Review of FMG Italians and HBG Axis Minors

[Tall Paul]

HBG & FMG,

    This seems a great place to ask both HBG & FMG a question.

    Hey guys,...Do either of you have future plans for Airborne Paratroop units for each nation?

    "Coach", you're making the US Airborne units in your US Supplemental Set,...Do you have any future plans for other nation's Airborne units?? 

    If not I plan to paint your US Airborne units for all of the "other" countries.  It wouldn't be optimal, or correct by any means, but their unique paint jobs and national insignias would differentiate them from one another.

                                                                                            "Tall Paul"     

[radar231]

Tall Paul

HBG should be doing the german Fallschirmjäger with his German late set, target date : March 31st 2012. There should be 4 of them in the set. Cheers

J. 

[Lunarwolf]

reloader what do you mean by "a fragile artillery piece, and perhaps a slightly overworked fighter" for hbg's minor set?

[coachofmany]

HBG & FMG,

    This seems a great place to ask both HBG & FMG a question.

    Hey guys,...Do either of you have future plans for Airborne Paratroop units for each nation?

    "Coach", you're making the US Airborne units in your US Supplemental Set,...Do you have any future plans for other nation's Airborne units?? 

    If not I plan to paint your US Airborne units for all of the "other" countries.  It wouldn't be optimal, or correct by any means, but their unique paint jobs and national insignias would differentiate them from one another.

                                                                                            "Tall Paul"     

Yes, there will be Airborne Units in the sets.

[reloader-1]

Lunar, the fighter is probably me being nitpicky, I feel it has a couple more detail lines than necessary (hence "overworked"). The artillery is a two-piece mold, and while most are glued pretty well some are not it is something that might break down the road.

Both have great detail, however.


FMG - just a final note that I am very appreciative of your pieces, along with many other members here. Honestly, improve the sizing of the land units, and increase the number of land unit slots in the mold and you have a great product on your hands. My criticism is only to make your future sets better!

The same goes for HBG, scale your anti-tank infantry better and perhaps make the artillery pieces a one-piece unit and you also have a great set.

[kcdzim]

Figure I'd add my unit count and review for posterity as well:

NAVAL:
6 BB
6 CV
1 CA
17 DD
12 AP
12 SS

AIR:
12 Fighters
6 Tac
6 SB
6 Transports/Med Bomber

LAND:
5 Commander
11 Infantry 1
13 Infantry 2
12 Art
12 Mech
6 tank
6 tank destroyer
6 truck

the Bad:
Many units suffer from deformation.  I suspect this is due to the plastic mix and cooling unevenly (bottom faster than top), causing differential stress in the figures. Worst offenders are subs (maybe one didn't need to have the ends be gently bent up to stand easily) and the SM79.  I'd recommend in the future that every plane mold incorporate a slight dihedral - the SM79 wing is molded flat, so the wings cooled with a pronounced droop and out of plane with the tail (which appeared to have cooled with a twist in many pieces).  I suspect the droop is is also due to the unneccesary flap lines on the top surface but not underneath, exacerbating cooling stress.  The BR20 doesn't have as many flap lines, and a thicker wing mold and held its form much better.

The fighter is too small.  I understand the wish to establish scale standards, but it's far smaller than the OOB mold and feels harder to handle on a board (to me).

The truck is really too big and in the future other nation trucks should NOT be molded this large.  It looks cartoonish and heavy next to the other land units, which are very delicate. There's no reason to keep wheelbase the same, especially when the fighter is so reduced beyond the other air units.

One cruiser?  That's some seriously questionable QC.  4 would have been acceptable, 1 is just lame.

The Good:
Several of the molds are just outstanding.  The Tac, Naval Transport and Air Transport (BR20) are very very nice with just the right amount of detail.  I have no complaints about the tanks in size or detail, the infantry are well proportioned, and the artillery is delicate but stable.  The Armoured car, while perhaps deceptively similar to the tanks, is a very nice mold itself, and distinct enough in my opinion.

[Lunarwolf]

yeah the fighter is to small, i too agree it makes it harder to handle when its that small. hopefully fmg will make them a little bigger

[knp7765]

I don't know that the fighter is necessarily too small.  Look at the OOB MiG-3 piece for Russia.  It's pretty tiny too.  My only complaint on the fighter is the wings are too straight.  They should be more tapered so they get wider the closer they get to the fuselage.

reloader,
You mentioned HBG's artillery pieces being too fragile.  Well, so are FMG's and so are the OOB German and Italian artillery.  The Allied artillery piece (105mm howitzer) is just a little sturdier, but still fragile.  The only exception is that little compact Japanese artillery.  I think that is one piece that is always going to be very delicate and fragile for just about every nation's arsenal, especially at the scale that we need for the game.
I do agree with you on the piece counts for specific units:  eg. more tanks, less capital ships.  I would have liked to see more tanks in the FMG sets as well.  For myself, I have set a number of 5 sets of pieces for my inventory.  I just like having a lot of pieces to play with.  Unfortunately, that will give me 30 aircraft carriers and battleships for each nation.  Italy will likely NEVER use 30 carriers or battleships.  For that matter, neither will France, Germany, Russia, ANZAC or England.  Japan and USA are the only ones that might possibly come close.  However, this is the set count so to get the larger amount of men, tanks, artillery and planes, we have to take more capital ships as well.  FMG has decided on a uniform piece count for each set and I think that is a good idea.
Granted, I suppose they could have different quantities for different nations -- eg. 6 carriers for USA but only 2 for USSR, etc. -- and for those nations with less capital ships, give them more men, tanks, etc.  However, you have to remember the difficulty in getting these molds made.  Changing the piece count from nation to nation would add an unacceptable level of complexity to creating the molds for these sets.  Think about all the problems Jeremy has had with the Chinese factory already just in getting the Italians finished.  He's got to keep things as simple as possible for them so we have as few delays as possible and we get all the sets sooner.
Also, with the current sets and piece counts, each mold makes 1 of each piece that has 6 quantity and 2 of each piece that has 12 quantity.  So each full set requires 6 stampings of the mold.  With that in mind, each set HAS to have 6 carriers, 6 battleships, and so on because it is already set in the mold.  To make a set that only has say 2 carriers and perhaps more tanks would require two different molds which would make things more complex for the factory.  Who knows what  we might end up getting -- some sets with no carriers at all and others with 12 carriers.  Maybe that's extreme but you get my point.
Your best bet if you want more of certain units would be to go and buy them individually from HBG.  They are reasonably priced.  As for your "extra" capital ships and the like, see if you can sell them on ebay and maybe make back some of the money you spent for the pieces you buy.

