The Giants have landed! Unboxing the Staaken and Handley Page 0/400 heavy bombers

The long awaiting heavy bombers from Ares Games Kickstarter campaign have arrived! It was a longer than expected wait...but the goods arrived in today's post. How did they look? Pretty darn good!

Found this large box on the porch today. That's a lot of box for two models!

Opening the box up we find...campaign add on's from the Aerodrome - smoke and flame markers for the bombers and a 'standard' base as well as a deck of 'ace' ability cards.

These were offered as special upgrades with the campaign. If you've used them before, the smoke and flame markers are great visual upgrades to the standard markers. 

 

 

A close up of the smoke and flame markers and the ace ability decks. (Get to the bombers! )

What's this?  A Handley-Page?

Wow - that's some robust packaging!  Let's see what's inside.

It's a Handley-Page bomber model!

And a Staaken R.VI model

 

It's a poster showing all the Great War planes Ares makes. Will look great framed.

Opening up the Staaken box and there's a lot going on. The plane is well protected in it's cradle. The posts for the flgiht stand are in the top center and the maneuver and ace decks are in the upper right.

A close up of the ace abilities deck.

Remioving the plastic cover from the plane. The entire cradle for the plane lifts out...

...revealing the assorted paperwork.

There's assorted paperwork in the box. A Kickstarter certificate, Staaken specific rules, playing surface maps  and another poster!

The rule booklet includes the basics of multi-engine aircraft and the scenarios.

Reaching the bottom of the box, we find the plastic base and the data and management cards.

A close up.

Counter sheets, aircraft card and management cards.

The R.VI on it's flight base.

They did a nice job with these models. A little more detail on the crew would have been nice, but hey - it's a very nice model! Look at the detail on the engine nacelle.

I thought the Caproni had some odd gun placements.

The Handley-Page has the same components as the Staaken. It's a nicely rendered model.

The red and white nacelles give this model some color.

What's the deal with that nose gunner. Standing and waving?

And there you have it.

These are one half of the kickstarter models. Exercising restraint, I do not have the other two models to review. There's another H-P 0/400 with nice tactical markings done up in a night bombing paint scheme and a Staaken with a green lozenge pattern and late war iron crosses that looks quick fetching.

It took a bit of time to deliver, but Ares has delivered. If they contemplate doing similar campaigns for other aircraft (Felixstowe...cough cough), I'll definitely be jumping in.