My top 10 kits
Hamilkar´s list of favourites Hello everyone and welcome to my personal list of my 10 favourite model kits i had on my workbench so far. Since i started with scale modelling over 20 years ago hundreds of model kits went through my hands. A few of them reduced me to despair, but the great majority of the kits were very enjoyable. Anyway, there are a few model kits, which stand out and i have fond memories of, despite the already very high standard of all model kits we see these days. Here is my list with my 10 favourite model kits. 10: French infantry 1916 by ICM in 1/35 scale. When it comes to figures we have seen a lot of improvement in the last years. Even ordinary plastic figures like these are just beautiful nowadays.
ICM pushes it a little bit further than other brands. Besides the wonderful kit parts with good details and a perfect fit they also give us a huge amount of accessories and spare parts, which can be used to improve figures with less details without much hassle. Of all the figure sets by ICM i know of i love the French infantry in particular. If you are looking for such figures for a WW1 scenery you should not look further and use these.
9: Autoblindo AB40/41 and 43 by Italeri in 1/35 scale. Maybe you are thinking now: What is an Italeri kit doing in a list of favourites? I will readily admit that some kits by Italeri are no longer matching our expectations these days, but this is of course not the general rule. With the kits of the Autoblindo series you are not doing anything wrong and you get an fairly easy and well detailed model. The only modification you might have to do, depending on the version you are building, are the tires. However, there is a good selection of aftermarket tires. If you are interested to build a model of one of the most beautiful armored cars with a long and diverse service life, i can recommend you these kits. 8: Zündapp KS750 with sidecar by Lionroar/Great Wall Hobby in 1/35 scale. I love to use models of military vehicles as additional components on my dioramas and therefore i have built quite a few of motorbike kits over the years.
The most beautiful so far was the Zündapp KS750 by Lionroar. The kit is quite expensive, but you get the allround-care-free package with extremely filigree plastic parts, photo-etch and pre-bent metal spokes. The assembly is a little challenge, but the result rewards the scale modeller for all his work. One should only add a few cables here and there in order to get a perfect model. 7. Roman Trireme by Zvezda in 1/72 scale.
When it comes to ship models, sailing ships in particular, i have some troubles. Luckily such Triremes are not the most demanding subjects when it comes to the rigging of the masts and sails. Therefore they are a good starting point for beginners, like myself. The masts were stored in the ship or on the shore during battles, so you can build these ships without the masts, sails and rigging if you wish to do so. Zvezda offers several variants of this ancient war ship type.
Besides the Roman Triremes we also get a Carthaginian and a Greek Trireme. I built most of them already over the years. The level of detail is good, the assembly is not overly complex and you have the option to build the kit as a waterline model, because the lower section of the hull is one separate part. It is handy that Zvezda also offers lovely figures, which can be used to populate the deck of the ship. Unfortunately the kit is no longer readily available. If you are interested in the subject and you see this kit somewhere, you better get it. 6. Heinkel He 219 A-7 Uhu by Revell in 1/32 scale. I also struggle a bit with aircraft models, because i am just a big fan of my tank model kits, but i enjoyed it a lot to build the He 219 by Revell. Sure, we could talk about the reputation of Revell now, but i think even the biggest critic of Revell will admit, that they make pretty stunning kits from time to time. The most beautiful Revell kit is to me the He 219 and i would not mind it to build one again, but this time with a diorama maybe.
5. Miltiades at the Battle of Marathon by Medieval Forge Miniatures in 75mm scale. Resin and white metal figures have seen a lot of improvement in quality and detail over the last years, so picking an absolute favourite was a bit tricky for me. After thinking it all through i decided to go for the Greek hoplite by Medieval Forge Miniatures. Besides the absolutely gorgeous parts with lovely details, which are not too different from the figure kits of other brands these days, we get a bunch of optional parts in this case. This makes it easy to customize the look of our figure, depending on our own taste. The only thing basically all figure kit brands could improve on are decals for the shields. I always struggle with those designs during the painting process. 4. Char B1 bis by Tamiya in 1/35 scale. Tamiya enjoys a good reputation in general, although their kits can be sometimes a bit simplified and the level of detail is not always pleasing every modeller with their high standards.
