AFV Club kits

OK I'm already looking at Purchasing my next model (soon I'll have me a stash)....

So I'd like to ask What you guys think of these kits:

1 Are they any good.

2 Can you recommend a post WW2 British tank for my next project.

3 If they're not can you recommend a reasonably priced alterntive.

Thanking you in adavnce

Gareth

AFV Club have been around since the Hobbies rennaissance in the early 90's and general produce excellently detailed models. Some of their earlier British Post war stuff such as the Scimitar and Scorpion are not up to the uber detail they offernow but are still very good kits but both definately benefit from aftermarket tracks (Fruil) they also both represent early versions of the marque.

Their later British Stuff such as the Churchills and Centurion are excellent and I would recommend any of these without hesitation. They are not shake and bake kits like Tamiya and can be complex but the detail is outstanding and the accuracy of those has been near flawless.

You may wish to checkout online reviews on this and other sites and I particularly recommend Terry Ashleys reviews as seen here: http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/vehicles/afvclub/afvclub.htm

CHeers

Al

Hi Gareth,

I am going to endorse what Al says. I have never had any trouble with AFV Club kits, so go for them. As to the Scorpion and Scimitar, as you are building the Chieftain from Tamiya, I would say go ahead with them.

The Centurions are great, if a bit more complicated.

Thinking of other Bristoish post-war armour, I would heartly recommend Tamiya's Chally 1 and and 2.

Good luck and best wishes.

Tony

Hi Gareth, I have only built their 1/48thTiger1 late lovely kit though,I have one of their Churchills in the stash I took the lid off looked at the instructions and had to go for a lay down with a medicinial whisky, lots of detail just read the instructions carefully and you will end up ith a nice kit.

I can only echo the sentiments already expressed here- AFV would be my kit of choice, and that's just after doing the Churchill! (I also have a Tiger in the stash). I've been eyeing up the Centurion and the Achilles in my LHS too, and am considering the Churchill AVRE as well.

I've also done the Tamiya Chally 2, and can heartily recommend it. Academy also do an excellent Warrior, if you're chasing modern Brit armour.

Sorry, you can't have any Scimitar or Scorpion kits... they are all mine!

I Love AFV Club. long before Bronco and others got interested they were showing British WWII subjects some styrene love, and in my opinion they are now arguably the best high-detail manufacturer in the market

However, they didn't start off that good. Their early kits can have issues and if you get one of those as your first kit from them it may well give you a wrong impression of their moulding and quality. They aren't bad, but the latest kits from them are (IMHO of course) Spectacular

Early on they reboxed the Walker Bulldog, Beep (two versions) a dodge truck, a Mutt and the 1/48 tigers by skybow

these are all beautiful kits (they 'enlarged' the skybow tiger to get their very good 1/35 ones) and well worth getting

Later they produced a lot of their own kits. All are OK and are very much worthbthe low prices they go for. detail is good, but you need patience to assemble them as the engineering was not so precise

Then they really hit their stride with the centurions which are very good indeed and improved further with their excellent Churchills (so good they inspired me to start a business making conversions for them)

In my opinion though they have now reached sublime quality with their valentines, duster and strykers etc. These are now the best quality kits in the market in my opinion. All the detail you could want in manageable amounts of pieces with incredible moulding, superb engineering and great fun to build

Chris, AFV also had their own M41 at the same time Skybow released theirs. It is definately a different kit. They went head to head on a few things from memory..Their first kits were definately their own and included the M49 Trucks, Chapparal AD system, the M548 TLC, US M101 Howitzer, M59 Howitzer and the Scimitar CVR (T). I have one of their original flyers from circa 94 which showed a Firefly VC as coming soon. The reboxings came much later after Skybow went under. and they added that range to theirs.

Their M18 and M10 family aren't the most accurate of kits and I would love them to revisit these subjects.

I share your view that they are at the top of the game. Not only that they offer great value for money being generally cheaper than ML here. I keep hoping they may do a range of Crusaders and Cromwells to go wit the Vally's and Churchills. Maybe oneday...