Zvezda - Art of Tactic kits...

Some of you may already be aware of the Art of Tactic range and for those who want more on the game itself I would direct you to it's homepage here.

Personally I'm more interested in the components for other games, I recently picked up a couple of sets from Halifax Modeller's World to see what the quality was like. 

Specifically, I stuck to my favoured scale, 1/72; and got hold of something familiar, German HMG teams, and something less commonplace, a soviet 37mm AA Gun.

Looking in detail at the moulds, well they're excellent.  The AA gun for example is a beautiful little kit.

It is made from a very stiff styrene, stiffer than most plastic soldiers, but not the sort of material plastic cement works on.  The model is snap together, but there are a lot of parts that you would probably prefer to glue, and so superglue is the way to go.  There is really no end of detail, considering this is essentially sold as a game component, even toy.  The control wheels, recoil valves, optics and towing bars are amongst the items featured, not to mention two crew and the option to build the model either on the integrated base or free standing.

Given this retails for £2.75/2.99 Euro, it's a bargain.  And far superior to metal counterparts.

The Machine gun teams are of a similar quality, but feature the MG-34 on a low level sustained fire mount, that was probably a more common set up in the field than it is in packs of model soldiers.

So from my stand point, great models; but of interest to many of you out there will be the armour and aircraft available in the range, for these are different, and very interesting scales:

In 1/100th scale they produce German and Russian tanks, half tracks and lorries including KV-1's, BT-5's, Panzer II, III and IV's, Hanomag half tracks, Zis-5 Trucks and other items.

In 1/144th scale there are Stuka and Sturmovik aircraft, with BF-109's and Yak fighters to follow.

Or in other words, perfectly scaled for Flames of War, and other 15mm scaled WW2 games; at one third the price of Battlefront's equivalent models it's hard to imagine these won't prove highly successful.