1) Price? – Bought for £28 from Lonewulf Models

2) Where to buy? – Available from White Ensign, JB Model, Jadar and others

3) What’s in the kit? – A small hull, lots of tiny resin parts, an etched fret, brass barrels, decals, instructions, basically the only thing missing is rigging material, but I’m not asking for that.

4) First impression? – Crikey.  For a small model the part count is huge, looks incredibly detailed and for the seriously experienced modeller.

5) Quality of hull and large parts? – Hard to describe the hull as a large part but it is the biggest.  Casting is ok, there are some rough areas on the deck.  The main concern lies in the hull compared to the 700 scale drawings in the instructions, it is about 2mm too shallow in draft against the drawings.  For such a small vessel this is a massive difference and given the attention given to other parts, hard to fathom why such a basic mistake was made.

mode2.htm6) Quality of small parts? – Very well cast, but why put so many fine resin casting all together in one little plastic bag?  Two of the funnels were missing in my kit, not too much of a problem as both of those remaining had air voids at the top of the stack so would need replacing in any case.

8) Instructions? – Average, not well printed and hard to pick out the numbers of some parts.  For such an incredibly complex kit they could be a lot better.

9) Assembly? – Challenging. The tiny 6 pdr guns, of which there are six, have two resin parts, a brass barrel and five tiny etched parts which are bordering on the limits of useability for the majority of modellers.  Much of the superstructure such as there is, is made up of etched parts.  This is one kit where an in the box review will only tell part of the story.
10) Does anything need replacing? – Some may decide to simplify the kit parts and replace with more manageable items.

11) What extra parts would I recommend? – A strong light, some magnification and a good set of tweezers.

12) Is there a dedicated PE fret for the kit? – Yes, a very large one for such a small vessel, though many appear not to be required for this particular ship.                                
13) Available references? – A search on the internet has provided very little.  The history provided is in Polish. 

14) Camo patterns  / colour scheme? – There is a colour plan but no indication as to the colours required or any recommedations.

15) Rigging? – Should be fairly easy.

16) Can different versions be made from the kit? – Not really, given the nature of the kit it feels like the modeller is very much guided to building one particular ship.

17) Would I recommend this to a beginner? – Absolutely not!

18) Is it value for money? – For the price, I would have to say no given the size of the eventual model, although it is a very complete kit in every respect. 

19) Would I buy other products from this manufacturer? – I have bought one other kit (ORP Krakowiak)

20) Any other comments? – I’m not really sure how I feel about this kit but I think I can only really comment once it has been built.  There is certainly an element of complexity for the sake of it, I wonder how many modellers will actually use all the parts made available.  In terms of completeness it is very impressive, but the error on the hull, given the attention to detail in other areas, is really unforgiveable.  This range of kits makes me a little uncomfortable as a modeller, it is certainly at the opposite end to what Fine Waterline produce in our kit range.  I wonder where the room for creativity and originality is, it makes me feel like I am doing no more than seeing if I am able to put all the supplied parts together, the challenge is not perhaps in building a good model, but in seeing if the modeller is able to actually build the kit.  In many ways it seems as if it is a contest between designer and builder, like completing the Times crossword or a thousand piece jigsaw of baked beans. 
 
These days it seems like so many modellers want a kit to include everything and this one this certainly does but for me, I’m not sure I really like it.