Plastic StuG Platoon Review (GBX83)

Stugs, stugs and more stugs! Let's be honest we all love the Stug!

I enjoyed painting the plastic Open Fire StuG Gs so much that I ended up buying another set just to get hold of three more of them (you can never have too many assault guns) and so I'm very excited to get my hands on the new plastic box set. Once these guys are done I should easily have enough to field a company of them - Got to be done right!?

Construction of the models was really simple - there are 5 Stugs in the box so I decided that I go for the late options and to put a 105mm gun on one of them (to make a StuH42). It took about an hour to build them all and I have to say, they are probably the easiest models that I've ever put together! Unlike the Open Fire plastics I didn't have to hold things in place to ensure that they set in the correct position and there was minimal glue excess to clean up afterwards - Ideal!

This box set is suitable for both mid and late war. A nice little touch I noticed was that the early and 

late options were labelled on the sprues themselves. Of course you could use the clearly colour coded diagram on the back of the box to determine which options you wanted to use anyway but hey I thought it was cool all the same! 

One idea that I should have considered was magnetising the vehicles so that I could swap the guns out afterward for the other options. I would definitely recommend doing this if you have the time as 

this would give you complete value for your money.

Painting the models has been (unsurprisingly) really enjoyable. It's been a while since I'd painted Battlefront plastics and I had forgotten how smooth everything is! The detailing is really clean and easy to pick out (& with minimal prep/clean up required). I also found that these models lend themselves to weathering techniques such as drybrushing and "sponging" really well.

Conclusion

At £26.00 a pop I think this is a great a box set and a must for any German army. I would say that they are certainly more refined models than their Open Fire cousins, but would still look great alongside them and (as I mentioned earlier) I fully intend to do exactly that in order to build an unbeatable Stug list in the very near future! The models were incredibly simple to construct and a joy to paint! It would definitely be nice to have a little more variation regarding the decals provided however. Personally, I always like to use red numberings on German armour as I find it stands out really well. It would also be nice if the set included some plastic tank riders on the sprues, as I know this is an option I would certainly want to include in a future a Desperate Measures list. Otherwise I'm really happy with this kit and will look to buy more Battlefront plastics in the future as well.

Pros

- Easy assembly

- Lots of options regarding gun types

- Fun to paint (especially weathering)

- More detail and 'refined' than Open Fire models

Cons

- Lacking decal variation

- Missing tank riders option

Overall it's 9/10 for me - The models are really really nice and are great value. Just missing one or two minor features which would be great if included, but this certainly doesn't take anything away from the quality of the product. A must have for your German collection!

Thanks for reading

Matt