I jumped at the chance to review the Value Gear M10-ACH as I am a huge fan of Value Gear, its amazing sets, and its owner (and producer, shipper, sales, customer service, and everything else to make a company work guy), Steve Munsell (also known as one of the nicest guys in our hobby).

To best set the stage for this review, here is Value Gear's Goal from their website:

The Value Gear idea is to give model builders (me included) a more useful spares box! Creating and casting sets of Generic/Universal stowage. No helmets no weapons and nothing to keep you from using it in a wooden cart, a chariot, a truck, or a panther tank. "Any Army Any Era!" is my motto. They won't work on everything but so far I have seen people use them on so many different trucks and tanks and even some War Hammer tanks and dioramas. Stowage are accents to help give your model some story or a lived in realistic look. Armies live under canvas...

The Generic/Universal idea is one that bounced around in my head for years, but I never had time or energy working 12 hours a day in USA, to get started. Moving to Ireland for the past 2 years gave me the chance to be a daytime dad (priceless chance of a lifetime) and a night time sculpting and resin casting machine.

The Value Gear Promise is to have the best customer service, and constantly improving and innovative quality and new ideas. All sets will have the minimal amount of cleanup before use and no huge pour plugs to saw off and potentially ruin a piece like we have all done in the past. A little scraping and a little sanding is all you will ever need with Value Gear.

This 16-piece set is advertised for the 1:35 Tamiya M10 Achilles, and while it fits beautifully, it can also be used for the Academy kit and any other WWII British/Commonwealth (or shortly post WWII) kit in 1:35. The only limiting factor to other kits is the incorporation of the British Brodie helmet in two pieces (one has two helmets, the other has one). Anyone with a hobby knife can remove the helmets and use the gear universally as the tarps, most bags are interchangeable. Also included are five British backpacks, two crates, three top opening bags, and a very creative frying pan on a box.

The kit pieces are beautifully and crisply molded, requiring very little flash cleanup. Value Gear even includes a “Helpful Tips – Working with Resin Parts” insert. After a quick wash and priming, the pieces were ready for painting. Due to their excellent definition, painting is a pleasure, and you soon have a lot of great gear for a lived-in look for the model.

This is a great, ready-made set for the M10 Achilles, but works for a plethora of other models as well. You are only limited by your creativity.

Profuse thanks to Value Gear and IPMS/USA for providing the review s