the two halves of the drive-sprocket went together, but that might have been more about the need for proper glasses than any failure of my mental faculties, or errors in the instructions!

 

In the end, three useful looking pieces of waste plastic joined the greeble stash! There were a couple more on the track runners, but the tracks are definitely a different polymer, probably polypropylene, which is as much of a nightmare to glue as polyethylene, so they both went to recycling!

 

It definitely looks the part, and, in real life, must have come as quite a surprise to the big cats of Nazi Germany, but it's not terribly accurate, nor that detailed, and certainly not as detailed as it could have been, in this scale. It states 1:35, but seems closer to 1:32nd, but that might just be me, and I'm notoriously bad at judging scale.

 

Although, conversely, the underside has quite a bit of detail, compared to other Sherman models over the years! Also, you can see in this shot, how the drive sprockets don't actually engage the tracks and have been made ridiculously wide as a result, just to keep their teeth away from the track rod ends!

 

The two 'spare' track links don't clip in, and keep falling off, but there are actually quite a few spare links, so you can field 'appliqué' your tank with extra frontal armour!

 

 

 

All-in-all though, a disappointing effort, with track issues that render it unplayable once built, the simple construction is a plus, not including the tracks (and my sprockets!) it can be assembled in about eight-minutes, no more than twenty with track-faff, but simple detailing and stickers, leave it as a toy you can't push anywhere, for fear the tracks will part like the red-sea. I think 7-out-of-10 is a generous score?