kaufschtick said:

Do they have the wings of different length and shape? :)

csadn said:

Oh yeah, I forgot about that! A buddy of mine told me about that. I went to take a peak just now, and the left wing is a little longer than the right, and appears like it is a little skinnier. At this scale it is hard to tell about the shape, but the left wing is definately longer.

Kaufy, thanks for all the pics of your collection, it is outstanding! How exactly did you rig the WWII planes to fit onto the WoW stands? 

Find the balance point under the fusalage, drill a hole and glue in  either a plastic or brass rod that fits into the WOW 1 flying pegs. When the glues dried, paint the rod to suit your aircraft and then varnish it to give it the paint some protection...........although with regular playing, it will ware away eventualy!!!

Yeah, it's pretty simple to rig the planes, if you have access to a suitable material. I found at a local shop a package of styrene plastic rods that works just great. the size I use is 2mm. I found the packages of styrene rods back in the model railroad section, and it comes in all shapes and sizes. Square, semi circle, hollow tubing, "I" beam and all sorts of shapes. The package I got had about 5 or 6 rods of about 12-14 inches apiece, and if you're smart about it, you can fix up all the planes you'll ever need from just that one package. The packages cost about $3.50 USD, or right about in that ballpark.

I try to pick a point under the plane that will allow the rod to be added that allows the plane to rest normally on its under carriage, and is somewhat centered.  I drill in a 5/64s hole, and super glue in the styrene rod, and paint to match the model.

Rodger_Wilco  uses brass rod, I believe, and likes his planes to be in the "wheels up" mode. I've had pretty good luck so far with the styrene, and it has been pretty easy to work with. A good pair of "clippers" comes in handy with the styrene; as I now glue in a piece, and cut it to size after it's glued in. In this manner, I wind up not wasting any styrene.

I've added a few more planes over that past few weeks. These are some late war, Japanese single engine bombers, that should be easy to adapt to the game once the next boxed set comes out with the addition of Stukas, Vals and Dauntlesses.

These are Judy dive bombers by... I think; F-Toys. They are pre painted and partially pre-assembled. I was able to pick these up off E-Bay for a price that, for me (a poor white boy) was right on the money. About $2.99 apiece, and a total price of about $15-$16 USD, shipping included.

Grace torpedo bombers, same company, if I have that right, and about the same price off E-Bay. 

Jill torpedo bombers, same as the above.

I was very happily surprised when I recieved these 21st Century P-47s. I attempted to buy a pair of P-47B Razorbacks, but wound up with a P-47B & a P-47D. They were both fantastic, especially the D. $6.00 each USD, pre-assembled. Some of the 21st Century stuff I have picked up can be pretty rough looking, but these P-47s were superb. I have a friend who tells me that 21st Century is belly up, and out of business. I have a P-47D twin pack by Platz already, and I've seen that Platz now offers the P-47B as well in 1/144 scale. The P-47 is somewhat rare to see on E-Bay, although I do see them there from time to time, usually in the auction section, which I tend to stay away from. Too pricey for me usually, and I see a lot of the less available planes going from $20.00 USD and up in the auction section. Again, every once in a while you can snag a good deal in the auction part, but usually I have to drop out of the bidding when the price gets too high.
 

The first of (hopefully) two Yak-9s, I think this is by Bandai, from one of the Wing Club series. Mostly pre-assembled, and pre-painted. Super looking plane. The Russian planes are nearly non-existant in 1/144 scale, as far as plastic kits or pre-assembled or build em' yourself.

There is a US company that makes several 1/144 scale Red Air Force WWII planes, but they are the metal ones. They come with decales (I've already purchased some decales from them, and they are good decales at very good prices), and are "wheels up" with no under carriage. The planes come in one solid piece, so no clear canopies. True North is the company, and I've been eyeing a possible pair of La-7s & PE-2, twin engine attack bombers. They're a good outfit from my dealings with them, you can check them out here:

 www.truenorthminis.com/store/index.php

A pair of German attack bombers, Hs-129s, a hard one to track down, and one that can be rather pricey too. I had been watching these for several months, and wound up paying $20.00 each for these (ouch! ), and shipping on top of that! the thing is, that was about $10.00 lower apiece than what I had been seeing them go for. Pre-painted and about 90% pre-assembled. fantastic looking kits though.

