I went to Auckland the weekend before last so I’ve not made much progress on anything. In Auckland I did have a fun and educational game of DBA with Mark, which he’s written up here.
Mark’s been very patiently reading various emails from me where I vacillate over how I might get some practice in fighting elephants in DBA. I’ve been thinking of either rebasing the elephants from a 6mm 6th Edition WRG Carthaginian army that a friend gave me, or even stealing some of my daughters toy dinosuars (she never uses them). But in the end I went with the obvious and bought a couple. I decided on Indian elephants as I have some Indian infantry in my unpainted lead box, so I should be able to make a Classical Indian or Graeco Indian DBA army out of my Hindu and Arab Indian ones. I was hoping to get them prepainted on EBay but there were only Greek, Numidian, or Carthaginian ones there, so I ordered unpainted ones from Xyston. At first glance the riders looked very big but once I’d removed them from their moulding tabs I saw that they had their toes pointed so they looked a bit taller than what they were. They looked OK (just a little big) compared with Outpost Byzantine cavalrymen. The only pesky thing about them is that the spearmen are just the parasol holders from the generals’ elephants, so they are brandishing their spears rather oddly (or just about to absentmindedly stab the elephant in the back but I chose the former!).
Pachyderms in progress
On Saturday I ventured into my Alladin’s cave of unmade models under the stairs. I dug out my Airfix Mosquito as it’s rocket rails are nice and fine and they have the correct style to mount under my Firefly, as well as some 1/72 modern AFVs I’d like to sell, and my Airfix Dornier 17E. I’m planning to make a Revell (ex Monogram) Do-17Z later this year. While I was researching it I found an article in a modelling magazine that said its wing was far too broad, and sure enough it is when you compare it with the Airfix Do-17E.
Wing comparison - Airfix on top Revell/Monogram one beneath showing its deeper chord
The article then went on to say that the wing problem (about 5mm too much chord) made the whole kit too long, but looking at the fuselages there seems to be some compensating difference.
Fuselage comparison - about the same overall but the wing difference is apparent.
I found a while ago that the main ‘glasshouse’ canopy for the Revell Dornier is missing, so I can’t sell it. The wing shape issue means that I can’t use it to convert the Airfix Do-17E to a Do-17P, which was my backup plan for the missing canopy, so I’d have to go with my backup-backup plan of using the canopy from the Falcon vacform set. The Falcon set is designed for the Frog Do-17Z, which is accurate in its wing shape but inaccurate in its forward fuselage shape. The glasshouse (and none of the other parts by the way) will fit with a bit of persuasion – I’d need to build up the cockpit sides a bit. It seems a lot of work for an inaccurate kit – you really can see the difference. My modeller’s conscience means I can’t just chuck a kit out if I don’t like it but if it’s inaccurate and there’s a part missing, well… I could buy a new one and the filling and sanding and the extra cost (if the ICM one is the same as their Do 215 the fit will be awful) that would go with that would be pennance!
Anyway the reason that I was looking at Dorniers this weekend was because I wanted to know whether or not to buy the Eduard etched brass detailing set for the Do-17Z from Hannants, when I bought the Falcon vacform canopy set for my Firefly (the kit’s canopy is beyond redemption) but it turns out that Hannants have none of the Falcon set I’m after in stock. I’ll pick one up from Modelair in Auckland when I’m there in early November, which gives me a date to work toward with the rest of the model.
Small Sagas 