Review of FMG Italians and HBG Axis Minors

Guys,

I’ll let you know in about 2-3 weeks when I get my FMG Italian Rifle Infantry back from “Allworkandnoclay” about how well the paint “sticks”.  He’s painting them in his “Desert Drab” scheme.  I’ll post some pics then.

“Tall Paul”

Yes, Paul, the units in caps lend themselves very well to “Afrika Korps units”.  The ivory color would do well.

Doesn’t Allwork… use a primer before painting?  Another idea is to paint the pieces and then spray a coat of Dullcote to seal it in.

That’s what I should have done with my Pro-Axis neutral pieces.  The paint started to chip off of the gun barrels.  I want to see FMG’s Germans to see if they are dark enough to be distinguishable from my Pro-Axis neutral pieces.  If they are, I can simply retouch the color I already used.  If not, then I have to choose a lighter shade of grey.

KNP,

You can read about “Allwork’s” methods on painting in his thread.  He’s very talented and thorough like a professional should be.  He’s also a nice guy to talk to.  His thread is in the “A&A-Global area” and of course he’s the originator.

“Tall Paul”

I painted mine.  Primed then first and painted them in an acrylic.  Holds up just fine.

Some pics:

More:

More:

Nice turn-out with the avocado - and the BB mods look smooth.  8-) You sticking to the OOB infantry?  Or using them as a different unit?

Which takes us to the next question: how will the units hold up to painting them?

FMG’s takes to acrylics just fine, I know this firsthand.  I haven’t tried painting any of HBG’s, but I think some others on here have.

HBG’s pieces paint well, i use tamiya acrylics, have just invested in some vallejo, will see how they go. By the way, my son beat me to it, he has already painted 1 set of the axis minors, and is using the vallejo paint, he thinks there cool  :-D

I love the carrier and the subs

@Viracocha:

Nice turn-out with the avocado - and the BB mods look smooth.   8-) You sticking to the OOB infantry?  Or using them as a different unit?

I do not plan to switch out all my pieces from OOB to FMG, so I’m keeping the OOB inf to stay consistent with the other inf (not that you could tell on the board anyway).  For mec, I used Table Tactics half tracks.

Are table tactics halftracks still available?== because they did come with the now defunct “Central Powers” expansion set.

I don’t know if you can still get them.

I have recently just gotten HBG’s pieces.  I have now switched out the Table Tactics mec with HBG’s trucks, which I will now be using as motorized inf (mec).

@jim010:

I don’t know if you can still get them.

I have recently just gotten HBG’s pieces.  I have now switched out the Table Tactics mec with HBG’s trucks, which I will now be using as motorized inf (mec).

yES, they look nice.  I’m using them as mech infantry also because it’s almost impossible to find any of the central powers half tracks on ebay.

Great News! Coach is coming out with an “Italian Brown” Minors set next week so we can use the trucks not only to replace FMG’s truck but also as Mech Infantry. Now I’d love to see the Neutral Set come out in French blue so I can add the trucks to the Frence mix.

FMG is coming out with a France set and they will have trucks in them.  Plus, they should be more appropriate looking.  Jeremy said the Italian truck was a one-time mistake as far as the size goes, the rest of the nations’ truck pieces will look much better.
Also, Jeremy may decide to do France after UK, Canada and ANZAC.  That’s not as far away as it seems.  ANZAC and Canada will use the British mold but be different colors, so they should go pretty quickly.

@knp7765:

FMG is coming out with a France set

This is good news.  Is there an estimate of when it’s expected?

Received my Italian set a few days ago, opened and inspected, while i’m happy with the detail there is a bit of work to be done, the battleships turret problem and all the subs are curved. To make matters worse, i had the dice on order they arrived as well, but i had the misfortune of my package arriving by courier. The box had been crushed, so there were a few broken infantry but can you believe they managed to break some of the dice……    :?   Oh well, win some and lose some. By the way the piece count was almost perfect. Thank you Jeremy, will put in another order shortly.

They broke the DICE?  WOW.  That must have been one hell of a hit to the box!!

Bent subs are easy enough to fix (warm them up to the point where the plastic softens slightly, gently bend back into shape, dunk quickly in ice water to cool and set them).