I am sure the official vehicles are going to be very nice and very reasonably priced but for cheapskates, diehard individualists and those who want a little more variety or just who just want to steal a march on Mongoose here are a few other suggestions.
Vehicles for 25mm Wargaming
Also some larger scales as well such as 1/48th.
Forget what they say about scale. 25mm figures are huge, only old figures and a few die-hard companies figures are close to true 25mm scale now, most are 30mm+ in height and still growing.
The closest scales for 25mm figures are 1/50th for diecast vehicles and Games Workshop’s kits [1] and 1/48th for aircraft and armour models. O gauge in America is 1/48th scale but in Britain 1/43rd scale [2] and some vehicle kits are available in this scale.
Models
Aircraft
There are a lot of aircraft kits in 1/48th scale but they tend to be very big – aircraft are surprisingly big. The largest are probably the various C-130 variants by Italeri or the old B-29 by Revell/Monogram. However cheap ones are useful for wreckage. For wargaming there is a good selection of helicopters including Hueys for Vietnam and UH-60s for Mogadishu. Academy also do the Hughes 500 which makes a Little Bird with a bit of work. There is an Italeri V-22 bit it is huge. For your drug-running scenarios Revell do three very nice executive jets.
Armour and Softskins
Tamya 1/48th Armour
Tamiya has recently introduced a range of 1/48th WW II armour kits. They are expensive but very detailed and really a bit too costly and delicate for wargaming. This is a very important series that should set off a new boom in 1/48th scale armour kits.
However they also do kubelwagens and kettenkrads which are very useful.
There are accessory sets such as Jerry cans and sandbags that will be essential.
There are also older Tamiya 1/48th scale kits of modern armour that were recently re-released but these were old moulds of motorised models.
Academy
Academy do several modern and WW II tanks. They are motorised with a variety of control options that do little but put the price up. They vary in quality. They are simple but the WW II ones at least have vaguely running gear. The modern ones have quite simplified detail but are good enough.
Airfix/Heller
This is a very old range of 1/43rd scale cars. The cars are mostly old and French but there are some new models as well. The star of the range is a Landover which is an excellent basis for conversion to a technical whether for Somalis or Orks. The wheels are terrible though and will need to be replaced.
Heller 1/48th or 1/43rd scale trucks
These are a completely different style to the Junior kits. They are ‘proper’ kits, more like a scaled down version of a 1/25th scale truck kit – in fact it might be so as the mould masters are pantographed down from a much larger model.
There are some four different models in the range; three articulated lorries with 40’ box vans and a tow truck – though it uses the same chassis and cab as one of the tractor units.
They are cheaper than diecast trucks and a lot more flexible – easy to convert to a Mad Max style vehicle or whatever you desire.
Airfix/Heller Junior
This range of kits is intended as an introduction to plastic modelling. The vehicles are very simple and ‘exciting’ with play an important consideration. However once you look past that there are some kits in the ranges that are very useful to the wargamer.
The three ranges that I am aware of are:
Military: two armoured cars, helicopter, boat, light aircraft and a landrover.
Safari: landrover, light aircraft
Truckers: cement mixer and skip transporter.
The downside of the kits is:
1. They are moulded in a strange plastic, though it does accept normal glues and can be worked with.
2. They are ‘snap together’ kits though there is really only one place this is annoyingly apparent – unfortunately on the APCs it s the very tip of the bow.
3. Detail is very crude and sparse. Just think of it as an opportunity for scrathbuilding.
4. They are out of production. However they seem easy enough to find.
The best two are around 1/48th scale, the Gladiator and the?? Which share many common parts. They are modelled on a French wheeled armoured car/armoured personnel carrier. One model builds as a four-wheeled vehicle with a turret mounting two missiles, the other as a six-wheeler with a long barrelled cannon. The hulls and wheels of both are identical, only the number of wheels and the turrets differ, there are ‘blanking plates’ supplied with the missile turret that fill in the gaps left by the missing wheels.
Other kits in the range include a boat, aircraft and helicopter though I have not bought any of these and cannot comment on them. The landrover is large, it seems closer to 1/35th scale than 1/48th though it does come with a useful looking inflatable.
The two trucks are identical save for the loads. They seem slightly larger than 1/50th scale but not by too much and would serve for 25mm scale especially if they are your only trucks. What I did was to sratchbuild a normal open body for the load bed, a very easy job using plasticard and add a grille to the front. They would be especially useful to an Ork player in Warhammer 40,000 as a basis for a wartruck.
