I saw the box in a pile of unusual kits at WinterBlitz a few months ago and the box art got me. I took a peek inside and it looked really nice, so I bought it, at what I later found to be a very fair price. Later, I took a good look at was impressed with the molding and detail. Then it went in the stash until a few days ago. I had a clear bench and no real plan for my next project so I thought “why not?”
Sure enough, it goes together like a Tamiya kit. That surprised me as I had built Tiger Model’s ACR 10 a few years ago and it had some soft details and the fit wasn’t the best. So far, this kit is much improved from that. In a couple of evenings I had most of the lower hull done.
The anti-slip even looks very good. I’m replacing all the molded solid grab handles with small wire but otherwise it’s OOB, easy since there’s one(?) actual prototype. The belly armor is nicely done too.
I have the same kit and it’s currently in the weathering stage. I share your experience in building the model. I was surprised by how absolutely colossal this thing is. The normal turret on a Leo 2 is big already, but when you slap on massive amounts of modular armor, it turns into an aircraft carrier.
On my list too… I was thinking about doing mine in Turkish Army Leopard 2a4 upgraded one in their service… they had one similar. Still researching on what changes I’d need to make to it.
I like that. I was also toying with IDF markings and sand gray paint. It would also look good in some form of digital camo, maybe urban colors.
I’ve also decided to not use the “solid” portions of the rear and side bar armor. I think a normal, open set of bar armor would look better and allow more of the very nice hull side detail to show.
Still not on are the hatches (ready to go on), rear stand-off armor and a few small clear parts. I have a couple of old Verlinden crew figs in funky anti-radiation suits that might work in the turret.
This thing went together really well, no filler, no fit issues at all.
It was too easy. I keep thinking it’s going to dis-assemble itself one night while I’m sleeping. I’m also going to cheat on the tracks: I have a couple of sets of white metal Chinese (R-Model) tracks ready to go that are actually too shallow but they’re one part per link and I can have 80+ links together in about an hour. I did one run of the very nice kit tracks in a little over three hours and while they ARE very nice, I’m not that picky on this build. I’ll save them for a later build.
IMG_5120 by Russel Baer, on Flickr
IMG_5121 by Russel Baer, on Flickr
IMG_5122 by Russel Baer, on Flickr
IMG_5123 by Russel Baer, on Flickr
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