Hi Guys,

I just came across this one over on PMMS. Dragon releasing their old Para and SAS figures with the addition of a Welbike.

Is there a connection here between Dragon and Tristar?

http://perthmilitarymodelling.com/newkitnews/dragon.htm

Any thoughts?

Al

Hey Al,
Can't say I've heard of any working relationship between them but who knows ???
Tamiya has had a arrangement with Italeri for many years and recently with ICM.
Dragon's been including MasterBox figures in some of their Orange Box kits like this new set I just spotted:

Sherman VC Firefly & MB Paratroopers

Miniart had an arrangement (at least here in Canada) to include Dragon figures in their vacu-form diorama buildings.
Dragon and Tristar working together ???
It's probably not too far fetched !!
Cheers for the update

jjumbo

Hi John,

I spotted a post over on ML about these, seems it maybe a Dragon offering.

Not too keen on their Paras, quite big and the pouches are hopeless. The SAS are nice smaller and with fairly good kit (except the pouches again) but I don't think Welbikes were a SAS thing?

Thanks for the info.

Al

Hey Al,
Yeah, the old DML Paras are a bit on the bulky side but they are rather old after all.
IIRC, it was almost impossible to get the standing Para to hold his Sten correctly.
Still, with a bit of TLC, they can be made to look reasonable.
They're a far cry better than the old ESCI Para-dwarfs I have in my stash !!
I have a couple sets of the Dragon SAS, much nicer molds and the detail's good.
I wish Dragon would do more British/Commonwealth kits like them, hint, hint....
Cheers

jjumbo

Well,...Typical DML.
Lets get the Welbike out before the competition does.
Very original indeed.

The bike though looks fantastic but could they at least take the time to throw in a couple off decent paratroopers.

Bravo DML, you did it again !
Hightech molding mixed with yesterdays left-overs

DML, I know you can do much better that.
Please be more innovative in the future.


Regards from a disapointed customer.

Hi

I think they may well be buying the bikes etc. off of Tristar. If you look at the standing figure holding the Welbike in the Dragon Para set, his pose, leg position etc. is exactly that of the Tristar. I don't think Dragon would go as far as to copy a figure to that degree.

See image one on the Tristar page on TA's site

http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/newkitnews/tristar.htm

Alan

Alan,

Looking much closer I think that you are right about that.
Well, you know what they say ?
Keep your friends close but keep your enemy closer, that's when tristar would be coöperating with DML offcourse.

Regards, Frank.

Thanks Guys for the thoughts.

Personally I'm looking forward to the Tristar set, a couple of bikes some new figures, simple Steps Ahead.

Releasing these old sets with new stuff is pants! My thoughts anyway.

Al

Hey Al,
I just vaguely remembered that Dragon and Tristar may have had some kind of arrangement when Tristar released their Marder III Ausf.H.
IIRC, the 75mm PaK 40 used in the kit may have had it's origins with Dragon.
Or was that AFV Club..........er, I hate getting old !!
Cheers

jjumbo

Actually it isn't Mini-Art that is doing that, and in-fact it is Dragon USA that are putting the Dragon figures in the Mini-Art buildings.

Most shops that have Mini-Art on their shelves are either getting them supplied by Dragon USA (the only North American importer), or from another supplier that gets it from Dragon USA.

Mini-Art kits that come direct from Mini-Art don't have the Dragon figure kits in them, heck...they don't even come sealed in plastic.

I get all my Mini-Art, Masterbox, etc, from a Ukrainian supplier. No I don't get the MA kits with the Dragon figures in them.....but for the most part they are older figure sets anyway, and my end retail ends up being about 25-35% less than buying it from North American suppliers!

My first impression of the figures holding and un/packing the bikes were that it's the standing and kneeling figures from the sets respectively. Have a careful look at the original poses. What DML often do with the Premium (i.e. reboxed) kits is include alternate arms, in addition to Gen2 heads, weapons, etc. But that's just my interpretation based on the box-arts.




Do you have any idea how much it costs to produce a plastic model? For any company we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. DMLs Premium line, in other word the strategy DML follow with regards to the reboxing of old kits ("relaunch" the old kit by giving it a new number and including more parts) makes sense, or perhaps that should be "cents", when looked at from a business point of view.

Need to quickly get your older products noticed when your competition is launching a similar product? Reintroduce your old one and include extra bits. Your product is on the shelf before your competitor has their first production run as all you need to do is put the components into the new box. Very clever.

Hi Rudi,

Good outline of the strategy but I think in this case it leaves the customer short changed. I imagine we will end up paying more for the old sets.

The idea of their Orange Box kits is a plus for the modeller as you get a slightly upgraded kit for less than the price of a new one. I've never bought one of their Premium kits and probably never will.

In this case you get a new kit with some outdated figures. I doubt if they will have any Gen 2 parts, they haven't done that for British/Commonwealth set yet.

Might be good marketing against their competitors but I know where my money will go as both the sets offered have some poor points.

1. The Paras are very big, and their kit is poor.

The SAS are quite good for their age, but I don't believe the SAS ever used the Welbike plus the mix of figures doesn't work that well.

Sorry Tristar have offered some new troops and a new class looking bike.

I'll wait until Dragon re-box the bike with some new figures - then look at it again.

Al

That really is one of the key points. Also, without going into the archives, the drop container is underscaled (at least at first look). Look at the remaining space:

This is just DML going the cheap road to beat a competitor to market with an uninspiring rehash of 10-12 year old figures with a Welbike and debatable sized container. The figures are definately not up to todays standard with awful webbing pouches and boots plus debatable size. As for the SAS set have a look at the boots of these guys. They are awful. This is DML's typical route with allied stuff, the barest minimum required.
I'll award tristar with my money for effort because I'd bet the Bloggers Yankee testicles that they would never have bothered to do this if Tristar weren't. A bit like the sudden reemergence of the DML rail cars when Trumpeter is releasing theirs.
Not overly impressed and I won't be rewarding medicrity particularly with DML's new prices. Amazing that AFV,Trumpeter and even Tamiya can do new releases cheaper. AFV's new Churchills were half the price of the DML Shermans here. Their Figure prices have just got ridiculous lately.
Well done Tristar.
AL

Al McN:

Repost per bold points:




1 I can't speak for other parts of the world, or even other parts of Australia, but when I was writing the DML German Wehrmacht Self-Propelled Gun Crew review I did a bit of a field survey with regards to the pricing of the kit vs. its original edition. Of the 4 LHS's I visited, most (3) still had the old kit on their shelves, as well as the new one (except for one which only had the new kit). On average the new kit was in fact about $5 cheaper than the old one. During one of those excursions I also bought another Premium kit (German of course ) which did include Gen2 parts - similar story with the Premium kit being cheaper than the original.

I do admit I didn't include online sellers in my survey, as while they might list a kit in their catalogues, they are notorious for not actually holding the stock - and often list OOP items.

2 I agree, often the figures are outdated, as they're merely retooling the mould, not revising the entire sculpt or design. But at least, unlike Mr T, DML do throw a few extra peanuts into the cage with the inclusion of the alternate arms and parts. That's not to say though that the 'new' arms will fit in this case though While DML haven't released Gen2 CW figures yet, they have released other CW figure sets in recent times which appear to be fairly good - having not seen the kit contents personally I'm taking the reviewers' words at this.

3 Unfortunately not everyone is as patient at waiting for the 'decent' sets to emerge (how long did we wait for the TS Well-Bikes?), and often what is on the shelf first wins the race.




Al B:

I don't know about that, Al. Looking at the prices in the LHSs they, DML, compare reasonably with TS and MB - $11-16 for a figure set (~$22 for a Gen2 set). I discount Trumpeter since so far their figures have been nothing to write home about (and that's being charitable), and Tamiya (being more a RC company) haven't released anything mentionable in the 1/35 scale arena in decades.



As always in these sorts of discussions, your mileage may vary

RR

Hi Rudi,

Well what can I say. I threw my DML Para set into the bin, that's how much I though of them, the work required to make them half decent just wasn't worth it. They are way out of scale.

On the SAS guys, I did re-do them with new heads and some new kit:

These two are quite nice even if they are wearing putties:



I suppose if I had a bit more patience I could have fixed those too.

The other kneeling chap I've already done with an airborne container, so nothing new there.



and the 4th guy is somewhere in this boat - I think!!



So first on the shelf or not neither of these sets will be getting my pennies. Yes, the Tristar set has been a while in coming, but it looks 100% superior to the DML offering IMHO. As Jim points out the container is under size too.

Al