Too cold to go out to the shed last night so i looked for something to do to kill some time without actually painting and getting too much gear out. My eyes settled on a Panzer IV awaiting a January paint slot.....
The kit is fine as it comes, not too fond of how the track sections are moulded but to be fair if you add the supplied schurzen the point is mute. Most of the mods detailed below negate all Warlords efforts to make a durable and quick build gaming piece, which they have achieved 100%.
Anyway, I waited to tinker, so first up was lowering the turret, I prefer mine to sit lower, so about 1.5mm was taken off the underside of the turret and corresponding turret schurzen plates. Whilst I'm there I also cleared out the recesses between the turret sides and the plates and opened up one side of the crew access doors
The next step was to thin down the track guards and remove the rear and front end pieces. The thinning down makes them a bit more realistic in scale, the bits removed, I feel, make the vehicle look used. I will add the removed rear section back on and depict it raised later in the day.
The major work was in replacing the lower hull schurzen plates. For this I recreated the plates and rails in plasticard and utilised the rail hangars as supplied. I was inclined to replace the hangars as well but it was getting late.
Looking at the IV now there is not really too much more that can be done, I replaced the turret crew hatch holds with wire and added some wheel hangers on the rear. I was going to drill out the rear stowage box, but as I said it was getting late. So thats about it prior to prep'ing for painting. I might be able to play around with the crew figures but that really depends on what the customer wants.
The kit is fine as it comes, not too fond of how the track sections are moulded but to be fair if you add the supplied schurzen the point is mute. Most of the mods detailed below negate all Warlords efforts to make a durable and quick build gaming piece, which they have achieved 100%.
Anyway, I waited to tinker, so first up was lowering the turret, I prefer mine to sit lower, so about 1.5mm was taken off the underside of the turret and corresponding turret schurzen plates. Whilst I'm there I also cleared out the recesses between the turret sides and the plates and opened up one side of the crew access doors
The next step was to thin down the track guards and remove the rear and front end pieces. The thinning down makes them a bit more realistic in scale, the bits removed, I feel, make the vehicle look used. I will add the removed rear section back on and depict it raised later in the day.
The major work was in replacing the lower hull schurzen plates. For this I recreated the plates and rails in plasticard and utilised the rail hangars as supplied. I was inclined to replace the hangars as well but it was getting late.
Wellington wasn't much help, and seemed singularly unimpressed.....
Looking at the IV now there is not really too much more that can be done, I replaced the turret crew hatch holds with wire and added some wheel hangers on the rear. I was going to drill out the rear stowage box, but as I said it was getting late. So thats about it prior to prep'ing for painting. I might be able to play around with the crew figures but that really depends on what the customer wants.
