#062 Axis Of Chess

Welcome to “Axis of Chess”, my little excuse for using up a bunch of spare Pit-Road 1:700 vehicles.

Notes

I shamelessly borrowed the idea from @beckersmodels after seeing his brilliant armour chess in 1:100.

1:700 scale turns out to be a nice size to do little base vignettes on S$0.10 coins. It took quite a few weeks to make the pieces and a couple of modelling sessions to make the chess board. The chess tiles are actually plywood decals from @proper.plane; I was originally going to do two shades of wood tile, but I stopped at this midway point that I really like - gives the impression of a marble and wood hand-crafted board, though it’s actually just plastic and decals;-)

The Kit

I love these 1:700 vehicle sets from Pit-Road. They give you a good selection of vehicles and are wonderfully moulded and detailed for 1:700. At the moment the range is quite limited but there are more kits in development that will add US, Soviet and British subjects to the line.

At present though I could only get axis forces, hence the red-on-red action!

The MI02 WWII German Military Vehicle Set 1 features:

• 6 x Sd.Kfz.7
• 6 x Sd.Kfz.251
• 16 x Kfz.305
• 4 x Tiger I
• 4 x Marder II
• 6 x 88mm Flak 37
• 6 x 75mm Pak 40

I decided to assign the pieces as follows:

Paint Scheme

Main paints used:

Build Log

The Pit-Road 1:700 military vehicles are both incredibly small and also incredibly detailed

A bunch of 5c (S$) coins and primed models from the Pit-Road kits - perfect together.

Afrika Corp ready for action

The only problem with the Pit-Road kits is that they are limited to axis forces, hence the red-on-red action!

Making a chess board - some plasticard and bass wood.

The magic starts to happen with plywood decals from @proper.plane

Credits and References

• this project on scalemates
• WWII German Military Vehicle Set 1 Pit-Road No. MI02 1:700
  • on scalemates
  • on Pit-Road site - MI02 1/700 WWII ドイツ軍用車両セット 1
  • instructions
• Proper Plane plywood decals

Research References

Build References

• Chris Becker’s armour chess in 1:100