M26 Pershing Platoon (UBX43) Review

Hello All

Last week I finally got my hands on the new M26 Pershing Platoon (UBX43) kit and while I'm in the middle of painting up a 1750pts MW Armoured Rifle company for Attack 2014 in a few weeks (more on that in a future post) I just had to build and paint these bad boys ASAP! 

What's in the box:-

The box comes with enough bits to make 3 Pershing and the sprues include the bits to make a Super Pershing if you want to use that option. You get the normal US decal sheet and a plastic sprue with 5 tank crew on. One thing of note it the box does not include any magnets, the model is designed to be bui

lt with a plastic peg to slot the turret into the hull, but it does look like a Magnet would fit the whole the peg goes into if you wanted to use magnets instead.

The Sprues & Construction:-

The model is very nicely detailed, all the bits are very easy to cut off the sprue (an improvment on the T-34 which the Turret was a slight pain to cut off the sprue without damaging the turret). The Super Pershing bits slot onto the model with ease, the only problem pieces were the .50cals and the extra track pieces. You need to be very careful about how you cut these off the sprue, the .50cals break very easily (all in fairness this is a problem with most kits .50 cals from most manufacturers) and the tracks can bend a little bit. Fortunately you get 2 .50cals per sprue so you have a few spares if they do break and the tracks do bend back if your careful.

Total construction time was about an hour for all 3 tanks, but I think it will be quicker when I put together the next 3 as I've not use to the kit before but I did find the construction guide on the FOW website was very useful. Everything went together very easily and the whole model fits together perfectly, the only problem I had was the mantle which I lined up wrong on two of the tanks as I didn't take the time to check it problem and so are slight off center.

One thing I didn't like during the construction stage is the fact you have to use the extra tracks on the side of turret, while most pictures I have seen of the Pershing in service they had the tracks on the side it would have still be nice to have the option to not use them

Overall Thoughts:-

This is a lovely piece of kit, you don't have many piece to glue together and the construction time was nice and quick compared to other plastic kits I have done in the past. The lack of magnets is a little bit of a pain for me as I like all my tanks to have them were possible, but the peg does fit nicely so I'll leave judgement on that until I have tested it out over time.

I think the biggest recommendation I can make about this is I have already ordered my second box set! With plans to ordered a third, I know what your thinking, why would I want 8 Pershings? Well I think the fact this is plastic is a big nod to FOW Korean coming out at some point, otherwise why make a plastic model of something you can only use 5 in an army (and 1000pts at that!)? By Korea the Pershing was in service is far bigger numbers and so as I enjoyed the kit and want to try out the Super Pershing I figured why not do a company and get a head start!

Overall I give this kit 8 out of 10 

For the price of £16.20 if you shop around for 3 large tanks is good value and the kit very nice and shows the continued improvement Battlefront are making with these plastic kits. The only negatives are the lack of magnets and having to use the extra tracks on the turret.

I would have also liked to have seen a new decal sheet with the Tiger painting for the front of the tank for Korea but I'm not going to mark it down for that.

Overall I'm very happy with how these turned out, and although the tournament gamer inside of me might look at the Pershing as being an expensive luxury over the Easy Eight/Jumbo combo, these guys will be seeing the table top a fair bit. The Super Pershing might be more usable in an Armoured Rifle Company with a platoon of Easy Eights and Jumbos in support something I plan to try out very soon.

Thanks for looking and until next time

Ben