Latest Cold War Doings

Since the last update, I’ve been cracking on with some more Cold War offerings from both Elhiem and S&S Models.

One of the first Elhiem releases of the new year (and on the swanky new site) was CWR 18, Soviet Support Weapons. This nifty little booster pack provides an SA-7 Grail SAM operator, a soldier armed with a couple of RPG-18 disposable anti-tank weapons (handy for increasing the pose count in one’s infantry squads) and also a sniper firing his Dragunov SVD.

I decided to use the RPG-18 soldier in the first BMP dismount team, so he’ll be based as normal, however the SA-7 operator will be double based with a No.2, mirroring the BAOR Blowpipe team as an AD element, and the sniper will also be double based with a spotter, to be used as an actual, dedicated sniper weapons team, as opposed o the platoon marksman in the 3rd BMP team, who also has an SVD, but is based singly. To highlight the difference, I decided that the “proper” sniper and his spotter would be in camouflage smocks and trousers. This necessitated adding a hood to the figure with some green stuff (sacrilege as it is to bugger about with Matt Hingley’s sculpts…)

All three are now finished and ready for basing. Camouflage pattern on the sniper's overalls is the "solnechnye zaychiki " or "sunshine rays", sometimes known as "sun bunnies". Just need the second figures for the sniper and SA-7 teams, who will be provided courtesy of the Soviet NCO pack, which has a couple of suitably pointy figures…

Next up, S&S Models’ CVR(W) Fox Armoured Car. This chap will form my entry to the current Guild “Armour” group  build.

Unfortunately a few rogue air bubbles had attacked some of the protruding detail on my example, so this was rebuilt (to the best of my somewhat meagre abilities) with green stuff.  Then added some stowage, a mixture of things from Elhiem and Kingfisher (current holders of much of the old CMSC range, minus the figures, which seem to have gone to Friendship Models), and the Fox was ready for the paint shop.

I’ve now finished the basic painting of the vehicle, and I’m now on to the fun bit; the detailing! Picking out all those little bits and pieces of contrasting colours that should make an otherwise drab paintjob stand out a bit…

Next job will be trawling through my stock of old decals to find some suitable markings, before mounting it (and the Ferret from a few months ago) on a suitable base now I’ve acquired some from Warbases.

Cheers

Iain