Plastic Cromwell (BBX31) - Review

Hello All,

The guys at Battlefront very kindly sent us a box of the new plastic Cromwells to review. Despite having a massive amount of stuff on my painting table I always really wanted to collect a Cromwell force so I pushed everything off the table, not quite literally, and went to work painting them up.

Whats in the box?

In the box you get enough bits to make 5 Cromwell tanks, the tank itself comes on a single sprue, with the only extra sprue being the same commander sprue you find in the Sherman and Comet box set. The decal sheet is the same one you got in the old Cromwell box with the Firefly, unfortunately this means that the vehicle numbers don't quite work for the box. Also it's missing any Squadron markers (the coloured triangle, square or circle), not a problem for me as I have a load of left over ones from the BR946 British Decals (Late), but something to think about when you pick up the box set.

The sprue is surprisingly small, and the Cromwell feels like it has less pieces than other kits.  I haven't looked into that fully but it's just the way it feels to me. I did think the Cromwell looked a little odd, the bottom looked a little flat and the angles at the front were a little odd. But a quick look online showed that the kit was accurate. The kit itself is wonderfully detailed, as you would probably expect by now if you have seen any of the other BF plastic kits.

Construction

Construction wise this was the best kit I have ever put together from Battlefront. The only awkward bit was that the back of the turret can be fiddly, but I quickly got to grips with that after the first one.

Much better!

Unlike the Comet the MG's are very easy to cut off without breaking the barrels. It seems they have
learnt from the previous kit and moved the joining pieces to the side of the MG and not barrels themselves!

You get the options for either then normal Cromwell,  the CS Cromwell or the Centaur. Both the CS and the Centaur have the same gun. The only difference other than the gun is the front of the hull as it loses the MG port for the Centaur.

The construction time took about two to three hours for all five tanks. It really wasn't bad compared to most plastic kits and was quite fun to build.

Closing thoughts

Overall I love this kit, it might have become my favourite Battlefront plastic kit. I have already bought two more boxes to build a Normandy 7th Armoured army. You can see with all the kits that Battlefront is learning and making each kit better and better. This was an improvement over the Comet, which isn't to say the Comet was a bad kit it just had a few flaws.

Pros

• Very easy to put together.
• Best BF kit yet IMO.
• The detail is outstanding.

Cons

• The decals don't cover all the options you need.
•  Alex will tell you Cromwells suck (he's wrong but he will keep going on about it!).

The start of my 7th Armoured for Cameron from Rust in the City's Firestorm Caen Internet Campaign, Starting in November.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the review.

Ben