Onwards, ever onwards

The IS-2 is one big tank and very modern looking for WWII, the kit was Italeri from Warlord. Now this time the tracks went on no bother despite being in four pieces, why, but the rest not so good. I think one side of my tank was a bit off as the back plate did not fit well on the left, I tried gently pulling and pushing but it made no difference, thankfully I can put this down to rubbish Soviet engineering. I thought the tracks were a stupid idea but the five piece turret was even worse, this is not my best modelling work, again you can see the joins and again I shall put it down to a haste to get the tank to the front. I am also not a fan of how they do the road wheels, instead of individual wheels you get a kind of barrel, which, if you paint rubber on it just looks wrong, so I am going to go for some heavy mud and dirt on these instead. On the plus side it looks good and up until the turret was a surprisingly easy and uncomplicated build, I suspect from a wargamers view point it will be more than adequate on the table. Paintwise it was primed with grey, then sprayed with Army Painter Army Green, washed with AP Military Shader, then a very light drybrush with another green and a spot of white. Weathered with rust and black chipping.

My old mud supply had dried up some time ago but I fancied putting some on my Russian tanks so I picked up AK Fresh Mud at Vapnartak. I found out through an online video that you had to have a degree in chemistry to use it, a slight exaggeration, but you need plaster powder, the mud, a drying retardant, an eye dropper or similar and at this point I turned it off and ordered up the stuff you shove on an old brush and apply, job done.

Before I built the tank I had painted the excellent Urban Construction shell holes, I am not keen on the plastic ones you cut out but these in resin I couldn't resist. Base of Flat Earth, is that a joke, drybrushed with Dark Sand with the bricks, tyre and oil drums picked out and voila. That only leaves me some lengths of barbed wire to do on the new bases Charlie Foxtrot cut for me. Talking of Colin I have asked him to cut me some frames to put in my Really Useful Boxes so that my increasing collection of WWII figures will have some kind of order, hope to show these off in the near future, I also ordered extra, you never know.

My terrain plans for 2020 are probably going to take a back seat, my final Kickstarter the terrain book, is now behind and looking like getting further behind as the year progresses. The graphic novel Kickstarter has ignored all my attempts at getting it cancelled and my money back, I do hope I run into Lindybiege at some point as he farts about the country doing his rambling videos instead of completing the damn book.

I really want to get back to some WWII gaming, this week at the club I am trying out I Ain't Been Shot Mum, it was used in a nice demo game at Vapnartak and club member Dan has them and has organised a game for Tuesday. On the 16th I am taking part in a large Napoleonic game in Grange-over-Sands and on the 1st March doing some War and Conquest, well that's the plan.

After my last disaster with Chain of Command I decided that starting a game with a morale of 8 and then being on the receiving end of some bad luck being able to stop you in your tracks with a swift fall to 1 or 2 was just daft and very unhelpful, so I have made some sheets which allow up to 15 for games here at home where, hopefully, we have a lot more time to enjoy a game, I look forward to giving it a try.