First Impressions

This review product arrived in the mail wrapped in cardboard and amply reinforced duct tape. Upon opening the mailing package I found a heavy-duty, injection-molded black plastic, 11 ¾” by 15 5/8” long, enclosed in a clear plastic bag wrapper. A small sprue of clear plastic parts was also enclosed. The aircraft carrier deck is molded as an inverted tray, and is quite sturdy.

The engraving for the deck planks and elevator were clean and crisp, but might be considered too pronounced for an airplane model. For the bean counters, there are 190 tie downs. The welded seams are almost too finely rendered, with only a small portion that appears to have “faded”. There are four rectangular depressions that I assume receive the clear parts. On the underside of the tray was a date: 2001.

This is a very nice slick covered magazine, but if you want to read it, you better know Japanese. It contains a lot of visual information for the modeler. All the pictures are clear and high resolution, even the multitude of advertisements. This issue deals mainly with aircraft with some auto, armor and ship articles.

This edition’s articles are:

I’m not a war gamer, but I’ve been curious about it for a few years now so I jumped to the opportunity to review a war gaming book.

Fields of Glory is a series of war gaming books oriented to the ancient and medieval ages. This current book is the first of the series expanding into the renaissance era and as such is the rulebook.

The book has a historical introduction to the military doctrine of the renaissance era including pros and cons of different military formations of the time (tercios, keils, cavalry, etc).

Then the book moves into what is needed in order to be able to play, before diving into details of troops, battle groups and in general, the rules of the game, including movement rules and combat phases like impact, maneuvering, shooting and melee. Each rule is demonstrated with examples, which makes understanding and learning of the rule much simple.

ModelArt special subject magazines are really softbound reference books on a particular subject. ModelArt Autumn 2010 No. 37 is entirely devoted to ships. No. 37 is the fourth part of detailed coverage of WW2 Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) destroyers. This issue covers the Akizuki, Shimakaze, Matsu and Tachibana classes, all commissioned after the start of the Pacific War. Patrol boat conversions from 1940 onwards of the obsolescent Minekaze class are also covered, as are some new kits of modern warships. This issue is designed for modelers of IJN destroyers of these classes. Each class shows which kits and scales are available, and builds different ships in each class to show the variations and modifications during wartime use. Corrections to current kits to make accurate depictions are also shown. Best of all, line drawings show the exact, anatomically-correct look (fit) of particular ships at a particular date.

This book describes the battles of the US First and Ninth Armies between the breakout of Normandy and the final crossing of the Roer River ending in late February of 1945. These two armies were located south of the British Army in the general area where Holland, Belgium and Germany meet.

The book is divided into 15 chapters with an introduction, 1 appendix, a Bibliography and Index: