Ye Ole Xmas list advice

So they wife said “give me a list of some kits you want” and could use some advice. Currently in the stash Tamiya wise I have a bunch of their Tigers, King Tigers , Stug 3 A, Easy 8, wespe and marder selection. Rmf and dragon Tigers, scattering of Shermans but only1 lonely Tamiya Panther D #35345 so I need some ideas. Looking for your guys recommendation on Panther kits with or without interiors, what are the go to ones every modeler ought to tackle? Also on Shermans I’ve built Tamiya’s 105 and 75mm, have the easy 8, Zveda M4 and a couple of Italeri’s so what’s everyone’s opinion on a Sherman, tasca or something else? Finally a Panzer IV, once again whats one everyone feels is kind of the gold standard and a guy would be remiss in not building? I don’t mind recommendations that might need a little work to bring up to spec but I’m not keen on major surgery type endeavos.

To sum up-go tos for any versions of:
Panthers
Panzer IV
Shermans

Only caveat not real interested in the paper panzers at this point. Only production ones that saw the light of day. I know that’s a wide open list so I narrowed it to 3 that are unrepresented in my stash and curious on the consensus view.

I wonder which company is making kits called “Good Health” or “Peace”
I’m more interested in those ones then all the other kits, plastic or paper ones.

Keep Safe ,

:wave::wave::wave:

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Tasca Sherman are said to real nice. I have there Firefly kit but not built it. They will take more work then a Tamiya kit (for example those you built had a tub lower hull, Tasca is a different part for each flat section like your Zvezda kit) but will be more technically correct if that matters to you.

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Here is a look inside the box of one of the many Tasca/Asuka Shermans.

They have “rubber”-band tracks. Nice tracks as rubber tracks go if that is your preference.
Can be somewhat tricky to get hold off though …

You should also consider how easy or difficult it would be for Santa to get the things on your list.

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My coworker took Meng’s Panther A on. He never finished it (and I haven’t let him forget it for two years now), but he quite liked the kit. From what I saw, the parts were quite nice! Afraid that’s all I can recommend though, I don’t build a huge amount of German armour.

RFM makes a fantastic Firefly VC kit, it’s got it all. Loads of photoetch, easy to assemble tracks (with lots of jigs at that), and I highly recommend that. Personally, I may give Italeri’s new Korean War M4A3 a try when it comes out, as it’s going to have Canadian markings.

Merry Christmas!

Dennis

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Never really concerned about it being under the tree so if it’s stuck on a cargo ship by reserved it’s good enough for me.

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The benefit of having something else to build while waiting :grin:

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I would advise something in stock…

Depends on your commitment to the build. You seem to have a lot of Tamiya kits. These are nice ‘shake n bake’ reasonably quick builds. However, if you start looking at other manufacturers and your build time will be much longer, even more so with interior kits. If you have stamina, the modelling world is your oyster.

Asuka Shermans are hard to beat. You should be able to source them easy enough. Even BNA Model world here in Australia has 4 versions in stock. If pressed, some of the US Guys here order through BNA and the delivery time is pretty good apparently.

The RFM Firefly is very nice but I have not seen their other Shermans. I have the Meng M4A3 76 (W) but have not built it. A lot of arts and in the box it looks pretty good, but a lot more expensive than the Asuka kits…

Dragon has a lot of options but there are some niggly issues with some/most of them and some have their ‘Disaster Strikes’ tracks (DS) which really should be avoided.

Dragon Panzer IV’s on the other hand, if you get ones with ‘Magic tracks’ not DS, are all good choices.
Miniart also does various PZ 4 but the parts count might be worse than Dragon’s.

Panthers? Dragon, Meng and Takom all make pretty good ones. The early Meng had wheel issues if I recall correctly.

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A follow up, Asuka and Tasca are the same company. There was name change a few years ago.

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I buy quite a lot of stuff from BnA. Their prices are pretty good, they have stuff that nobody else has, and the shipping rates are fine. It sometimes costs more to have something shipped just in the US. Shipping TIME, is another matter. If an item is shipped by boat, it can take forever to get here.
Ken

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The LHS stocks Tamiya, there’s one other shop up here that’s train-centric and when he orders armor it’s usually any brand other than Tamiya so at his store I’ve picked up a RFM Tiger, some Dragon kits, Zveda, Italeri an odd Takom kit etc. I’m up in Montana and once I found these guys I decided I’d buy as much as possible locally and mail-order for stuff they just don’t get. So that’s why I ended up so Tamiya heavy (I used to work a sales job w cash spiffs that I called the 'momma don’t know money’s, it’s how I built up my stash but alas, that job is over so the home boss will be aware of purchases now. Good thing I got healthy head start!

Part of why I asked on what others prefer. I want some longer more complex builds that will challenge but not totally kick my butt. Thinking a Tasca Sherman and leaning towards a Takom Panther so I’ll see what the mail order shops are showing along those lines.

Thanks all for the suggestions so far.

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If you want an exquisite kit get the RFM Sturmtiger with interior. Just magnificent.

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