Hobby Boss
The range consists of various models of M4 Sherman, T-34s (76 and 85) and a LCM 3 landing craft. These are good, in the case of the T-34s very, very good indeed with full interior detail. The M4s are supposed to have some accuracy issues but no more than most model kits. The LCM is nice but has a full hull.
Zengdefu/Ki-Tech Tank and APC Kits
These all have a common motorised chassis and the hulls are sized to fit this so the APCs are too big and all the tanks are the same size. If you can live with this they are a cheap and convenient source of modern tanks. Usefully they do French and Japanese models that are not immediately recognisable by most people – though the AMX-30 is a strong candidate for the ugliest tank ever made the LeClerc is superb, it already looks strange and futuristic.
Zengdefu/Ki-Tech BTR and Bradley Kits
Again these four vehicles share a common motorised chassis that seems to be closer to the Bradley’s than the BTR. Nice and useful. You could increase variety by leaving off an axle or even shortening the vehicle down to a two–axle scout.
Bandai Frug/Fuman Kits
These were a range of lovely and very detaile kits of WW II armour including some odd subjects such as an 8.8cm flak gun but they are now out of production and increasingly rare and expensive. Probably worth keeping unbuilt as collectors items though allegedly they are to be re-released shortly.
1/35th Vehicle Kits
For fantasy or SF gaming these can be useful. Some smaller tanks are about the right size while larger ones make a good basis for a supertank – I am attempting to build a Baneblade on the chassis of an M1 Abrahms.
Artillery vehicles can be robbed of their guns for static mounts or railway guns if you are ambitious and the hulls and running gear reused.
Academy do a nice series of cheap panzer IV variants that are very useful donor kits.
I like the Italeri M-4s kits for making steam tanks but that is really a completely different topic.
All you have to watch for are things that would give the scale away.
Diecasts
There are several ranges of diecast vehicles in 1/50th scale that are suitable for wargaming. Many are intended for collectors and can be incredibly expensive but some are affordable. The most reasonably priced are probably Joal who do a great range of construction machines but also busses and trucks.
Solido/Verem do a very useful range of military vehicles and spare parts as well but their tracked vehicles have rather chunky and ugly metal tracks that put many people off, my brother on the other hand loves them because of the sound.
Most toys are a little too small though Maisto make some Humvees that are perfectly sized. These are unfortunately very hard to find in the UK. The others would suit true 25mm scale figures such as Corgis lorries, though their collectable lorries and armour are 1/50th scale and include some very useful vehicles and helicopters.
Resin Kits
I’m too mean to buy these and do not like working with resin but there are is an increasing selection available.
Conversions
1. Turrets.
Swap the turrets around or for variety add a turret from one of the Airfix junior kits or the rather pretty turret Games Workshop sells for its Rhino variants. This can be ordered separately and one of the standard options is a decent looking autocannon. The only drawback is the number of little skulls you will have to sand off.
You could even leave off the turret and make a tank destroyer, engineer or APC vehicle.
2. Weapons.
Replace the barrels with brass or plastic tubing. If nothing else it will save a lot of tiresome sanding.
Add some more weapons. Missile racks or boxes, point-defence weapons and so on. Look as the Israeli armour, you simply cannot have too many machine guns on a tank.
There are a variety of 1/35th sale sets that are well worth a look. Italeri used to produce a set of anti-aircraft weapons that included some missile launchers and some heavy machine guns that were perfect for technicals. At the moment the largest weapons readily available seem to be the Browning M2 and recoilless rifles in the Tamiya U.S. Infantry Weapons Set (#35121) or the finer Academy American Machine Guns set. Though other items are available in some more expensive sets or as part of vehicle kits such as the recoilless rifle in the Academy Mutt kit.
Some 1/35th gun kits are useful as well for making artillery pieces or flak guns. I have used the Tamiya 2cm Flakverling mounted on a Chimera chassis to make a cheap SPAA vehicle.
3. Up-armouring: Schurzen and ERA
Add some side skirts made of plasticard. If nothing else they will help disguise those ugly tracks and change the appearance of the vehicle.
4. Stowage.
Nothing brings a vehicle to life quite so much as stowage. You can make your own or use some of the many 1/35th scale stowage packs. You won’t be able to use everything but a lot will work.
