Price around £9.99 GBP (Jul 2012)
Review by Geoff Coughlin
Thanks to Revell for supplying our review sample. Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit www.revell.eu or email ukbranch@revell.de
Something to get you in the mood!
Brief intro to the type…
The Warrior tracked vehicle family is a series of British armoured vehicles, originally developed to replace the older FV430 series of armoured vehicles. The Warrior started life as the MCV-80 project that was first broached in the 1970s, GKN Sankey/Defence winning the production contract in 1980. GKN Defence was subsequently purchased by BAE Systems (via Alvis plc). A total of 789 FV510 and variants were manufactured for the British Army, and 254 of a modified version (Desert Warrior) were produced for the Kuwaiti Army.
Initial assessment…
You’ll find many reviews of these fine Revell kits all to 1:72 scale here in your SMN and all are worth a look if armour is your thing. This isn’t a new kit, the date stamped into the beige sprue says 2001, but don’t let that put you off, this is an impressive little kit!
Moulding quality is to a high standard with very fine levels of detail across the board. The attached images should speak for themselves and you can decide what you think, especially as armour is probably your area. So I offer a basic insight into this Revell kit that’s widely available and this will be good news to all of you that are interested in armour modelling in this scale.
The package…
Three sprues moulded in beige plastic form the basis of the model as well as a clear sprue for these small parts. A set of instructions, and small decal sheet make up the package.
Sprue trees…
You can see that the hull top is very clean and crisp, as is just about everything else. The detail is cleanly and accurately moulded onto the surface and will look excellent when spray painted and given a subtle wash and maybe filters (see your Techniques Bank for how to apply these weathering techniques) in keeping with the small scale. The moulded detail throughout is good and although I can’t give an opinion on accuracy, what you get certainly looks consistent with some of the images I have seen on You Tube and elsewhere.
The fact that the tools supplied are moulded onto the chassis won’t please everyone but definition is sharp and crisp in this scale and this will aid accurate painting. There are some good reference books in your Book Review area that cover the type so do take a look there.
Other highlights include…
The detail on the hull top, wheels and suspension gear are serious highlights. There are some ejector pin mould-release circles left during the making of the kit, but these are well placed in out of the way or hidden locations – nice touch. The small details look fine for the scale and I can just see that they will look good after a wash and dry-brush. There’s no flash or excess plastic on any of the parts, so this will help build time greatly.