Dont let a couple of clunkers scare you off,all manufacturers have some dogs.Dragon makes some excellent kits,most of their Tigers,Panthers,Stugs,are really nice builds.Any kit you need to find build logs like this one to help make your choice.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your feedback. I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out in the end but as we've seen a nightmare getting there lol.

Now that the KT is out of the way I can build something out of my stash as I really need to get it down. It's split all around the house so it definitely needs thinning down. It's a sign I live on my own as they're everywhere lol. At one point I had a big pile of about seven halftracks to build in the corner of the living room. I'd never have got away with that with the ex! I picked out the Miniart Zis3 Diorama in a box which I'd forgotten that I'd got!, The "Zis3 Gun Emplacement" as I thought that would be quite an interesting build as it's not only the gun but the crew and the Miniart ammo set included. It literally is a diorama in a box. Nobody has reviewed this on here so I thought I'd do one but the same format as the King Tiger. Build/Blog/Review. If you fancy it join me over there and hopefully there won't be as much to moan about this time

Really nice results on your KT, Karl,, and your review was spot on in my book. I cannot fathom why DML does the illogical and/or needless things they do with some kits. It really appears that their various departments don't communicate, resulting in the kind of mess you had to deal with. Look forward to your next build/review.

The guy at the model shop I go to is happy to open the boxes for customers, so I guess I'll just check the instructions carefully. I believe it is a newish kit anyway, so I should be safe.

Invincible, don't be decieved by just looking in the box. This looked great looking at it in the box. Building it was a completely different matter as we've seen . Your best bet is ask around to see if anyone's built it and what their thoughts on it were. Also do a trawl of the net to see if you can find a build review. I'd seen a couple of Maquette kits dirt cheap on ebay last week and as it wasn't a company I was familiar with, I did a search on Scalemates for the two kits before I pressed bid. (Really useful site re review links and the kit history ie reboxes etc. Quite a few Armorama ones on there too) There were a few review links and I found a couple of others to add to those. Pretty much all of them said the kits were crap and the build reviews went into detail as to why they were so crap. Naturally I didn't bother bidding on them. I think everyone will agree that Dragon do some great kits in the main (apart from their dire instructions which are consistently bad whichever kit) but every so often roll out a bummer like this. You won't know which category it falls into until you start building unfortunately hence forewarned is forearmed. ASk around and search for reviews. Let us know how you get on on the quest for information

Checked on stalemates, I found one review, and it states that there are no fit issues or numbering problems. I've also seen the inside of the box and it only looks like there are a couple of sprues, so I'm pretty safe if the misnumbered part monster strikes. Let's just hope my wallet survives long enough to reach the shop!

Sounds like you should be okay then. Good luck with it :-)