Dragon Kits Any Good?

DML has been around for 10 years and has had many hits and misses. If a particular subject interests you, note what model it is -- and then come to this DG or other AFV Modelling sites and post a query. Also, there are lots of posted reviews out there of practically every released kit. Useful in your buying decisions. Also helps you not make the impulse buy at the hobby shop!

Recent DML "winners"

Henschel King Tiger
new Firefly Vc (avoid 3 old ones)
sdKfz 251 ausf C
Pak 40
2 Panther Ausf As (late and early)
Panther ausf D
Panzer I ausf B
upcoming M4A2 late 76mm Sherman (russian markings)
new tooled Hummel (avoid old one)
new tooled Nashorn (avoid old one)


Of course they offer many other kits, too. Some require major tweaking (Stug series), some less (M26 and M47 Pershings), some are just bombs (original Nashorn)

I have built a few, and have many more unbuilt Dragon kits. They were a good value to me, and the choice of subjects is large, far ahead of Tamiya. The one kit I have to warn you about is their large MAZ 543 SCUD launcher. It's a great, and very different kit, but it is a beast to build. Practically nothing lines up. That being said however, I've not had any problems with any other kit that I've built from them.

Okay, I'll wade into this one too. I love Tamiya, I love Dragon. Dragon is definately the better buy. I've had some fit problems with virtually every Dragon kit I've done. from pretty minor to pretty bad, but nothing insurmountable. Their big short comming is their instructions. They often have misnumbered parts, missing steps, misleading diagrams, or flat out mistakes. Most of the time, these can be worked through fairly easily by being aware, examining the diagrams carefully and matching them to the parts, dry fitting several times, and reading at review builds. As said above, most of their newer kits have color pictures rather than line drawings. But some of the very newest (i.e. the Pz IB series) have gone back to the line drawings. People either love or hate the picture variety. I have mixed feelings. I think they are okay for the most part, but could ocassionally benefit from some line drawings for clarification.

Most of the time, their indy tracks aren't too bad a build. Here the big problems are cleaning up the sprue attachment points and the ejector pin marks. However, the Sherman tracks I've found to be extremely hard to do.

Their customer support is outstanding. Check out the other post I have about that. (Dragon Support, WOW!).

Good luck and welcome to the dark side.

with the new kits the instructions are all color photos too, which is really nice.

I realy have only put together Dragon's 1/35 modern infantry, and they are way better in detail than their Tamiya counter parts. If their kits are as accurate as their soldiers I'd go with Dragon.

I just finished my first Dragon. I had some fit problems that were annoying, but no more than that. What I really didn't enjoy were instructions that were more than just a little fuzzy, but rather outright misleading. For variety, extras like PE, and price they have Tamiya on the run.

All good advice has already been mentioned. I personally like their kits over Tamiya because of the indy links, but then I've been told that I'm also a sucker for punishment. Combine that with the fact that Dragon is constantly coming out with new offerings, well there you have it.

As far as older kits, Tamiya has the same problem but you don't really know if it's an old or new kit by looking at the box unless you research it before buying with either of them since they can also rebox older kits with newer goodies but the molds are still the same.

They are a much better value than Tamiya, offering PE parts, indy tracks, and in case of their DDay anniversary kits, an aluminum barrel. All this for much less than the typical Tamiya kit. Yes Dragon has Tamiya overmatched and they are running away. I like some of the off beat stuff they produce as well as the fact they have been pretty prolific too recently. Their recent Pak 40 kit comes with an aluminum barrel and is priced some $10 less than AFV's current release. Dragon equals value.

As Moses explained...look for their new releases.

All depends on which kit you do. If you do one of their newer molds (i.e. Panthers, King Tiger) then yes, they are great. If you do an older mold or a reboxed Gunze kit then you are looking at a little more work.

Cheers

Mo

They seem to be pretty good to me. Aside form alot of kits haveing indi tracks and some of the instructions are a bit fuzzy, but still decent enough to get them.

I personally think Dragon ROCKS! I've only done one or two dragon though, most people have done a lot, but i think they're really good.