Today I thought I'd do a quick, limited review of some 3D STLs I recently purchased from Flank March or downloaded for free from their store.
One thing you've probably noticed is a disturbing lack of crew. Well it at least disturbs me!
So I've been waiting for a while to find the right figures to field as late Cold War crew for my HMMWVs. I've not been happy to what I could find previously, until Flank March added their REFROGER range to their growing collection after its successful Kickstarter.
I don't do Kickstarters, and I don't really need anymore American infantry, but what I do need are some of the rarer, odder things that fit around a core platoon that some manufacturers just don't do. Flank March's fairly complete approach seems to have a few more of those niche items that I really need. HMMWV crews were one of those things.
These crews are specifically for Bob Mack 3D designed HMMWVs. I'm lucky enough to have a few of those, but I also have plenty more Revell and Dragon Hummers as well. Hopefully they will still fit.... surely they will?
So I downloaded the crew and printed them. I went with the .50 Cal, Mk-19 and TOW options. There is a M-60 GPMG option as well which I may use in the future
Before I go any further I must add that the set from Flank March covers way more than just HMMWV crew. You get figures for M1's, Bradleys, M113s, MUTTs and M60s. Multiple variants for each vehicle, and as you can tell from the pic above, headless options as well.
I choose to go with the headless options because the base option with heads in these cases were with M1 helmets and I wanted PASGT helmets.
As you can see these fit very nicely to this Revell HMMWV
Looking through the REFORGER collection I came across a bunch of head options you could pay for, but also a few free sample head options and a free figure. I downloaded all of these and printed them off.
A mix of heads
The free sample figure again allows you the option of printing it without a head.
Before I go any further I should also add that all the figures and options come in 15mm, 20mm and 28mm, supported and not supported. I choose the easy option and used the 20mm supported files. They all printed perfectly and were supported very well. None of the barrels on the guns broke when removing them from the supports.
OK - so at this point I started picking which heads I wanted and gluing them to the neck sockets.
I also took a very quick and probably not well considered pick of the Flank March free sample figure alongside some other brands for a comparison shot.
So my overall view of the Flank March products - the limited ones I bought or downlaoded for free - are very positive. The puchase was pain free, the downloading simple and most importantly the printing was super easy with crisp results.
I'll do another review/results post once I've painted these all up.
My only negative and this is purely selfish of me, is that I would have loved some individual crew figures not "attached" to particular weapons systems. Like a chap looking through binos, that you could use in any HMMWV turrets. Or an individual TOW gunner that you could fit onto an already existing TOW system rather than having to print off and paint up a whole new one.
But the figures are very clearly listed as being designed to fit into Bob Mack vehicles so I knew what I was getting into when I was buying them.
I think once the Flank March web site has all the pics uploaded for the REFORGER range - which I understand is going to happen shortly (if not already done) - then that will make shopping even easier. I'm already eyeing off what I will purchase next!
So thanks if you made it to the end of these post.
Take care
Richard