Notes
1. According to a GW webpage their kits are 1/50th in scale.
2. I do not know why, I am sure it made sense originally but now it is just a nuisance.
Vehicles for 25mm Wargaming
Also some larger scales as well such as 1/48th.
Forget what they say about scale. 25mm figures are huge, only old figures and a few die-hard companies figures are close to true 25mm scale now, most are 30mm+ in height and still growing.
The closest scales for 25mm figures are 1/50th for diecast vehicles and Games Workshop’s kits [1] and 1/48th for aircraft and armour models. O gauge in America is 1/48th scale but in Britain 1/43rd scale [2] and some vehicle kits are available in this scale.
Models
Aircraft
There are a lot of aircraft kits in 1/48th scale but they tend to be very big – aircraft are surprisingly big. The largest are probably the various C-130 variants by Italeri or the old B-29 by Revell/Monogram. However cheap ones are useful for wreckage. For wargaming there is a good selection of helicopters including Hueys for Vietnam and UH-60s for Mogadishu. Academy also do the Hughes 500 which makes a Little Bird with a bit of work. There is an Italeri V-22 bit it is huge. For your drug-running scenarios Revell do three very nice executive jets.
Armour and Softskins
Tamya 1/48th Armour
Tamiya has recently introduced a range of 1/48th WW II armour kits. They are expensive but very detailed and really a bit too costly and delicate for wargaming. This is a very important series that should set off a new boom in 1/48th scale armour kits.
However they also do kubelwagens and kettenkrads which are very useful.
There are accessory sets such as Jerry cans and sandbags that will be essential.
There are also older Tamiya 1/48th scale kits of modern armour that were recently re-released but these were old moulds of motorised models.
Academy
Academy do several modern and WW II tanks. They are motorised with a variety of control options that do little but put the price up. They vary in quality. They are simple but the WW II ones at least have vaguely running gear. The modern ones have quite simplified detail but are good enough.
Airfix/Heller
This is a very old range of 1/43rd scale cars. The cars are mostly old and French but there are some new models as well. The star of the range is a Landover which is an excellent basis for conversion to a technical whether for Somalis or Orks. The wheels are terrible though and will need to be replaced.
Heller 1/48th or 1/43rd scale trucks
These are a completely different style to the Junior kits. They are ‘proper’ kits, more like a scaled down version of a 1/25th scale truck kit – in fact it might be so as the mould masters are pantographed down from a much larger model.
There are some four different models in the range; three articulated lorries with 40’ box vans and a tow truck – though it uses the same chassis and cab as one of the tractor units.
They are cheaper than diecast trucks and a lot more flexible – easy to convert to a Mad Max style vehicle or whatever you desire.
Airfix/Heller Junior
This range of kits is intended as an introduction to plastic modelling. The vehicles are very simple and ‘exciting’ with play an important consideration. However once you look past that there are some kits in the ranges that are very useful to the wargamer.
The three ranges that I am aware of are:
Military: two armoured cars, helicopter, boat, light aircraft and a landrover.
Safari: landrover, light aircraft
Truckers: cement mixer and skip transporter.
The downside of the kits is:
1. They are moulded in a strange plastic, though it does accept normal glues and can be worked with.
2. They are ‘snap together’ kits though there is really only one place this is annoyingly apparent – unfortunately on the APCs it s the very tip of the bow.
3. Detail is very crude and sparse. Just think of it as an opportunity for scrathbuilding.
4. They are out of production. However they seem easy enough to find.
The best two are around 1/48th scale, the Gladiator and the?? Which share many common parts. They are modelled on a French wheeled armoured car/armoured personnel carrier. One model builds as a four-wheeled vehicle with a turret mounting two missiles, the other as a six-wheeler with a long barrelled cannon. The hulls and wheels of both are identical, only the number of wheels and the turrets differ, there are ‘blanking plates’ supplied with the missile turret that fill in the gaps left by the missing wheels.
Other kits in the range include a boat, aircraft and helicopter though I have not bought any of these and cannot comment on them. The landrover is large, it seems closer to 1/35th scale than 1/48th though it does come with a useful looking inflatable.
The two trucks are identical save for the loads. They seem slightly larger than 1/50th scale but not by too much and would serve for 25mm scale especially if they are your only trucks. What I did was to sratchbuild a normal open body for the load bed, a very easy job using plasticard and add a grille to the front. They would be especially useful to an Ork player in Warhammer 40,000 as a basis for a wartruck.
