Saturday, April 23, 2011

15mm Trench Tank from Proxie Models

Sorry for the long hiatus, we moved recently, and everything is still in boxes.  I just picked up a set of the new 15mm scale "Trench Tanks" by Proxie models, and thought I would post a mini review.  I've included pictures with some figures from other companies alongside by way of comparison.  I just dry-assembled the main pieces, and left off the guns and driver's hatch.

Apologies for the poor quality, I took these at night, and I can only manage decent pics with natural light.

From left to right, the figures along side are (1) "Sons of Thunder" fig by Rebel Minis, (2) a Mid-Tech Trooper from RAFM, formerly from the old Citadel Traveller line, (3) an Earth Force guy from Rebel Minis, and (4) a not-Firefly figure from GZG.














Here's a closer shot:














And from another angle:














Here's a side-by-side pic with an infantry fighting vehicle, made by Rebel Minis:















And another angle:








As you can see, it's not a huge tank, but it is "in scale" with 15mm figures.  The comparison with the Rebel Minis vehicle is interesting: the two are almost exactly the same height and width, but the Rebel vehicle is a good bit longer.

The plastic is hard, (it feels like it should take paint well) but pretty easy to cut with clippers.  These do require a bit of trimming here and there to make everything fit, but the plastic is easier to work with than resin or pewter.

The mold lines are mostly pretty minimal, with one significant exception (that isn't apparent in the pictures): one of the tracks is misaligned by about a millimetre.  This is strange, because each tank comes on a single sprue, i.e., a single mold, so you would think that either everything would be misaligned, or nothing.  I don't yet know how much work it will be to correct this, but I'm hoping that since its plastic, it won't be too bad.  UPDATE: the mold line was pretty easy to remove, using and X-Acto knife and files.

All told, these are really great little tanks, and unique among current 15mm vehicles currently available.  They've got a lot of character, with plenty of rivets and such.  And the price ($10 for three tanks) can't be beat.  Plus the shipping is a flat $3, also a bargain.

I'll be picking up some more, and looking forward to new offerings from Proxie.

Proxie Models has both a blog and a webshop:

http://proxiemodels.blogspot.com/
http://proxiemodels.com/