FOW Open Fire construction mistakes

A week out from purchasing Flames of War Open Fire I have began painting and finished six pak40 solders (this may be slow but not to bad for me). However I have also noticed some of the mistakes I made while constructing. I guess mistakes are part of the fun right? Yet I am sure if anyone purchases any of these models or Open Fire they could learn from my mistakes. Perhaps the best way to do this would be to read the instructions before construction! No more Captain skim reading.

Mistake One

Perhaps this isn't a big issue, yet when I stuck my solders to popsicle sticks for easy painting, I stuck them on with super glue. This means I now have to use a hobby knife to detach them. So far the hobby knife has been OK however I do risk damaging the nicely painted models.

How about blue-tak not superglue. 

Next time I will use blue-tak.


Mistake Two

I glued the StuG G machine gun on wrong. The best way to show you this is with a photo.

Machine gun sitting forward

I glued the machine gun to far forward in the little slot where it goes. It is supposed to sit back in. Sadly the glue is to strong and the piece to little to want to risk snapping it while trying to relocate it back into place. I think it will look OK in the end but I hope fanatics won't criticise these if we ever get along to a tournament or such like.

Leasons learnt. 

1. Don't skim read the instructions
2. Use blue-tak
3. Watch where you are glueing things. 

Anyway I thought I would put up a couple of photos of some of the painted guys. I am pretty new to painting so they are not 100% great and they are the first 15mm guys I have painted. Luckily I don't think they look to bad. 

On lookout

I thought I would make the shells red
with white stripes for a bit of intrigue

I like this guy but I can't quite work out what his right hand is doing

More on the Open Fire box set here.