Takom vs Hobbyboss 1/35 St Chamond

[Evil_Toast_RSA]

Hoping someone can help here. Been in the mood to build a St Chamond for a few years now, and the recent Netflix movie has ramped up my urge by about 300%. But for the life of me I cannot seem to find much online about the HB offering. Can anyone tell me how these 2 kits compare, can get either for roughly the same price here (Takom late and HB early, I'm not really fussed which one to be honest).

 

I would be keen to hear about ease of assembly (Takom seems to have a very complicated running gear/suspension that requires your full attention to not mess it up for example) and glaring inaccuracies if any (if one is 2mm short, that's fine. If one has 20mm Vulcan rotary cannons instead of Hotchkiss 8mm guns, that would probably be a red mark against it). 

 

Also, any suggestions on colours would be nice. Seen some French WW1 tanks built where they use a particularly bright French Blue, which to me is a bit odd, I would of thought a darker Prussian/Oxford type blue would have been used?   

 

Thanks!

[Kingsman]

Can't help with the kits, having not built either.  But on past record Hobbyboss is likely to be an easier build.  But have a look at the tracks in reviews.  The Hobbyboss tracks on their Schneider were a multi-part mare and I ended up swapping them for some Meng FT click tracks.  Close enough.  If one has click tracks and one doesn't that would be a decider for me.

 

Blast Models have 4 update or accessory sets for the St Chamond here https://www.blast-models.eu/en/search?controller=search&s=chamond

 

As for colours, as is usual for WW1 your guess is as good as mine. There was no codification, colours were batch hand mixed, there is no original colour imagery, colourised photos are not worth the pixels they're made of and there are no surviving original colour artefacts.  Got it?  But note that the French uniform colour by the time their tanks appeared was Bleu Horizon, a distinctly mid blue-grey.  So they must have thought that colour to have some advantage.  Portuguese troops under British command wore a similar colour.  For troops in the open against a skyline it might have made some sense.

 

The purpose of these zany schemes was to confuse, not disguise.  But unlike the British, who concluded with the Solomon schemes on the MkIs that trying to disguise a large moving object that would inevitably be skylined and covered in mud was a waste of time, the French continued with zany disruptive painting.  As indeed did Germany with their buntfarbenanstrich - which included a grey.

 

Bottom line is that no-one can say it is wrong because no-one can prove what was right.  Monochrome shows you tone, not colour.

 

FYI here is a Schneider I did a while back, but I stuck with earthy tones.  Still quite vibrant.  I have since been told that the checkerboard lines were always and without exception ruler-straight.  But I have my doubts about the absoluteness of that statement when there was clearly so much individual variety of painting.

[KingCobra]

I did the Takom one. No problems with tracks or anything else. Didn't have the mojo to do the paintjob jet.  

[europapete]

Thanks Kingsman!  Just ordered the full set from Blast Models 👍

[Up673429]

I've just built the Hobbyboss version.  It goes together well although the suspension is a little fiddly and the springs don't fit so well together and leave large seams although that may be me being careless when I removed them from the sprue.

 

The tracks snap together and are more resilient than the Meng tracks on their enormous Char!

 

I bought the Ammo Mig WW1 paint set that contains a dark blue (I can't remember which) but the colour callout for the kit is RLM78 I think, but that looks a little bright tbh.

 

This is my first HB kit and I'd buy another based on this.  I have not built a Takom kit yet but have a Panther and Bergepanther in the stash both with full interior that look orders of magnitude more complex...

 

 

[nheather]

If there is not much to choose between them then price might be a factor - in the UK the HB is much cheaper, you can almost buy two HBs for the price of one Takom.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

[Evil_Toast_RSA]

2 hours ago, nheather said:

If there is not much to choose between them then price might be a factor - in the UK the HB is much cheaper, you can almost buy two HBs for the price of one Takom.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

 

Correction, just checked, same price. 34 of your Pounds Sterling to be precise when converted. Global shipping and import fees are a killer, the HB one costs 25 quid on Hannants.  

 

[EDIT] - so what I'm getting at, the determining factor is how fiddly the Takom kit is to build. Watched a build, looks alright but getting it assembled will require not dropping stuff or being clumsy. Tall order for me!  

Edited November 9, 2022 by Evil_Toast_RSA
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[europapete]

I have built the Takom MkIV, and it went together great, parts fit, etc.