Introduction

Black Dog has gone retro when it comes to accessories for armoured fighting vehicles with their recent releases. The latest products are for dressing up the Trumpeter AS-90, Trumpeter LAV-R and the HobbyBoss AAVP-7A1 all in 1/35th scale. I am hoping that the release of this product indicates that a new more accurate AS-90 is in the pipeline somewhere.

Contents

This release from Black Dog is packaged in a substantial cardboard box, which should be more than up to the task of protecting the contents under normal conditions encountered during postage. Black Dog has not relied on just the box though, they have also packed the resin parts in a Ziploc bag and packed that in the box with a loose photo etched fret and polystyrene peanuts. The contents break down as follows;

• 24 resin mouldings
  
• Photo etched fret

The mouldings

Black Dog is up there with the best resin moulding companies on the market today, possibly bettered only by the 3d printed resin parts companies, which are on the expensive side at this time. The mouldings all have excellent detail and no obvious moulding faults that I detected. The photo etched fret did receive slight damage from the resin parts being in contact with the fret, but that said I am confident that light pressure applied on a flat surface will correct the minor distortion damage.
I have split the mouldings into groups for the purpose of this review. I am going to start with the canvas structures; these are supplied for each side of the AS-90 model and another for the front. One of these moulding I believe represents part of a tent as it is nearly as long as the model and has very nicely replicated posts in the roll, I cannot help thinking that these moulding would have been better if replicating camouflage netting, but that said they are nice inclusions in the set. There are four other folded and rolled canvas mouldings in the set, three of these are fairly small in size and will add areas of interest to the model, the final moulding in this area is a huge lump of resin that depicts 3 canvas rolls covered by a huge untidy canvas pile, this moulding is designed to fit inside the mesh net on the turret of the AS-90, it has some excellent rope detail for a tie down; I however would not use this part and would prefer to add some of the infantry kit supplied in the net instead. The photo etched parts include some buckles for the straps that would be on the netting roof basket. In this section there is also a rope coil with separate towing eye and shackle. The only part offered in this set to specifically replace kit parts is a canvas covered muzzle brake.

Moving on to what I consider as personal kit, Black Dog has supplied three types of rucksack and a set of body armour; looking at the rucksacks I cannot believe what a fine job Black Dog has done of the webbing and strapping and which will be especially eye catching additions to a model once weathered. There are also three types of bags in the set and again some fantastic detail is moulded on to make them shine. There are 4 rolled mats and Black Dog has again done a great job of the strapping, the detail also extends to rolled detail at one end and hollow. Lastly there are two beaten up boxes, these I believe represent ration boxes and both are slightly different, the only issue I see here is the lack of decals for the boxes.

Conclusion

There is a good selection of items in this offering from Black Dog. I like the fact that you can pick and choose what to add to your model, and this means that several models that have the same set can all look different. The price of these sets from Black Dog is reasonable and the packaging should mean it always reaches you in perfect condition. I will be honest and say that the very large canvas roll does not appeal to me, but that is a matter of choice rather than a fault. I am also aware that Black Dog as well as other companies producing this sort of product get complaints about how to realistically attach items, well the careful application of tape or photo etched straps will cure the issue and I don’t expect Black Dog to do all the work for us.