October 2006 - Noble Air200 Part One : The Luftwaffe
This month we examine the sculpts and miniatures offered from Noble miniatures Air200 line. Noble, (located in Madison, Wisconsin, USA) has a lot to offer the
miniature-airplane gamer. They have a large line of World War 1 and 2 aircraft of varying scales. Their online store is a phone-order system, but hopefully they
will get that moved into the 20th centurey sometime soon. The figs we are going to look at this month, and continue next month are from their 1:200 scale
world war 2 line. These figs are also available at the online store over at Warbirdsinminiature.com.
JU-88 (A2-GE301) : $8.99
This is by far the largest fig in the collection, and to be honest my favorite of this month's reviewed figs. The cost is for a single fig. With a wingspan of approximately 3 1/2 to 4 inches, nice
depth, and good detail, this miniature is an excellent depiction of the historical aircraft. I saw one of these (well, an entire schwarm really) that Trent Burg
(designer of Warbirds in Miniature) was using for his Battle of Britain scenarios and honest to goodness though that it was a pre-painted and decaled plastic toy!
It was done up so well, and man did it look nice on the table.
Some JU-88s I have bought before have had the machine gun stumps sticking out of the aircraft. These
do not come with machine gun stubs. At first I thought it was a little strange, but when I cleaned up the aircraft prior to painting, I actually appreciated it.
The cleanup and flash (very little) removal went so darned quick, I got through a stack of 6 of them in about 4 or 5 minutes. I thought that I might install pins
for the guns, but then when I saw T.B.'s I thought, why hassle with them, they look great as-is, and I am just going to add more work for myself.
There was enough meat on the fuselage that I had no trouble drilling the 1/4" hole for my set screw (to mount on the AireStand Bomber base from Aerie Games - these are simply too heavy for the fighter bases). They primed up nicely,
and looked great when I put my base layer of color on them. I would rank this a little higher, but the price is just a little steep. That being said, there is a
lot of metal on this here little bird. Well done lads, a good 4.5 for this one.
The schematic I have listed here is of a different wing design than the figs, but I think you will get the idea (so many models, so little drawings...).
JU-87 STUKA w/37mm GUNS (A2-GE201) : $5.99
Ah, the stuka! No collection would be complete without this gull-winged dive bomber. As an assembled and painted miniature, this is an excellent depiction of the
divebomber. The cost is for a single fig, which comes with separate landing gear that you must affix under the wings. I will be honest, I absolutely hate doing this on minis,
so the rating for this fig is at a 3 only because of this issue. Since I love to play (and prefer the time spent playing to painting), anything that makes me do more
work to a fig, gets me griping. Now, I know it is darned near impossible to make this bird as a single cast (the landing gear has a tendency to snap off in the molds, etc.,
so I will cut a little slack in that department. Landing gear gripes aside, this is a VERY nice fig. I was amazed at the detail they got into it, and once I got one painted
up, was very pleased with the results. As for the JU-88, there was very litle grit or flashing, a good clean sculpt.
The greatest time spent was on attaching the landing gear, which I did with my special blend of psychology and extreme violence. That and some putty and glue. I thought about pinning the landing gear on, but I am all
thumbs when it is drill time, and the landing gear pieces are a little thin. I DID learn a tip I will share with you now: Drill your AireStand holes, and glue in your setscrew BEFORE you put your landing gear on, otherwise
you will have to reaffix your gear if you, like me, are not the world's most adept user of the drill press.
If my mind serves me correctly, there are some pics of this figure making a dive-bombing run in the ruleset for Warbirds in Miniature. A good fig, and like I mention, the only
issues I had with it were the landing gear. A 3.5 well deserved.
ME-109E (A2-GE103) : $6.99
The mainstay of the German Luftwaffe, the ME109. This E model will serve you for anything up to and including the Battle of Britain (and a little after as well I suppose).
The cost is for a pair of aircraft, and well worth it. This is a good, sculpt, very true to form, and easy to work with. I was able to trim a schwarm, drill holes for AireStands, and get them primed in a little under an hour.