And now for one of my favorites, ever since seeing Cliff Robertson attack that German heavy water plant in 633 Squadron!

 I think these were Bandai too, not much assembly required. Gorgeous looking planes and a super kit. I had to get a pair of these in the classic green/sea gray to go with the pair in far east markings.

What an absolutely beautiful looking airplane!

 Hey Kaufschtick!

Nice pair of Jugs!

[/QUOTE]

Seriously now

I finally picked up a pair of Minicraft Avengers, I have tried and failed so many times with these planes on Ebay and now they are scarce, then I walked into the local rip off model shop and there were two on the shelf at $15 AU ($11.50US) each not cheap but what the heck hard to find. Also there are two Jacks as well, I'll have to wait until next week and hope they are still there. I,ve been concentrating more on WW1 planes trying to pick up bargains where possible, hard to do with our ordinary exchange rates. I've now got 6 planes completed from Jasta 15 care of Doms Decals and Schafers Fokker DVII. Also have 6 Snipes (just arrived)  and 4 Neiuports (need 2 more) and so far 2 Camels (still looking for 4 more) these last lot are waiting for the next releases from Doms Decals (soon I hope) to convert to Allied squadrons. After that I'll chase after 5 of Rahn Dr1's. I'll post some pics of the DVII's as soon as I get my camera fixed.

Roger_Wilco said:

Holy Toledo! You've got squadrons upon squadrons of WWI fighters!

I just snagged a third TBF Avenger off EBay this past week from someone here stateside, which is kinda unusual, all the good stuff is in, or comes from somewhere in Asia!.  

They were available at MegaHobby all last summer, and I kinda forgot about only having two of them, and got lazy about ordering a third. I figured they'd be there when I wanted to buy, but suprise...suprise, guess again! When I tried to order, they were all out, and I couldn't find them anywhere. So I feel pretty lucky in being able to grab one off EBay.

Rodger_Wilco, question for you: I did the first two Avengers I was able to get in the early war markings, mainly because I had no other 1/144 scale decales on hand, and just decided to use what was in the box. Now I have been able to build up a small stash of extra decales from the left over spares from kits with multiple choices. Now that I'm going back and adding a third Avenger, I am not sure that I want to make a third "match" to the other two in early war markings. I was thinking about doing this one up in mid war markings, with the two tone shades of upper surface blue (intermediate & navy), and the white underside. That and the blue circle & white star insignia without the red center dot.

What do you think? Stick with making three of a kind, or mix em' up a bit?

At first, I thought I wanted to keep all of the bombers looking the same, but a very nice person in Thialand was able to get me 3 Vals & 3 Kates, I think they were F-Toys. Anyways, I would have been thrilled to get 3 each of these in any paint schemes, but this person was kind enough to go to the trouble of getting one of each of the three paint schemes they made them in.  I don't speak Thia, and his english was good enough for us to be able to communicate, but I couldn't express to him that he needn't go to the trouble of searching for each of the three paint schemes. Any three would have been fine, even  if they were all the same. In fact, having them all the same was what I thought I wanted, but I just couldn't get it across to him. Anyway, he sends the three different paint schemes, and I thought to myself, that's actually pretty cool!

So now I'm kinda up in the air as to if I should try to make the bombers all the same, or make them different.  I guess in the long run it doesn't really matter. What do you think R_W?

Roger_Wilco said:

LOL  My wife just peeked over my shoulder at this!

She just shook her head and mumbled to herself as she walked away... "Oh Lordy, you guys are all the same."

