Some new SCW Armour

Prior to Christmas I put in an order for a few more armoured vehicles for my Spanish Civil War forces. You see whilst I thought that  I had all the vehicles I might ever need - I did over buy a bit, in certain areas - it wasn't until I started to write up my latest rule project properly that I realised I was a bit light for some of my forces. As I try to be thorough, and as this set will rely more heavily on photos of models than drawn diagrams and out of copyright illustrations, I did a proper check on who used what and when, and also how common things were.

Some of the iconic vehicles, like the jelly mould armoured cars, were not that common, especially outside cities, and others were closely associated with certain units. When I went checking it was clear that I was missing a couple of important vehicles. Part of the reason for this was that no-one made the appropriate models when I built most of my collection, and, honestly, in some areas I was quite prepared to fudge things in the odd game. For example my Asaltos normally are supported by a UNL 35 armoured car and not the Bilbao, because I have the former and not the latter. My Basques also get given FT17s or T26s as I don't have an Trubias.

As I said, part of the reason was that no-one made them, but I'm pleased say that Minairons of Spain now do, so I thought I'd better ship some in, if I could find them at a price I'm prepared to pay. The Bilbao popped up on ebay from Caliver's outlet, so I banged in an order at the end of November. The Trubias i could only find on Minairon's website, so with Brexit looming and no trade deal in sight at the time, I fired off an order there too.

Well, I'm still waiting on the ebay order. It's been nearly a month and they assure me they've been dispatched, so perhaps they're buried in the Royal Mail back log. I'll give them another week and then ask for the refund, although I'd rather gave the models.

The Spanish have done me proud and a little package arrived on Christmas Eve.

I hadn't appreciated how tiny these things were. They are no bigger than an FT17. Which I should have known as I have photos and stats for them. It's a big box for two tiny tanks that would just as well fit into a blister pack. Probably couldn't have charged me EUR 25.00 for them if they were, I guess. 

They're resin, with metal machine guns. The metal casting was a bit odd, and seemed to me to be a generic sprue, as it included a variety of weapons that weren't fitted to the Trubia. The turrets are separate castings. The box says the tracks are separate too, but in my box they weren't. The models were nice and clean, so no problems there.

Normally I don't do any modelling type stuff over Christmas, but I did find the time to glue them together, and attach them to a painting stick. I might get to paint them this week, but alas I'm out of the brown I use for my bases, which requires me to go to Homebase DIY, and we're in Tier 3 for now so that trip might be delayed a while.

In the meantime it'd be good if those Bilbaos turned up.