It is always nice to see a new modeling magazine and especially one that focuses on aircraft, as that is my main modeling interest. Aces High magazine is brought to you by the same folks that are AK Interactive, or at least that is how it appears to me.

The magazine is 84 pages of full color glossy paper in an A4 format. As the subtitle implies, the features in this edition are nearly all Luftwaffe night fighters. These articles are pretty much 'how to' articles, each with a lot of smaller images that show the various steps taken to achieve the results shown in the main article. I guess it is pretty much standard nowadays, but the subjects are all done in the Spanish school of weathering and have the usual clean paint brush applying invisible paint to various bits and pieces. Not surprisingly, AK Interactive products appear prominently in most articles.

Another interesting note is that none of the aircraft shown have complete swastikas. All have them partially complete or are photographed in such a way that they are not apparent. This is undoubtedly to assuage those nations that are still squeamish about it, despite it preventing the subjects from being totally accurate portrayals of historical items.

So let us get to the various articles. The first six are all German night fighters. First up is a Zoukei-Mura He-219 in 1/32 scale. This is the cover build and is done with the plane undergoing maintenance in a hanger. Next is another 1/32 subject, the Hasegawa FW-190A-6/R11 with the 'Porcupine' antennas on the fuselage and wings.

The third offering is the very large MPM 1/48 He-177A-5 armed with Fritz-X glide bombs. Now I know you are thinking 'this is not a night fighter'. True, but it did operate at night so that counts as well. The fourth is a Dragon 1/48 Me-262B-1a/U1. While these were only operational for a few weeks at the end of the war, they are heavily modeled.

Fifth is one of the work horses of night fighting. This time it is the Eduard 1/72 Bf-110G-4. Finally, an early single seat night fighter, the Eduard 1/48 Bf-109E-4 in overall black.

We then get to two somewhat different subjects. The first of these is an Ultracast leather-clad pilot figure that was crafted by Mike Good, probably the best there is. The other is an Italeri 1/35 German fuel truck.

All of these entries are superbly done and most make use of available aftermarket to enhance the kits as much as they can. If you are a fan for very nicely done kits and want to learn a bit in the process. I can highly recommend this new magazine to you.

June 2014

Review copy courtesy of AK Interactive. You can get yours at this link.

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and fairly quickly, please contact the editor or see other details in the Note to Contributors.