¹⁄35

Italeri continue with the World of Tanks theme in a big way this month. Several 1/35 kits have been repackaged with glue, special WoT decals, posters of new artwork, and 1 month free WoT membership. None of these kits are new of course, in fact some are ancient, but if it brings more folks to the hobby…

Italeri are obviously having some success marketing some of their older 1/35 kits into the World of Tanks franchise, as this month sees another four kits of varying ages and provenances being re-unleashed with some quite tasty new art work on the box tops as well as a few other bits and bobs in the boxes. Note that none of these contain what you might call “proper” decals to allow an “authentic” tank to be modelled, these are firmly aimed at WoT fans.

36506 World of Tanks - Pz.Kpfw.V Panther. From the sprue shots this appears to be Italeri’s Ausf G (no-one really cares… it’s a Panther!!) but without the etched metal, and with vinyl tracks, though the piece of string for the tow cable is still in the box. The included poster is pretty big at 42 x 59.4cm (that’s 2 feet across) and then there’s the glue, the WoT voucher, and the fantasy decals.

36508 World of Tanks - Type 59. As far as I can make out this is actually the Esci T-55 kit which Italeri have issued previously as kit number 6427, and is originally from the 1990s – so never mind which Ausfuhrung the Panther is, this is now a Type 59! As above, the box contains all the bonus bits, and note that this one does come with link and length hard tracks. A great atmospheric illustration for the poster.

36507 World of Tanks - Leopard 1. The poster art on this one really takes the biscuit (it’s just not the kind of art work you normally see for modern tanks) as it lurches through crepuscular smouldering city ruins. Not too sure which of Italeri’s Leopards this is, possibly the 1A5, which I believe is from the 1970s.

36509 World of Tanks - T-34/85. I think this is the kit that Italeri reboxed from Zvezda’s 1990s offering. I’m slightly disappointed by the artwork for this one, perhaps just because I’m so blasé about seeing paintings of this particular tank rampaging heroically over urban devastation in the gathering dusk. Vinyl tracks, glue, funny decals, poster, vouchers are all in the box.