I admit that this applies to many Tamiya kits, but not to all of them. In my opinion the Char B1 bis is the best tank kit by Tamiya, because we can build it right out of the box. The tracks are the coolest aspect of the kit. They don´t require glue, they simply click together and even stay together. This spares us extra investments into aftermarket tracks or other things, like metal gun barrels. I also like the many options we have here. The French applied many different camouflage schemes on these tanks and captured vehicles saw wide use in the Wehrmacht. 3. Sho´t Kal Gimel by AFV-Club in 1/35 scale.
We start the top 3 kits with the Centurion tank series by AFV-Club. This brand offers various variants of the tank. To represent them all i went for the Israeli Sho´t Kal Gimel version. The base kit was first released in 2006, but it is far from old. If cold war tanks were my main field of interest this kit would easily be on place 1 of my list. Building this kit is quite an experience. The overall quality is excellent, assembling the kit is interesting and enjoyable, the box also contains a bunch of goodies. We get a proper metal gun barrel or metal springs for a fully workable suspension. The included tracks are of the rubber band type, but replacing them is not necessary. The detail on them is good and the Centurion tanks don´t show a lot of track sagging. Up to now i built 4 AFV-Club Centurion tanks and i am sure a fifth and sixth one will be added sooner or later. In short: I recommend these kits without any hesitation.
2. Panzer II L Luchs by Tasca/Asuka in 1/35 scale. After all those praises for the AFV-Club Centurion you might wonder, what could be better than that? Oh, for sure! It is the Panzer II L by Tasca, or nowadays Asuka. This kit has the unusual feature of combining the level of detail we know from the Dragon Smart kits of the good old days with the perfection and simplicity of Tamiya kits. When it comes to fit of the parts this kit is unrivaled. I built this kit twice so far and a third one is sitting in my stash. One day i will get to build it. The fully workable suspension does not require any extra work for us and the rubber band tracks can be put on the model as well, due to their high level of detail.
It does not hurt to add a metal gun barrel, but it is absolutely not a must. I am also happy to see that there are several versions of the kit, each one with additional sprues for special parts, which were unique for certain units that had these vehicles in their service. This ensures a very authentic result. Due to the great enjoyment during the assembly and the high accuracy this kit easily placed itself on the second place of my list. 1. Panzer III J "Smart Kit" by Dragon in 1/35 scale. Here is my holy grail of model kits from the good old days of Dragon, when the price tags were fair and this brand really put in the effort.
Since then basically everything Dragon does now is far below this standard and other brands are in the lead with their new releases, but at least for me nothing can quite match the Panzer III J from 2007. Dragon reissued the kit again in 2020 with the same boxart and they added a few more bits to the kit, but this comes with an expensive price tag. Those of you, who still have the original edition at home are lucky fellows. The instructions are a bit poor in some places for sure, but the kit brought everything to the table i want as a true Panzer III fan. The level of detail is all around perfect, even in places that remain hidden. All hatches can be built opened or closed, the running gear can be kept workable, there are lovely Magic Tracks included and the vehicle is just represented in a very accurate manner.
We don´t have to make any tedious adjustments. Furthermore we can do a lot with this kit from a creative point of view and the kit allows for various modifications and options due to its design. To me it is the definitive Panzer III J kit and the best Dragon kit i know of. Although some brands put in a lot of effort into their kits lately, nothing does quite match this old standard. A shame actually! Alright, this was my personal list of favourites. What are your thoughts on the matter? Which kits do you like a lot? I am looking forward to reading your comments. Thank you very much for watching and till the next video, your Hamilkar Barkas..