There was plenty of metal, so I did not have to worry too much when it came time to affixing the setscrews. The figs were clean and trimmed up very quickly. Once I got them painted
with their little yellow noses, they were looking pretty sharp. Again, I saw some of these that T.B. from Warbirds in Miniature was using at Historicon. WOW! did they ever look great.
This is a good rendition that will serve you well: nice detail, good edges on the wings (like they are supposed to be!). I could not find anything even remotely worth picking at, a really nice fig.
If you are going to run a Battle of Britain campaign, or anything prior to mid to end 1940, you are going to need a good handful of this aircraft. Also, some of the aircraft flown by the Luftwaffe in the desert war were
ME 109s, so you could strethc a little there as well.
This is a 4.5. Excellent sculpt, great detail. Clean and easy to mount.
ME-109F (A2-GE104) : $6.99
The f model of the bf109 in the Air200 line is a solid figure, a little light on the metal in the nose for me, but overall a good fig.
Once you get them painted, boy do they sure look nice.
The wings on the f model (and the g model as well) are rounded, rather than square (just like they are supposed to be), and the overall appearance of the miniature has the same
sleek appearance that the real aircraft did (as opposed to the boxy shape of the bf109E).
Putting the set screws into this one was a bit more tricky than the 109e, there is a little less metal to play with, so you have to be careful about mounting it. The fig otherwise is
nice and clean, hardly any flashing to remove or filing to be done.
If you are planning on playing mid-war campaigns, or the career or Adolph Galland, then you are going to need a few of these in your collection. If memory serves me correctly,
this is the aircraft that Galland scored most of his kills in.
This is a 3.5. Okay sculpt, good detail. Needs a little more metal for my tastes, especially in the nose area.
ME-109G (A2-GE102) : $6.99
The g model of the bf109 in the Air200 line, in my opinion, is not as sturdy as the 109E. It has a little less metal, that made the mounting of the set screw a little
more tricky. The nose seemed just a little flatter than it appears in my diagrams of the historical aircraft. Okay, enough of its shortcomings. The fig, as almost all
of the Air 200O line was a clean fig, hardly any filing or flash removal, and the detail is really quite nice. Once I got a couple painted up in Med scheme, they looked
very decent and were nice to play with. The fig overall is an okay one, but still not as good as their bf109E.
The figure itself includes the 'bubbles' for the larger gun mounts in both the nose and wing areas. If you look at the painted figures, you can see that the detail is not lost when
a good color scheme is added on. With the right paint and shading techniques, you can make the details very pronounced.
This miniature should serve you well as a mid-late war aircraft. It can definitely pass as any of the late war models (if you are not too anal retentive that is). You could use it as anything past and including the F model
and it would serve you just fine.
This is a 3.5. Okay sculpt, good detail. Needs a little more metal for my tastes, especially in the nose area (but just a little bit of modelling can take care of that for you).
FW-190 (A2-GE101) : $6.99
The FW 190 model from Noble is a great fig, and my favorite in the Noble Air200 range.
This fig is excellently detailed, cleans up nicely, has enough meat on its bones that putting the set screw for my AireStand was painless.
I recently read about the FW 190 and its maneuverability in JG26 (if you haven't read it, you must find a copy), particularly how balanced the actual aircraft was. I was pleasantly surprised that
when I held the figure in my hand it gave a sense of being well-balanced. Maybe that was my mind playing tricks on me, but the figure is definitely well balanced.
I have been able to succesfully pull of using the Noble FW-190 for the entire scopre of the operating dates of the historic aircraft without any problems. The figure has very little flashing, so cleaning it up
was easy. Painted models of this fig look great. Although I don't have a metal picture of this one yet, I will soon. One great little feature is the engine cowelling detail. Very nicely done fellas.
This is a great figure, I give it a 5 rating.
Noble Air200 Overall Rating
Overall the German aircraft put out by Noble are good, solid sculpts! Not a whole lot of flashing to trim, and all were very grit-free and clean. I would say they are pretty close to the best 1:200 scale aircraft I
have painted and played with so far. I would absolutely love to see them expand their line and get my hands on some more. A VERY solid 4. The price is just about right, and the figs
were easy to modify to put on the AireStands (my choice for air stands) from Aerie Miniatures (see our Warbirds in Miniature review).
Johann