Infamous JT Warsaw Uprising Kubus

The "crown jewel" of the currently running Warsaw Uprising Kickstarter campaign by Infamous JT is most certainly the Kubus, that I want to show you in this pre-release review.

The Warsaw Uprising is part of the late war years of the second world war. It was an operation of the polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from the German occupation. There were resistance cells in many occupied countries, in some cases the Allies supported the resistance with equipment and gear, in other cases the underground look after themselfes. In this case, the polish resistance built an armoured car in secret, based on a Chevrolet 157 truck and called it "Little Jakob" (Kubuś). It was one of a kind and often seen with a captured Sd.Kfz.251/3 Ausf.D named Grey Wolf.

Kubus was used in an failed assault on Warsaw University, and was damaged in the second attempt two weeks later. During that second assault the vehicle was withdrawn from combat and later abandoned. The original Kubus survived the battles in warsaw and was one of the first exhibits in the Polish Army Museum after the war and can be seen until today. There is a full scale operational replica on exhibition in the Warsaw Uprising Museum.

Infamous JT made this Kubus as part of their 28mm Polish Resistance range. The model was digitally sculpted by Jonathan Llinares, with Dennis Zarnowski adding the crew man and taking care of the casting via his company Savage Forged Miniatures. Within the crowdfunding campaign the Kubus is set at a price of 25 GBP. It comes with DP-28 and PIAT weapon choices, which weren't ready for this review, so I'll show you the Kubus just with the crew man wearing a Waffen-SS smock and German helmet with cover.

As this is a resin kit, make sure to give it a proper wash prior to further handling in luke warm soap water and get rid of any detergent left by the casting process (use a medium or soft tooth brush). Should you come along any warpage, heating the part in warm / hot water will help you realign it. I had no problem of this kind with this kit. Savage Forged Miniatures did a very high level of casting on this, without any flash, warpage or air bubbles. Superb casting!

It is best to do the washing while the small pieces are still on the castings, so you do not loose them. The main hull has three larger castings on the underside of the front. You can either try to cut them with an cutter or with a model saw. I use the Army Painter hobby saw. You can see the underside has a proper casting and no air bubbles or contaminations.

The cleaned parts are arranged around the hull of the Kubus, so you can see what parts go where and how many pieces it comes with. As mentioned above, the final model will have additional weaponry for the vehicle commander. You have wheels in the front, double-wheels in the back, mirrors, a single head light, a DP-28 LMG, "bumper hooks", the command hatches and a crew miniature with command papers.

First step is the 4 half parts of the wheels. They have a tight fit, so you would not even need glue to add them. But as I want to be sure, I glue them of course. The vehicle sits plane on all six wheels without wobbling.

In the second step the smaller details in the front are added. This means adding the head light (that looks like a converted head light from a german truck or Hanomag), the external mirrors and the gun barrel of the DP-28 LMG.

Make sure to let the glue set, as the external mirrors are rather nimble. If they should not fit properly, cut them down a bit so that the ring around the lower part covers the pin-hole connection on the bonnet.

Now the bumper hooks are added to the front and back. Do a try run on these, add a bit of glue and let it set. I was surprised, all of these parts are rather small and I expected more hassle during these steps, but it went without bigger problems. A well planned and casted model kit so far.

The last parts to add to the Kubus are the hatches and the optional commander. In the final kit you will have additional parts for the PIAT and a DP-28.

You can build the Kubus with closed hatches if you want to, but then you wouldn't put the very well sculpted commander to use. If the dress of the miniature does looks familiar, that is due to the fact that the Polish Home Army used captured german gear, in this case a smock and helmet with netting.

How does the armoured truck Kubus compare to other kits scale wise? It is based upon an Chevrolet 157 truck, so it goes quite well with an SdKfz 251/1 Ausf. D and Opel Blitz.  The first could be used to represent the Grey Wolf, an captured SdKfz 251/3 used by the Home Army along side the Kubus. In the second row in comparison with the Panther and a T-34 tank. The later was used with the Polish Tank forces (as well as the IS-2).

And no review without the last set of showcase pictures. The complete Kubus from different angles.

Conclusion
The Warsaw Uprising crowdfunding campaign is an interesting niche project, that makes use of crowdfunding as it was meant to be instead of just another sales channel. A polish underground resistance is even in a setting as popular as World War 2 wargaming still very specific taste. So trying to realize this using crowdfunding makes sense, as it is rather unlikely that a (larger) company would pay that much attention to such small / niche range. And the decision to not only offer some 28mm miniatures, that you might convert from other resistance / partizan miniatures, but give it something special, a center piece, was a clever move by Infamous JT.

Jamie gathered talented people around him for this project, as the models are well done. The design is properly scaled and the casting is outstanding. This has to be among the best resin casts that I build in the last years (and quite a lot Forgeworld customers would be happy they would receive this level of quality for their money). 25 GBP might not be cheap for a model kit this size, but the Kubus will sell in smaller numbers compared to Panzer IIIs or even some american armoured vehicles. And do not forget what I mentioned before, this is quality and that takes time to properly craft.

If you are going to field the Kubus in Bolt Action, you can find the rules in Campaign Road to Berlin on page 54, along with a scenario for the Kubus and Grey Wolf on pg. 60. Osprey covers the uprising in their Campaign book #205 Warsaw 1944.

The kickstarter campaign is running until Thursday, march 1st 2018 21:00 CET, and is already funded. Currently unlocking further stretch goals. The pledges start from 4 GBP for a single miniature up to large 70 GBP resistance force warband.

Link: Infamous JT Warsaw Uprising Kickstarter campaign