Mad Bob Churchill Tank MkI

Doing anything hobby recently has been rather limited and haphazard due to the ramping up of my new job. This weeks installment is a review of the Mad Bob miniatures resin 1/56 scale Churchill Infantry Tank MkI/II.

'Mad' Bob Emerson makes a range of left of field resin models covering the more obscure or unpopular Armies of WW2.

The complete hit laid out. The majority of the smaller components are molded onto large resin sprues. The kit comes with both a hull mounted 3inch howitzer for the MkI and a besa machine gun for the MkII. The surface of the components is slightly rough from what I can guess was the surface of the master post digital print. 

    Comparison between the Warlord Games plastic Churchill kit and Mad Bobs resin. The resin hull is about 8mm shorter than that of the plastic kit. A little further apart and the difference is not noticable. 

 The real thing on exercise on Salisbury plain.

Side by side with Warlord Games plastic Churchill.

The completed kit painted and washed awaiting decals and weathering.

Paint Table Sunday

This week has been rather busy, so no block painting of Prussian foot. However I was able to complete the painting of the Warlord plastic Churchill with weathering. All that remains are transfers but as yet I am undecided as to which unit to theme it on.

Secondly I managed to scrape some time to paint some resin supply dump terrain by Anyscale models. These were quire easy to shade, ink and dry brush. These will make excellent objectives as well as to give an indication of my late war British Armies logistic tail.

Lastly I was able to convert a Eureka Miniatures dismounted dragoon vignette into a trooper of the Philadelphia Light Horse. The figure required a little trim with a needle file and sculpt with greenstuff to make coat tails and lapels.  Some pictures show the unit in Tarleton helmets. The horse furniture is still in French Hussar style so a little whimsical for the AWI period. Overall I am rather pleased how the vignette turned out.

Warlord 1/56 Churchill Mk IV Kit

The Warlord Games / Italeri Churchill tank kit was on offer as part of the "Tanksgiving" deal. Not one to miss a bargain I snapped it up alongside a universal Carrier and a resin 'burlap' camouflage Cromwell since built. 

Excellent box art showing Churchills in action.

The kit is a fairly standard offering from Italeri, however it does have one bonus in that the sheer number of variants you can create is huge! For the build I opted for the cast turret MkIV.

Some of the options that can be found on the back of the box.

The kit is easy to assemble, the tracks are somewhat fiddly, but mistakes can be rectified with fitting the track guards and hull top. The instructions are easy to follow and give the indications of the variants. In all, the kit took little under thirty minutes to clean up and assemble without the need to deploy Anglo Saxon swear words. I would happily buy another to supplement my ever growing late war 28mm British Army.

Completed tank alongside a Foundry 28mm Commandp

Completed MKIV ready for painting

Looking at the layout of the sprue and fit of the kit, it looks if it can be readily converted to other variants with and additional sprue (a potential release of the future?) such as a crocodile. Earlier marks could be converted by removal of the top track guard and shaving the square side doors off and replacing with round, although I may avoid this torture and buy one of MadBobs offerings for MkI and II's. 

Hull and turret sprue showing the sheer volume of options for main armament and MKs.

Track sprue, as ever free standing tracks are ghastly to assemble. 

Hull side sprue.