I recently received my Rubicon Models Panzer III Mid War box that I had picked up for a very reasonable price at NWS Online. Since I had not seen, any reviews for any of the products from Rubicon I decided to write up a quick unboxing of the kit and will follow up with a build review, once I have it together.

First Impressions

Opening up the box was a routine matter at this point in my career of new kits. However, as with any new kit I still become a little child that starts bouncing around in his seat in anticipation.

The box looks great, professional graphics on the front and back. It is plastered with the typical “Not assembled and not painted” notices all over the box. Sometime I get the feeling that the manufactures are apologizing for not building or painting the model for me, but for me, that is the whole reason I gave you my hard-earned money. I love the hobby.

The Guts of the Kit

The kit consists of three sprues, a waterslide decal sheet, and a four-page instruction manual.

Getting down and taking a close look at the sprues, I am quite pleased with my initial inspection. The mold lines are clean and should not be an issue to clean up and the detail is quite good.

There are some noticeable differences between a Warlord Games’ resin kit and the Rubicon plastic one. Below you can see a quick snap of a side by side of the two kits. My primed Warlord model on the left and the Rubicon on the right. The most noticeable difference is the depth of the details. The Warlord model has the detail protruding more from the surface of the model than the Rubicon does. Does this really change my opinion on the model; no. Will this affect the outcome of the final product; I do not believe so. My only thought is that if there details are less pronounced on the Rubicon model compared to its Warlord counterpart, will the details get lost while the model is on the game board.

The Rubicon model does have more fine detailing work around the panel lines, a couple spare wheels on the side and a different arrangement of tools.

At this stage, I believe the two kits are comparable.

The decal sheet does have more than enough numbers to accurately tag this vehicle for either DAK or one of the European fronts. I am very excited because I can use the decals that I will not use on the Rubicon model to tag my two other Panzer III’s from Warlord because Warlord appears to always be out of stock on the red vehicle numbers that I am after.

I did notice that the DAK palm tree decals do actually have the swastika on them. The only reason I mention this is that on a recent podcast I listed to the hosts had a small diatribe on their comfort levels of painting swastikas on the side of their tanks or if they would forgo the need to be historically accurate and omit the iconography.

That is all from me for now. I will be posting soon with a review of the assemble process for this kit.

Happy Hunting Mercenaries!

Mark