Crusader II

 

Continuing with my Crusader fetish, this time it's the Crusader II, also in 1:100 scale for 15mm gaming. This version mounted the 40mm 2 pounder gun, and was originally fitted with a bow machine-gun turret, though these were often removed since they were basically worthless. The commander figure is one from a set I bought some years ago from Battlefront.

Speaking of Battlefront, I found that I'd also bought one of their resin and metal Crusader II models years ago, and completely forgot about it. That's it on the right of this photo. It's broader in the beam than my model, but I've double and triple checked my measurements, and I'm pretty confident that I'm right and they're wrong.

I printed my model some time ago in FDM on my Ender 3, before I got my Mars Pro, and at the time I thought it was an okay wargaming model. I guess it is really, since it does look like what it's supposed to be, but since I started printing models like this in resin my quality expectations have risen quite a bit, and now I hold it in contempt — I probably won't even finish painting it. It's like when you go to drinking proper wine out of bottles instead of el-cheapo plonk out of boxes; it's a bit painful to go back once you get used to it.