More Soviets and a warrior tortoise.

 I managed to finish painting my second squad of WW2 Soviets, along with a few vehicles. All I need now it one more squad, a command stand, and perhaps another Maxim crew and a mortar and I will feel they are ready to face off against some Germans. Weirdly my main takeaway from this is that I need to sort out my photographing. I need to create a new photo booth or something. 

I now have four trucks. The large gun will likely be spending more time as an objective I guess. It will probably be too massive for a Battlegroup table.

Not Soviet, but still important. This has been languishing for a while. I finally managed to get it finished. I think the crew might have been US gun crew, but oh well. This will also likely spend more time as an objective than actually being used. 

An SU-76. It doesn't seem to be the best or most useful SPG, but I love the look of this vehicle. 

A squad of infantry, a sniper team and an anti tank rifle team. It is a bit hard to distinguish them, but I like them.

Three people for Five Parsecs. They can be military, militia, government security, local starport workers.

Battle Tortoise. My kids painted this and then I repainted it. Will be useful for some Song of Blades and Heroes, or some  DnD or something.

Irregular Miniatures WW2 Soviets - First batch.

I painted up one squad, a Maxim MG team, three T-34s, and a 76mm ATG with a tow. I did a little research regarding colours, but don't really want to purchase any new paints right now. Luckily, I have all I need to paint the infantry, but deciding on a good green for the vehicles proved more difficult. 

I am really pleased with how the ATG and truck turned out. It felt a little awkward painting the crew while attached to the gun, but in the end it worked out pretty well. The truck looks good. I decided to paint the windows blue, after I had washed the vehicle in Agrax Earthshade. The windows are really pleasing me. They make me feel like I have progressed as a painter. I genuinely think the cannon with crew attached might be the way forward for me now.

The tank at the back is a different colour - the same as my US vehicles. The other two are a mix of Russian Green and Medium Green or something. I'm not too bothered to be honest. I highlighted with Khaki of all colours. I had originally planned to highlight with a light green. My next tank platoon might have more experimentation. I like the commander. While he seems almost cartoonishly big, I like that I can use him as an easy-to-spot officer. So far so good with Irregular Miniatures.

I was nervous about the infantry. Firstly they are all SMG armed - which isn't ideal. Then, their bases are really tall. When painting, I really struggled to see where the weapons were on some of the figures. It was frustrating. But, to be fair from table distance it won't really matter all that much. It looks to me like I will still be buying the new Heroics and Ros Russians, as they look amazing. I am, still though, pleased with the Irregular vehicles.

Here is the Maxim MG team. I imagine they are pretty good. But again, the infantry moulds don't seem all that clear. I sort of painted some bits and hoped for the best.

 This is them all together. I experimented with putting little bushes on the stands - no real reason behind it. I like them. From a distance all seems fine. If anything this photo is better than the others. I need to look at my backgrounds again. Having moved house, I got rid of my little photo booth thing.

I look forward to painting up more. I need to paint up two more squads and some other support weapons. 

WW2 Soviets - Irregular Miniatures

 So myself and siblings have an annual secret Santa. This year we drew names, my brother Alexander from The Players' Aid immediately messaged me to ask me what I wanted. I said WW2 soviets. A week or so later we cancelled the whole thing, but he still got me a soviet armoured division pack from Irregular Miniatures. Now, my 6mm WW2 collection is exclusively Heroics and Ros, so I was interested in seeing what a different manufacturer looked like. Well here are some images of them. No comparison to any H&R figures yet though. 

T 34s. Some with commanders, some with one rider, some with multiple riders, some with nothing. Guns are all mostly bent, but that is easily fixed. The wheels and tracks look a little rough, but then it is 6mm. I will hide that with mud. I don't know how they compare to the H&R miniatures.

Trucks. Good. Three 76mm Zis 3 guns (I think). They also have their crew moulded to the gun which I think i prefer to buying them separately. I love the look of those giant guns also.

This looks enough to be a good platoon with an extra squad. I have four Maxim MG teams, what look like four sniper teams, four mortar teams and two command teams with a mounted figure. I like the idea of someone on a horse. I might have some AT Rifle teams, but am unsure.

They all seem to be SMG armed infantry. So that is fair enough, but I want rifles. At the end of the day, it looks like I will be making a purchase from H&R anyway: the superb looking Summer Russians, some early war tanks, and some 45mm ATGs. It won't be £67 worth of Russians though, which will save me some cash. Or...give me more money to spend on other miniatures...desert stuff for example to go with BG Tobruk.

The command strip. It excites me with the prospect of 6mm horse mounted figures. I want to get some ACW dismounted cavalry from Baccus for my 6mm Sci Fi collection. There is also a new set of mounted militia over on Brigade Models, specifically for Sci Fi.

Just a close up.