Blood Red Skies Models (2) Me109E “Emil”

So moving on to a closer look at the Blood Red Skies models from Warlord Games. Just to repeat the earlier caveat, these are pre production resin prototype models NOT the plastic ones that will eventually be released, so bear that in mind. Also remember in the pics that follow these are blown up to a size much larger than the original. The grid is 1cm to help give you an idea of scale. The pics are of the models before clean-up so there are bits of flash that will need removing, but that should not be an issue with the plastics (Warlord plastics tend to be very clean)

First up the 109E, iconic fighter of the Luftwaffe through the Battle of France and Battle of Britain and which soldiered on into the Russian campaign.

Dimensions and proportions are good to 1:200, taking into account this is a model designed as a single piece gaming model that will be expected to take a lot of handling. I think the model captures well the angular clipped appearance of the Emil.

There is a lot of inscribed panel lines, which given the size of the model are going to be very over scale, however I suspect these will make painting much easier, which gets a thumbs up from me. The cockpit frame is also over scale, and I’m not so keen on this as it looks like it was made out of scaffold tubes. I’m also not convinced about the shape of the cockpit panels themselves, the last (rearmost) panel in the real 109 was triangular, this one is nearly square, a product of the “scaffold tube” effect which does look a bit strange, as does the front. I’m hoping this will be less noticeable when painted.

BRS 109 canopy

Real 109E canopy

Having said that, how much of that will be noticeable once painted and on the table is open to debate, and of those who do notice it, I would guess not many will care.

The Emil is the perfect opponent to the Spitfire MkII and was still in service (in the process of being replaced) when Operation Barbarossa began in July 1941, so will match up with the Yak-1 as well. It is therefore a great choice for the launch of BRS.  It is not so great as far as the US opponent in the initial release goes. By the time the P51D arrives in mid 1944 the Emils were withdrawn from front line service so they can’t really be used against each other. I cant imagine why the P51D is in the first release at all, when a P40 would have been a valid choice for the US, even assuming that was needed, but that's what is happening. The 109E is also physically quite a different shape to the main versions that followed it, the F & G, which had different (rounded) shape to the wings and tails so it will not be so easy to pass this model off as anything later without squinting quite a lot. I certainly would not.

All in all this is a very nice model of a 109E except for one minor glitch that 90% of the gaming population will find of zero interest. The other 10% (me included) will probably paint it out.

Next, the Spitfire MkII.