Hobby Boss
The range consists of various models of M4 Sherman, T-34s (76 and 85) and a LCM 3 landing craft. These are good, in the case of the T-34s very, very good indeed with full interior detail. The M4s are supposed to have some accuracy issues but no more than most model kits. The LCM is nice but has a full hull.
Zengdefu/Ki-Tech Tank and APC Kits
These all have a common motorised chassis and the hulls are sized to fit this so the APCs are too big and all the tanks are the same size. If you can live with this they are a cheap and convenient source of modern tanks. Usefully they do French and Japanese models that are not immediately recognisable by most people – though the AMX-30 is a strong candidate for the ugliest tank ever made the LeClerc is superb, it already looks strange and futuristic.
Zengdefu/Ki-Tech BTR and Bradley Kits
Again these four vehicles share a common motorised chassis that seems to be closer to the Bradley’s than the BTR. Nice and useful. You could increase variety by leaving off an axle or even shortening the vehicle down to a two–axle scout.
Bandai Frug/Fuman Kits
These were a range of lovely and very detaile kits of WW II armour including some odd subjects such as an 8.8cm flak gun but they are now out of production and increasingly rare and expensive. Probably worth keeping unbuilt as collectors items though allegedly they are to be re-released shortly.
1/35th Vehicle Kits
For fantasy or SF gaming these can be useful. Some smaller tanks are about the right size while larger ones make a good basis for a supertank – I am attempting to build a Baneblade on the chassis of an M1 Abrahms.
Artillery vehicles can be robbed of their guns for static mounts or railway guns if you are ambitious and the hulls and running gear reused.
Academy do a nice series of cheap panzer IV variants that are very useful donor kits.
I like the Italeri M-4s kits for making steam tanks but that is really a completely different topic.
All you have to watch for are things that would give the scale away.
Diecasts
There are several ranges of diecast vehicles in 1/50th scale that are suitable for wargaming. Many are intended for collectors and can be incredibly expensive but some are affordable. The most reasonably priced are probably Joal who do a great range of construction machines but also busses and trucks.
Solido/Verem do a very useful range of military vehicles and spare parts as well but their tracked vehicles have rather chunky and ugly metal tracks that put many people off, my brother on the other hand loves them because of the sound.
Most toys are a little too small though Maisto make some Humvees that are perfectly sized. These are unfortunately very hard to find in the UK. The others would suit true 25mm scale figures such as Corgis lorries, though their collectable lorries and armour are 1/50th scale and include some very useful vehicles and helicopters.
Resin Kits
I’m too mean to buy these and do not like working with resin but there are is an increasing selection available.
Conversions
1. Turrets.
Swap the turrets around or for variety add a turret from one of the Airfix junior kits or the rather pretty turret Games Workshop sells for its Rhino variants. This can be ordered separately and one of the standard options is a decent looking autocannon. The only drawback is the number of little skulls you will have to sand off.
You could even leave off the turret and make a tank destroyer, engineer or APC vehicle.
2. Weapons.
Replace the barrels with brass or plastic tubing. If nothing else it will save a lot of tiresome sanding.
Add some more weapons. Missile racks or boxes, point-defence weapons and so on. Look as the Israeli armour, you simply cannot have too many machine guns on a tank.
There are a variety of 1/35th sale sets that are well worth a look. Italeri used to produce a set of anti-aircraft weapons that included some missile launchers and some heavy machine guns that were perfect for technicals. At the moment the largest weapons readily available seem to be the Browning M2 and recoilless rifles in the Tamiya U.S. Infantry Weapons Set (#35121) or the finer Academy American Machine Guns set. Though other items are available in some more expensive sets or as part of vehicle kits such as the recoilless rifle in the Academy Mutt kit.
Some 1/35th gun kits are useful as well for making artillery pieces or flak guns. I have used the Tamiya 2cm Flakverling mounted on a Chimera chassis to make a cheap SPAA vehicle.
3. Up-armouring: Schurzen and ERA
Add some side skirts made of plasticard. If nothing else they will help disguise those ugly tracks and change the appearance of the vehicle.
4. Stowage.
Nothing brings a vehicle to life quite so much as stowage. You can make your own or use some of the many 1/35th scale stowage packs. You won’t be able to use everything but a lot will work.
Notes
1. According to a GW webpage their kits are 1/50th in scale.
2. I do not know why, I am sure it made sense originally but now it is just a nuisance.
