Today we'll be covering not one, not two, but 3 mini reviews! First up, is Warlord Games plastic T-34/76, followed by Warlords ISU-152 assault gun, all finished off with Vallejo's 4BO Russian green paint set. I've had both of these kits for a staggering amount of time part built, and finally got them finished at last.
Warlord T-34/76
I've actually already reviewed this kit, however I needed more early T-34's for my Russian army, and as this kit is so quick and simple to build I thought this should be squeezed onto the painting deck. This is a beautifully simple kit, and can be together and ready for priming in about 10-15 minutes.
The kit comes with a choice of 3 turrets, optional square fuel tanks and flame thrower, and a commander figure, as well as a nice transfer sheet.
The only down side is the lack of cylindrical fuel tanks. The addition of those would make this a perfect T-34 kit. You can read my more detailed review here, where I also build the model into a vehicle opperated by the Germans at the battle of Kursk
Warlord ISU-152
I love assault guns, StuGs, Jagdpanthers, Brummbars, I love them all. However the only other country to use similar concept armour was Russia.
Luckily their armour is equally as sexy, and it doesn't get much sexier than the ISU-152. This is a very simple and robust kit from Warlord, and I've had it sitting around for about 18 months part built looking sorry for itself waiting to be finished.
The kit is a mixed medium model of resin and metal, and my example was cleanly cast and slotted together easily.
To add a bit of extra flavour I used a DUST DSHK heavy machine gun that I scoured eBay for. Both these models recieved a coat of paint from Vallejo's 4BO Russian green paint set.
Vallejo 4BO Russian Green.
Given the amount of models I paint for work, I'm always on the look out for interesting paint sets. I tend to mostly use Vallejo paints, and get them from SnM Stuff. Whilst browsing the page I spied Vallejo do a range of airbrush colour paint sets of around 6 colours designed to give an extra level of interest and graduated colour to your models. My interest was piqued so I swagged the Russian armour set.
Russian armour during WW2 was officia
lly painted a colour known as 4BO Green. This is a dark olive green colour in theory, however the actual paint appears to have varied quite widely in the field, and this set consists of 5 different greens, as well as a satin varnish to allow you to create a fancy modulated finished on your tanks.
lly painted a colour known as 4BO Green. This is a dark olive green colour in theory, however the actual paint appears to have varied quite widely in the field, and this set consists of 5 different greens, as well as a satin varnish to allow you to create a fancy modulated finished on your tanks.
Each paint is provided in an 8ml dropper bottle, so is about half the amount of a normal Vallejo paint bottle. These are all colours from the Vallejo range, and share product codes with the full size bottles, so expanding on what sis included here is very easy
Happily, the set has a 6 stage step by step painting guide on the back of the box, and I used the guide here to apply the green colour to my tanks, following the instructions to the letter.
I used my cheap unbranded airbrush to paint these to really test how the paints worked, and was very impressed. They required no thinning and were ready to spray straight from the bottle. If you don't have an airbrush though this may not be the set for you, though you could perhaps replicated the techniques in the steps using dry brushing techniques.
The set describes the first colour as Russian Green Primer, however I painted the models over a grey auto primer layer first, as I always prefer to use a stronger primer as a base as opposed to spraying onto the bare model, and this is doubly important when working with a resin or metal model.
Overall, I was very impressed with Vallejo's set, and I would definitely buy more. So far I've painted between 12 and 15 vehicles with it, and have enough paint left to do about the same number again, so value for money is excellent, considering the set retails at around £10.
I weathered my Russian tanks using oil washes and MIG pigments. I thoroughly reccomend both vehicle kits as well as the Vallejo paint sets as being marvellous.
You can expand your Russian armour collection with the help of Warlord Games, and you can see more of my work at Volley Fire Painting Service.
