Italeri fast build ISU-152

One of the good things about the financial crisis in Greece is that it forces you to go back to old projects and trim the stash down a bit. I had build a couple of Russian tanks a couple of months back but never got around to finishing them. The first was an ISU-152 quick build from Italeri. I prefer the Russian fast builds by Pegasus as the detail on the Italeri ones is a bit soft, but this came with a normal ISU kit, so I got it. It's an easy kit that gets build in about half an hour tops. Some filling was needed in the rear joint of the upper and lower hull pieces but that was pretty much it. My major problem was not the softish detail but the fact that the barrel of the main gun is stuck at the position seen below. It looks as if the ISU got a couple of extra blue pills (if you know what I mean) and its not really attractive. Still, its a free kit. Instead of painting in the normal Russian Armour Green, I went for a Green-Sand-Brown camouflage that would make it at least a bit more interesting. I used a black/burnt umber wash and dusted it with Dark Earth. All in all, it took a couple of evenings and it was done.

I have quite a few things waiting to be completed. Another Italeri fast build (an IS-2), a Zvezda T-34 (a real gem of a kit), and Russian support weapons. Hopefully all of this will be ready by the end of next week.

That's all for now from Athens, where once again nothing really works.

6mm Fantasy Project

I had started on a 6mm fantasy project a while back but, unsurprisingly, I got sidetracked on other projects (including my 2-year old son). Still I kept at it and so far I have 9 bases of elves and 3 bases of orcs for Fantasy Rules! I plan to fight battles in early Middle Earth so I'll do elves and orcs and eventually humans and dwarves. Most of the figs are from Irregular Miniatures with the only exception being so far the High Elven pikes which come from Baccus.

Here are the pikes. They'll form the backbone of my battle line. Lovely figs, easy to paint. I don't think I did them enough justice as the amount of detail is phenomenal.

The other options for the main battle line are archers and swordsmen. I have a lot of Irregular archers but I've only painted one base so far. I also have some Baccus archers that I'll use for the elite regiments of the King's guard.

The Irregular Cavalry is also superb. I'll only use 2 bases for now as I want an infantry-heavy army. I might get some Baccus horsemen to use as heavy cavalry and Irregular Wood Elves to use as light cavalry. We'll see.
Finally my monsters: ents as heavy monsters and giant eagles for small flying monsters. One ent and two eagles per base look pretty good in my eyes.

In its final form, the army will have another 3-5 bases of archers, 2 bases of swordsmen, 2 ballistae, 2 heavy chariots, 2 bases of small monsters (giant eagles) and one of large (ents). This, together with characters and sundry stuff will give me up to 1300-1500 points, large enough for large battles and some mixing and matching. Hopefully the elves will be done before Christmas this year.

Have a great day from (yet again sunny) Athens.

PSCRussians

It's not common to have good hard plastic figures available. Plastic Soldier Company is one of the few making polystyrene miniatures in 1/72 scale. So far they have WWII Germans (late war), British (again late war) and Russians. I don't like the British much (I'm waiting for the new Airfix set due out this year) and I have more Germans than I can ever use, so I got some Russians. Overall, these are not bad figs. A bit chunky for some, but hey, the plastic is hard. I painted almost a complete sprue of their infantry set and an anti-tank rifle from their heavy weapons set.

The sculpting is pretty solid, but not as petite as say, the Revell set. I can't tell you much as far as historical accuracy is concerned, but the figures look pretty authentic to me. The proportions are a bit off (most of them have short or non-existent necks) but from a meter away, they look good. I would have liked more PPSh's, to make desant units, but I have plenty in my Revell and Esci fig sets to work on that.

Most heavy and support weapons come in 2 configurations; carried and firing. This works well for some rule sets and I plan to paint and base both of them regardless of whether I'll use them or not. They are pretty well animated figs.

You also get a pretty good commissar and a female Russian soldier that can be used as a nurse or as a radio operator (with some careful painting and a scratchbuilt radio). I painted the commissar and I'll modify one fig with a big red flag. Gotta have big red flags...

I have some more PSC miniatures ready to paint; mortars, Maxim guns and some more infantry. I hope I'll have them ready in a couple of weeks. Have a great day from sunny Athens.