u/lordcalumthe2nd

Drawn up in 1957 but would never leave paper, the Deathstar would be the successor to the FV4005 "Doomshed" heavier armed with the same L4 gun and with a superior armour profile but a smaller ammo capacity. However development into helicopters, ATGMS and penetrators would render the project not competitive and it would be cancelled.

REVIEW TIME

PART 1 OVERALL QUALITY

plenty of spares parts and the instructions were mostly easy to follow, the green parts and grey parts look very similar in the manual but no other problems in that department. One step cannot be followed with a small modification. No stickers and only a few prints with some specialist parts like the hatches and MG.

PART 2 THE BUILD

The build is good but a element to the running gear raises a concern in the detail that goes completely obstructed by the skirts, the turret is the most fun part to build with only a few specialist parts in places. The frontal upper plate cannot be mounted in place to the hinges on the turret roof with placing a 1×4 plate behind them but there will be enough spares in the set to achieve this easily.

PART 3 OBSERVATIONS

The roof MG is mounted incorrectly I believe, the turret should be mounted to a ring so it can be used in a 360° firing position.

Secondly the gun barrel looks a bit short but I believe that several variants of the length for the L4's barrel did exist.

PART 4 FINAL THOUGHTS

I liked this build, it was fun for me to build this one

8/10 I can recommend this. a point has been deducted for the necessary modification to fit the frontal upper turret plate and the fact the barrel support is not a moulded parts.

A good first use of my new figmas, to make a terrible joke. Money well spent.

The first one rolled off the production line in 1944, the last time one saw battle was in 2014. There is no history that I could mention that would be more interesting than that fact.

REVIEW TIME

PART 1 OVERALL QUALITY

no spare parts, 4 printed parts, no minifigs but no missing parts and all pieces are made to high quality with a nice tolerance and tight fit. Heavy use of specialist parts to complete the pike armour and turret.

PART 2 THE BUILD

Done in 4 sections with an additional bag labeled 0 to account for parts missing in the other 4 sets, I've nothing bad to say about the build but the manual could have done with better colour definition. This model could me about 110 minutes to finish which is slower than normal for me but I had just finished that behemoth of a Tiger 2.

PART 3 OBSERVATIONS

Just like the real thing it's gun does not have any real ability to depress.

PART 4 FINAL THOUGHTS

It's good but something feels lacking, I feel the interior is a bit sparse compared to TK2s panzer 5 or 6 or maybe it could have done with a few more prints on the outside

I'm not sure about this one in honesty, I'm happy to have a IS-3 in my collection at long last but I feel like it needs something more. Maybe the victory flag perhaps or some sort of markings or maybe some externally stowed equipment?

7/10 good build but lack of details takes some points off.

Self propelled Floofing.

Take a T-70, make it longer and add an extra road wheel, put a gun in the back and ta-da you have a surprisingly competent self propelled gun. Shame about half the shells made were crap.

Choices for tomorrow are: VK110.10, Keksdoseturm and Shokpanzer.

13 Floofposts remain.

And all rejoiced.

Come on Chaffee let's have a fair fight.

This model doesn't have working hatches, I seat the Floof inside :(

Choices for tomorrow are: Leopard 2A6, Hummel or SU-76.

14 Floofposts remain.

I was dumb enough to buy it, my willpower failed me.

:( worse case scenario I will still have a huge wealth of spare parts at a decent price how 7000 pieces.

This is probably going to take 7 hours to build over a few days, I'll try and remember to take pictures during the build process for when I do the formal review once it's finished.

But so far, 17 bags including 1 modular parts bag, no sign of any minifigs but that was expected, two brick separators not pictured, two larger than normal optional stickers and two manuals that are quite chunky with manual two have a page of revised steps included.

Patton number 2.

Choices for tomorrow are: VK110.10 (fake tank), Sturm-infanteriegeshütz or M24 Chaffee

15 Floofposts remain.

It's name means Hearse as this vehicle would have almost no survivability due to it being open roof.

It's design was inspired by open top allied vehicles like the M7 and M12, it seats 5; a driver, radio officer who has to sit under the recoil mechanism, a gunner who sits behind the driver, a loader behind the gunner and a commander who sits on the opposite side like a Hetzer but bigger.

I know it's a silly idea for a vehicle but I like the aesthetic of open top vehicles, I had a spare panzer 4 hull and real variants that I hadn't made yet proved to difficult. so I decided to design my first fake panzer 4 variant for myself.

