As Part of my journey into the harsh climates of North Africa, I decided I "needed" two opposing armies to complement my SAS raiding force. So I started shopping around and decided to settle on a British Light Armoured Squadren and a Gepanzerte Panzergrenadierkompanie.
I Opted to go for two very different style lists from my late war Brit Paras.
I am also looking to buy on a budget, which naturally lead me to Zvezda.
I ordered 4 boxes of Zvesda Sdkfz 222's and a box of Panzer IVs from The Plastic Soldier Company. I will be reviewing the Panzer IV's another day, so onwards to my thoughts on the Zvesda 222s!
The first thing to note is that the Sdkfz 222's come one to a box, each costing £2.99 ( $4.74), compared to Battlefront's blister which is £7.50 ($11.87). For the price of one Battlefront Sdkfz 222, you can get two Zvesda 222's and some change to put towards a third. That's a bargain!
"For the price of one Battlefront Sdkfz 222, you can get two Zvesda 222's and some change to put towards a third."
Now, I'm not shy of piecing together plastic models, I grew up glueing my hands to airfix models, then later on it was assembling masses of space marines and orks. I'm even one of those weirdos who enjoys it, and I often take it to the next level, using putty and plasti-card to add to, and make my soldiers my own. But I did not enjoy putting these 222's together one bit.
The kit is fiddly, its fragile, and if you get the order of assembly wrong you can make your life later much more difficult. It's advertised as being snap fit and requiring no glue, so for the sake of the review I tried it, and immediately disassembled the model again, the model had huge gaps, it creaked when you squeezed it lightly and honestly, I didn't fancy hunting for wheels every time one gets knocked off the table. I'm not sure what kind of hobbyist doesn't glue their models together but I didn't trust it.
"The kit is fiddly, its fragile, and if you get the order of assembly wrong you can make your life much more difficult."
Glueing the models together helped with the gaps a little bit, but as you will see from my photos, they still left some gaping holes that a more patient man would have filled with green stuff.
Once assembled (and glued) the kit is fairly sturdy, you wont want to be pushing down on the wheels too much, but the same can be said for any model kit. There is no variations or extra stowage on the sprue, so all of your 222s will look identical when assembled. The detailing is quite fine in places, so id recommend thinning your paints and/or using an airbrush when you paint them. The gun barrels are quite thin, so care should be taken not to break them, but they are quite flexible so can withstand being dropped (theory put to the test totally not by accident).
My final gripe I had with the kit was that there is no option to make a 223, which is a shame because it means I'm either going to have to try convert these plastic kits, or buy Battlefront, which may leave me with two different styles of model.
In conclusion, the kit is a pain in the Schürzen to put together, but with a bit of work, and some putty, will look respectable on the tabletop, and for the price I'd put up with the assembly all over again, and probably will to try make some 223's to finish the unit, which I will try to remember to doccument.
The "Finished" 222's below.
"For the price I'd put up with the assembly all over again"
Next up, PSC Panzer IV's!
