Currently, I'm doing more painting than playing, although that should change with a local Flames of War tournament coming up.
While I'm painting/modeling, I'll be putting up some reviews for a few of the kits I'm working on.
This starts today with the unit I've finished most recently; a company of IS-2 obr 1943 heavy tanks in 15mm scale for use in FoW.
The models are by Plastic Soldier Company.
The kit comes with all the parts needed for three different variants:
-IS-2 obr 1943 (the variant pictured here, mislabeled IS-1 on the instruction sheet)
-IS-85 (aka IS-1, the obr 1943 armed with an 85mm main gun instead of the usual 122mm)
-IS-2 obr 1944 (has a different turret front and a different front glacis without the step in it)
While the models are pictured as IS-2 obr 1943, all of them have the gun barrels left unglued.
This allows me to swap them out with the barrels for the 85mm guns, which is all that's needed to make them into IS-85s if needed.
This flexibility is a nice feature of the kit.
The kit includes two different upper hulls per sprue; one for the 1943 hull and one for the 1944 hull.
The tracks are in a single piece with the suspension and lower hull sides, making assembly very easy, but still have plenty of detail.
It also has an optional AA MG, fuel barrels, a stowage box and two different commanders. One of the commanders is set up to wield the MG, the other has his hands on the cupola edge.
I used a few Battlefront tank commander figures instead since I'm using those for most of my Soviet army and I wanted them to be consistent.
There are no decals, but that's something most manufacturers don't include so I don't fault PSC for leaving them out. It keeps the price down as well.
Also nice is that both of the hatches on the turret are separate pieces, so one can model the tank with either (or both, or neither) open.
For the painting, I went with a quick and simple colour scheme I use for all of my Soviet vehicles.
-I start off with a black basecoat, followed up with a coat of Vallejo Luftwaffe Camo Green on the hull and turret.
-Next, all the metals were painted with Vallejo Silver.
-Crew uniforms were painted Vallejo German Grey, helmets with Vallejo Chocolate Brown and skin with Citadel Elf Flesh.
-Next, the entire model gets a wash with Citadel Nuln Oil. I make sure the coat isn't too thick, which also gives the hull an uneven, weathered tint on areas without raised details. The tracks can have more heavy washing.
-Then, I touch up the hull with more Vallejo Luftwaffe Camo Green.
-Finally, I weather the lower hull with drybrushes of Vallejo Chocolate Brown and Vallejo Flat Earth.
After painting, I added a few decals from Battlefront's Soviet Decals pack (SU944).
Verdict
All in all, these are excellent miniatures.
They went together like a dream, much better than the older PSC kits, which were already decent.
I quite liked the variety of options they give you as well, even though I didn't use several of them.
If you want any variety of IS-2, this is the kit for you at the moment.
Battlefront will be releasing their own plastic IS-2 kit soon as part of their Berlin releases, so we'll have to see how that one matches up to this kit. It's gonna have to be pretty good to beat it.
Ease of assembly: good.
Detail: good.
Notable extra features: none.
Price/quality ratio: good.
Recommended for: anyone who wants IS-2 tanks with good detail at a decent price.
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