Going to see if I can gets some netting for a canopy but otherwise I like where it's ended up and I wouldn't mind any feedback for changes.

It's name means Hearse as this vehicle would have almost no survivability due to it being open roof.

It's design was inspired by open top allied vehicles like the M7 and M12, it seats 5; a driver, radio officer who has to sit under the recoil mechanism, a gunner who sits behind the driver, a loader behind the gunner and a commander who sits on the opposite side like a Hetzer but bigger.

I know it's a silly idea for a vehicle but I like the aesthetic of open top vehicles, I had a spare panzer 4 hull (12GO) and real variants that I hadn't made yet proved to difficult. so I decided to design my first fake panzer 4 variant for myself.

Going to see if I can gets some netting for a canopy but otherwise I like where it's ended up and I wouldn't mind any feedback for changes.

Hand on a minute, floofposting is reserved for tanks, tracked assault guns and tracked self propelled guns. This is clearly a construction vehicle, a heavily armoured and well armoured construction vehicle designed to break trenches. HANG ON A MINUTE where's your hard hat and hi-vis Yukari? Come on that's basic safety.

Choices for tomorrow are: munitionschleper panzer 4, SU-76 or M36 Jackson

21 Floofposts remain.

Not sure if you want a Marder 3 or a StuG? Then may I suggest the worst of both in a single vehicle? No, well of course not as there is a good reason this assault gun is not known by a lot of people, it's shite. It isn't as protective as a Marder 3 or StuG, it has less firepower, carries less ammo and the other tankers will bully you for using this while the soviets set you fire.

It's not very good but I like open topped vehicles and I like the 38(t) so a chance to add another to my collection was a welcome opportunity.

While the superstructure isn't as accurate as I would like it's really the best I can do at this scale, it has been achieved by bending some spare slipper plates that I have so many of that I really won't mind wrecking a few. The mantlet is the same one I used for my StuG 3A but I might make a dedicated one for it as well.

I hope in future we get a proper set of this made by someone who actually knows what they are doing and not just me attempting to sate my need to add as variants of tanks into my collection.

23 days of Floofposting remain.

We are in the final countdown. From this point on all Floofposts shall contain this countdown, I will also break my voting rules for a final time during this countdown as I will need a specific tank chosen soon as it relates to the Boko plotline I've got going on.

As per these milestone posts I shall include my favourite pics from the last 30 days in no particular order.

Previously Maho used Mihos help to work out why Erika had a Boko bear without letting Miho know.

Then Maho pondered on why Erika would keep this secret from her.

Now Maho will try to understand what a Boko is.

A QuanGuan StuG 3G altered to look like Jouko's Sturmi from Girls und panzer Das finale part 4.

From the quality of my painting you would not think that I used to be very good at it, I suppose I'm out of practice and used now to only paint really large things like walls or vehicles, so this that's been a learning process and I will share what I've found.

Firstly some parts of this I've tested a primer coat on and others without and the only difference has been the texture, with primer it's slightly rougher in for some parts, perhaps I didn't leave long enough between coats of primer and paint, or perhaps the ventilation of the place I painted it was not comparable to how I normally paint outdoors or in large well ventilated workshop.

Secondly something that should have been obvious to me was not to change anything after I started painting but I figured out how to make the bow have tow hooks attached (use a side stud plate and cut down a bar with a pair of side cutters, then top it with a bevel and top clip plate and use a second pair of spares 12go double clips) and I ended up changing the roof to have the correct MG shield.

Thirdly simple changes made before painting like figuring out how to attach the stowed logs and stow boxes at the back which was quite easy all things considered.

Lastly the most complex addition was extra armour on the glasus plate, this was the first time I've glued parts for a model, I built a small jig out of spare bits so that everything would set perfectly and I'm quite happy with the result, I did this again for the 1x1 round tile on the roof that needed to now be attached to a tile with the changes I made to the roof.

To conclude I'm quite happy with the final result you see here and I will put these lessons to go use when I come to painting my Panzer 4/5.

By hanging out with Yukari instead of mako bread based injuries have gone down by 100%

Choices for tomorrow are: Leopard 2A7 P.S.O., Panzer 2D or Valentine.

Heavy use of specialist parts but it looks gorgeous, I'm looking forward to adding an IS-3 to my collection.