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In December my son was away for the weekend, so I used his bedroom for a bit of a stash stocktake. I came to the conclusion that I've perhaps bought a few too many and should try building a few of them: But where to start? Too much choice! Oh, buy something new instead! - NO! Then, when I finished a 1/16 Renault FT for the "Go Large or Go Home GB" I hit upon the idea of continuing through my stash in the chronological order that the tanks went into production. This will put a much-needed structure around what I'm doing, and force me to tackle a few kits that are a bit daunting and would just never get built. I'm hoping to get through six kits in 2024, which sounds a bit unambitious, but 2/3 of them will have full interiors that grind me to a halt. Six kits will get me from 1927 to the end of 1933. 1934 can be a thread all of its own in 2025. Who knows, I might even make it to 1939 one day! Look at all those Panzer III's, I'll get to them eventually. They'll all be OOTB, and done to my usual no-prize-winning "looks OK from 6 feet away" standard, and I've gone off weathering completely because I just seem to end up with models that look the same when I've finished. Maybe building more will give me the chance to improve my skills, who knows? So - as long as the admins are ok with me having one thread for more than one build - off we go.

T-18 Light Tank Model 1927 Hobbyboss 1/35 It occurred to me recently that, what with all the Bandai Star Wars kits I've been doing recently, it's been a while since I've done an armour build on here. In fact I think the last one was the SS-23 and that was over a year ago. Time to change that then, and something Soviet and inter-war seems like a good idea. This is the new Hobbyboss T-18, which was the first all Russian tank, albeit heavily based on the French FT. It's a pretty standard Hobbyboss kit, moulded in sand coloured styrene with non-working indi links and a splash of PE. This isn't meant to be an in-box review (I'm sure Mike will be doing a proper one soon), but I'll post some sprue shots so you've got something to look at until I start cutting plastic. It all comes in a smallish box (12" x 8" if you're curious) with just four sprues for the tank and another 2 for the tracks. There's a separate lower hull, upper hull and turret, and a small sheet of PE. Sprue A's got some of the hull panels and the fenders, along with a few details including, annoyingly, a solid moulded headlight. It's not even moulded with a separate solid lens, which would at least have made swapping it for a clear replacement easier. Rather it's got the housing and lens as a single solid piece, so to replace it I'll have to drill it out. Not much on sprue B. Just the turret base and main hatch. It looks like the sprue's been designed to be modifiable to take alternate part for future releases. I seem to recall Hobbyboss having more than one version listed in the 2016 catalogue. Two sprue D's carrying duplicate parts for the running gear. Two sprue T's (T for track, get it... oh, ever mind). Indi links aren't everyone's cup of char, nor mine for that matter, but these don't look too bad. No separate guide horns or pads to add, and the runs are only 51 links long. The single piece lower hull... ... and the upper hull and turret. Last up there's the small PE sheet. Mainly the perforated shroud that will need bending to a curved profile. There's no jig provided for that, so I'll probably end up doing it round a knife handle or pencil. I don't like the look of the tiny individual bolt heads. Don't know where they go yet, but I'll more than likely substitute some Meng bolt heads for them. And that's it. No decals as there's only one scheme provided, and it carries no markings. From a cursory glance everything looks well moulded. I've not really started checking references regarding accuracy, but I'll get on to that in the build. It looks like a T-18 which is the main thing. And, just so you know, this is a tiny tank. How tiny... this tiny More soon Andy