[reloader-1]

Knp - it's not that hard to reduce the number of ships.

Currently, the Italian mold has 1 slot for carriers, 1 for battleships, 2 for destroyers, 2 for transports, 2 for subs, etc.

In future molds, just cut down one or two of those extra destroyer/sub/transport etc mold spaces, and swap in a land piece. Obviously, for the Italians the mold is done, but for future sets I believe we still have time.

All china does is bag each mold run in a separate bag, it would add no complexity whatsoever if the mold swapped a couple of slots.

[knp7765]

Oh, so you are talking about subbing out the smaller ships, the ones that we get 12 of per set, for more tanks?  I thought you were JUST referring to the capital ships.  You are right, that would not be as difficult for the factory to make a mold like that.  So you would get a set with simply 6 of each naval unit in exchange for more land units.  Well, I could see that being desireable for USSR and Germany since those countries generally build more tanks, mechs and infantry.  Although, Germany also often builds lots of subs too for convoy raiding.

So when it comes to countries like Japan and USA, would you want more naval units and less land units in those sets?

Personally, I still think all sets should have a uniform count, but I do better understand your reasoning.  As for getting more tanks, I am seriously thinking about going over to HBG and boosting up my tank force that way.  I really would like more of them myself.  Another idea would be to buy a few more complete sets from FMG and try selling off all the units I don't want.

[reloader-1]

At a bare minimum we need at least one more tank slot in the mold for all countries, especially US/Germany etc. 6 tanks for $40 is not viable, and lots of us will have the same idea in buying them from HBG. I can see HBG charging $5-6 per tank, as someone who buys a $40 FMG set doesn't really need more ships or planes, but definitely needs more tanks. Remember that HBG doesn't want to lose money selling the tanks from the Italian sets and being stuck with 6,352 carriers and battleships...

[Tigerman77]

I agree with reloaded on most of what he says. I really feel that FmG and HBG need to scale their units the same to keep uniformity! How can u supplement a set when similar pieces are 2 different sizes? It's not that hard to get together on color and size, just a little more work! This is in relation to FMG's truck and HBG's truck. I think the OOB truck is just the right size and HBG has matched it really close.
  Someone mentioned the HBG AC is too small, I disagree!  It is perfect size for the game and maps we use. This I just my opinion.
  Good job on both parties for the pieces!

[Lozmoid]

I don't have my FMG Italy units yet and I'll be posting a complete inventory/unit count as well as a full review them as and when they do arrive. In the meantime, all I can see with regards to what I have seen from the photos posted by FMG, is that the Truck unit IS slightly too big. I appreciate that FMG want bigger Trucks but if the majority of the buying public wish them to be smaller, then smaller they must be. I am happy with the size of the OOB Truck units that came with A&A BotB, and wish FMG had kept their Truck unit to this scale. However, until an alternative is available I will be content with the FMG Truck unit.

With regards to land unit scaling issues: I think there should be a general wheel-base limit/specification for each nation, per unit type. As someone mentioned earlier today, Medium Tanks should be slightly bigger than Light Tanks, and Heavy Tanks should be slightly bigger than Medium Tanks. BUT! We are only talking a milimetre or two... In effect, I think it would be good if the scale could look something like this:

Small scale: Trucks, Half-Tracks/Mechanised Inf, Armoured Cars, Light Tanks

Medium Scale: Medium Tanks, Self-Propelled Guns/Tank Destroyers

Large scale: Heavy Tanks, ?

I also agree that the wings of the Italian Fighter unit should have been more tapered. And, I think that 8 Tanks per nation should be the standard, not 6.

I will post more feedback/review later. Thank you for reading.

[saint1012]

Hey kcdzim, I got 18 cruisers and no destroyers!  Wanna trade a few pieces?

Trevor

[kcdzim]

Hey kcdzim, I got 18 cruisers and no destroyers!  Wanna trade a few pieces?

Trevor

Comical.  You're the second person to approach me with this.

First, I would recommend contacting FMG, as he indicated a willingness to fix errors with huge piece count discrepancies (not piddly one or 2 off, but getting one or none of something, well, that's pretty crazy.

He has offered to send me some missing cruisers, so I'll consider trades after receipt.  Unfortunately, Bob Mickelson has dibs first.  Although, Bob, you too should contact FMG regarding the count.  You also suffer from cruiser wealth and destroyer poverty, pretty sure Jeremy will fix that.