Small Scale Military Headquarters

Big news, in the 1/32 and smaller scale.

Hard to believe that there is no news of this at all on here.

Whaaa?!?!? The first scheme isn't a Jolly Rogers bird? I'm disappointed..lol

haven't heard about it anywhere...where did you find out about it? It must have been just announced within the last day or two. I know a Prowler and Viking are coming at the end of the year but have seen/heard nothing about an F-14.

aferguson wrote:haven't heard about it anywhere...where did you find out about it? It must have been just announced within the last day or two. I know a Prowler and Viking are coming at the end of the year but have seen/heard nothing about an F-14.

http://www.hobbymastercollector.com/news.html

Wonder why they're doing this? Not very original as there are plenty of good diecast 1:72 F-14 models already in existence... I think just about every manufacturer, save Corgi, has done them at some point over the past decade. Its hard to see how the HM example would be better than the the Century Wings models... Heck, I've been very happy with my two FOV examples, which are based on the excellent CW tooling. I was happy to see HM tackling some of the lesser-known and more interesting naval aircraft like the E2C, the S2, and the RA-5C, but the F-14 is again very unoriginal...

well, lots have been calling for HM to do a Tomcat. The CW is crazy expensive and many don't like the deep panel lines. The FOV usually gets similar remarks about the panel lines. The Witty gets bashed to pieces, although i quite like it and have 3.

So i guess HM figured they would release one along with all the other USN planes they are doing this year. I'm sure it will sell well and they will produce loads of schemes for it no doubt.

Funny, this is the first i've heard of it.

I figured if it was posted here amother interwebs F-14 argument might occur on here like the other boards.

Marushin is releasing a J2M3 though.

it was just posted for the first time on Yuku yesterday so it may just be a recent announcement. HM might be waiting longer for some announcements because of AF1 scooping them a bit on the Hawkeye.

Found out yesterday, on an email from Pete's.

Surprised to say the least, and the Pub was alight with the news. Some good, some bad.

HM has been doing a lot of the modern USN aircraft lately, with the Hawkeye, Vigilante, Prowler etc.

So the Tomcat seems like a logical choice, but completely unexpected.

Does seem to be a clear shot at Century Wings, and will be interesting to see how their Tomcat turns out, and the retail price.

Myself, I am a Century Wings fan, and will be sticking with them. And how many Tomcats do I really need? Already have more than 35 of them.

Stay tuned. Could get ugly on the forums.

after reading some posts on the Yuku forum it appears the 'new' HM Tomcat is a reissue of the Century Wings Tomcat. Molds appear to be identical, from pictures at least. The price is also higher than the newer HM releases, which also suggests it's the CW tooling being used.

I'll stick with my Wittys. I quite like them.

Did you guys see this from William posted on Hobbymastercollector.com?

2) Hobby Master tooling is totally new. We didn't cooperate with any other brands
on this. But it will be very similar to another brand's tooling.

i see, so they didn't use it, they copied it.

How very unoriginal

I'll stick with my FOV version, which itself is also based on the CW tooling

i'm sure the HM's will get gobbled up, but i'll pass. They're the same price as the new Hawkeye. I got my Witty Tomcats for about $40 plus shipping. HM's prices seem to be growing out of proportion with the economic times.

On an unrelated note, i just received my Revell Snap Tite Millennium Falcon i bought on sale at Amz. Really nicely detailed kit, for the price. Quite impressed. Comes prepainted and includes a little 1/72 Han and Chewie (who are also prepainted). A little extra detail painting and weathering could really make it a fine looking model, though it looks great the way it comes.

Basically an exact copy, and the price is only marginally cheaper.

I have always been a big Century Wings fan, and have their entire line up, except for a couple of the latest SR-71 Blackbirds.

Not very happy that HM chose to do the Tomcat. Various reasons.

Don't need anymore, and happy enough to pick up the Century Wings releases when they come out.

Somewhat lessens the value of the CW ones that I have, which can be substantial.

Does seem at least to me, a tactic to try and put CW out of business. Bullying, and trying to monopolize the market, which isn't good for anybody.

Prefer that HM put their time and effort into something that hasn't already been extensively covered by Dragon, Witty, FoV, and continues to be by CW.

Might make "business sense", but I don't like the mentallity, and what seems to me an attempt to wipe out any competition.

There are basically two camps on this. Those that want HM to release every single Tomcat ever made, and those that like their CW, and not happy with HM for some, or all of the above reasons.

aferguson wrote: On an unrelated note, i just received my Revell Snap Tite Millennium Falcon i bought on sale at Amz. Really nicely detailed kit, for the price. Quite impressed. Comes prepainted and includes a little 1/72 Han and Chewie (who are also prepainted). A little extra detail painting and weathering could really make it a fine looking model, though it looks great the way it comes.

I bought one of those a few months ago, also on Amazon. I think I've seen the kit now at Toys R Us as well. My sentiments are the same as yours with it being a great model! Its a good size without being too small or too large and it looks proportional. I like the optional retracted/extended landing legs pieces and the extendable boarding ramp. I only painted some of the cockpit interior a dark gray so its harder to see the posts, etc. Back in the day, I want to say it was Revell that had a Millennium Falcon model in similar scale that had all the interior detailed.

Some of the other Revell ships are scaled to one another as well. I have the Revell Snaptite kits of the ARC-170 fighter and Anakin's ROTS Jedi Starfighter, both of which are about 1:48 scale. Been tempted to get the X-Wing and TIE fighter as well, but they are off-scale from the Falcon.

the Revell Rebel Gunship and Y-wing are both in scale with the Falcon. The Imperial Shuttle isn't technically but looks fine beside it, from pics i've seen. Bandai is coming out with a 1/72 Y-wing as well and already have an X wing. They're not snap kits but have a bit of pre-painting done.