Pegasus City Ruins 1 review and build

These Pegasus plastic kits have been available for a few years but living outside major metro they are a bit hard to spot in the flesh. Information was hard to track down partly because of the abysmal Pegasus website. As near as i can tell Pegasus are a large retail store in the US who have their fingers in a few pies with some 1/72 or 1/76 plastic kits being of interest to me and then this Gothic building series in 28mm. With their website concentrating on R/C kits and add ons its a little hard to get accurate information on what these kits can do. There are two Gothic building kits with this one being the smaller ruined version, a bridge and a cathedral/church type building.
I was lucky enough to be in the LFGS when the rep who handles Pegasus called in and I jumped up and down till some were ordered (didn't take long though).

The Pegasus City Ruins kit in its raw state moulded in a darkish grey plastic. 

On opening the box i was impressed to find no sprue, so what you feel when you pick up the box is all kit. The larger Gothic building is impressive just on the weight alone. From an environmental point of view they should be congratulated as there is no waste at our end and presumably the sprues go back into the melting pot at the production end.
There are twenty solid pieces in the ruins kit with the only fragile bit being the small window bit on the top right hand corner of the piece you can see above the glue pot on the left of the photo above (that was a mouthful). Its well designed with no electrical cabling at all making it suitable for both fantasy and sci fi applications. It also pushes together without glue. 

As this kit was going to be a gaming piece and display model in the store i've put it together in two ways. The first is glued and painted straight from the box the second has been glued and modified to give a more realistic feel.

Gothic city ruins pushed together for a test fit.

Built straight from the box with a basic paint job its very satisfactory.

After undercoating and putting the first coat of Grey on i realized there was still a flash mark inside the window frames so out came the small file.

And its at this point that i realise that i've misplaced a few photos. Read the second part of the build here

   

Blood angels Necron rematch

The ideal 20mm/1:72 WWII sprue

I got to thinking the other day what would be the ideal setup for a 20 mm hard plastic sprue for wargaming.

I could start with some parameters.

German Heer, summer, mid war, one sprue, approximately 15 - 20 figures per set. Some separate heads and weapons. Bases may be separate but figures should have a peg to attach. Figures to fit a platoon (zug?) without heavier weapons. So mg 34 or 42 on bipod mounts. Rifle grenades? Possibly 50mm mortar.

So MG on the ground prone or kneeling on a bit of ground with the gun propped up. 2 crew.

MG on the move with two crew.

Riflemen kneeling, firing/grenades or observing, some of these could double as mortar crew. x 6

Nco's with seperate arms, mp40 or ppsh, map case, pointing etc, 1 kneeling, 1 moving.

Riflemen moving with weapons ready or ammo for MG and weapon slung. 3 - 5

Seperate arms could have grenade/ bundled potato masher/ teller mines/ ammo boxes/ extra weapons/ dinner (chicken). Seperate heads would include caps/ bare heads/ helmets and covered helmets.

Valiant have had a pretty good go in the last couple of years. Their Classic German Infantry page is here. The set was put together specifically for the Rapid fire ruleset. You get four riflemen advancing, an mg 42 on tripod (2 crew), a soldier carrying an mg42, a radio operator, an officer, several nco's with mp40 and five figures with seperate arms for the variety of included weapons. 17 figures per sprue. The only draw back I can see is the scale they are bigger than most plastic 1:72.

The Plastic Soldier Company is looking promising if he can deliver true 1:72 scale he'll be on a winner. My t34/76 are waiting with their engines idling for the appearance of the Russians. Having been lurking for months? I've finally found a photo of the test sprues on the net at Benno's figures.

A new direction for White Dwarf?

The latest edition of White Dwarf, Games Workshops magazine, which is number 368 has turned up here.

Lots of stuff on Daemons for Warhammer and Warhammer 40000 to tie in their new plastic releases. Articles on heroes of legend in War of the Ring, magic for the new 8th edition of Warhammer, John Blanche and Jervis Johnson get bits and finally there are two articles that cover modelling and painting. The twisted landscape modelling workshop covers chaos terrain and uses a fair bit of the plastic terrain available from Games Workshop. The painting masterclass covers the new plastic Daemon Prince with a focus on using fades along with a small bit on fading colours generally and varnishes. Both of these are top quality pieces of work.

What stands out to me is the apparent switch to focus on single themes for an issue of the magazine. This seems to have started from last months issue with the 8th edition Warhammer coverage were there was no Warhammer 40000 or middle earth coverage at all. I had another long time player remark that he wouldn't have bought it if it hadn't come through his subscription.

One thing I look forward to in this magazine is the painting, modelling and showcase articles. Over the last 2 years they have improved out of sight and have really shown some quality painting techniques especially. They seem to be going for a harder sell on the rules with bigger battle reports which are less interesting to me along with a glossier newer look to the magazine. Which makes sense i suppose as its a company apparatus for expanding sales.