To answer your question without actually answering it, the two Avengers I bought are of a recent re-release, the packageing is smaller although the box art is the same as the last issue. I'd say these guys will be around in plentifull numbers again so you'd be able to get your hands on as many as you want. My personal preference is midwar as I'm not a fan of the pre/early war insignia, yet having said that I am making mine up as early war to mach my Wildcats, P40's and Japanese aircraft collected so far, that also runs well with the "Dawn of War" theme of the game. I'll make up some mid war later on. Would just love to get my hands on some "Devastators".

Roger_Wilco said:

OK then, I'm with you on this. Sounds like good logic to me, early war to match the other two it is. Thanks for the input!

As far as the Devastator goes, these are the only ones I've been able to find in 1/144 scale:

www.truenorthminis.com/store/index.php

They are the metal, probably one piece casting kind. I prefer the regular, good ole' kits with a clear canopy myself. But I'm a really big fan of the P-40 for some odd reason (probably because it was all they had at the time, and they had to make due when it was in front line service), and i had to go with the people who make Flames of War to find a P-40E in 1/144 scale. Those little buggers were right around $42 USD for three in a package, and I was dismayed to open it up and find that they were one piece, resin molds with the canopy as a part of the mold. No seperate, clear canopies! Well, I went ahead and painted them up, and used black to fill in the canopy area, and they came out pretty good, IMHO.

So I think I may try some of these all metal kits. My only concern is the amount of detail in the mold. I was looking at Soviet Air Force planes like the La-5s, & 7s and the Pe-2 in particular. R_W, have you any experience with the all metal planes?

Hey, while I'm thinking about it, what do you think about these Me-110Cs? They were a ton of extra work to build them, but they didn't come out too terribly bad, I didn't think. For a grand total of $20 USD including shipping for the pair, I was pretty happy with how they turned out.

The decales were lacking, but again, at the time I didn't have any other spares to use. I had to putty the nose into a more propper shape, the tail wheel was horrible and needed help, and the canopy on each one required about an hour and a half to trim it into shape, and the main landing gear needed work.

kaufschtick said:

" o/~ I like Big Jugs and I cannot lie/

The Luftwaffe can't deny.... o/~ "

OK, that's enough of *that*.... :)

Roger_Wilco said:

I was lucky enough to pick up a pair of F-Toys Jacks,  Wing Club Vol.1 from the same fellow I got the Vals & Kates from. I wanna say that I run across them now and again on EBay at reasonable prices. 

Roger_Wilco said:

I'd love to see your WWI planes! I see that they now have a preview on the main page of their game mats, what do you think about it? I think I'll be picking them up myself.

I've noticed that the local hobby shops here in town have begun maintaining a fairly large on hand inventory of the WWI WoW miniatures on a regular basis. There for a while last year, they'd get an initial shipment in, and it would be gone fairly quick, and they'd be out for a good while.  About 6 months ago, I began to notice that not only were they always in stock, but that they were carrying many multiples of the same planes, where as previously, when they were in stock, it was always just one of each.

Also, usually they would just carry the most recent set, and they are now carrying all of the sets.  The last time I was at my favorite shop, there must have been close to 100 miniatures on hand from the whole series! It sure is good to see, and a sure sign that the game has sprouted some roots here with the local wargamers. It's been quite a while since I've seen a wargame being represented so much in the local hobby shops.

It's kinda funny, but when they release the game mats; and now that there is a bit of variety available with the three sets of planes, I think this game is just begining to be noticed by the wargame crowd. The miniatures are definately the key to this games major appeal, and I think it took the release of more than just a few items before people began to give it a serious look. Once they get the game mat & the barage balloon released,  I think this game is going to really enjoy some widespread success.

Same thing with the WWII version, I suspect. The first set is just not going to be enough to draw in the wargame crowd on a whole, but once they get 2, 3 and more sets of the WWII planes out, it will really pick up some steam. One set is like a "teaser", especially with all of the aircraft involved in WWII. I'm hoping that one of the reasons they went with 1/200 scale for the WWII stuff is so that they will be better able to release the bigger bombers at more reasonable prices. We'll see, I just hope I'm not in a nursing home by then!