Bolt Action: Russians

I was going through my photos and I realised I hadn't posted any pictures of my finished 28mm PSC Russians. My oringinal posts on the package deal I bought from PSC can be found here and here and here.

The infantry

You get more infantry than this in the box. I just painted up what I needed. There's a good selection of poses and they paint up well. All the figures were sprayed with Army Painter sand colour and the extra details painted in, they were then given a a coat of the Army Painter 'Strong' shade dip.

A close-up of some of the poses

The two different types of mortar you get.

The anti-tank and artillery options for the guns.

The Maxim and anti-tank rifles.

I was going to add a nice Foundry German force in greatcoats as opponents but I got ripped off by Maelstrom and they never arrived.

If you're interested in Bolt Action I did a quick review which can be found here.

New Releases From The Plastic Soldier Company

PSC have just announced some new releases one of which I'm particularly interested in, the SdKfz 222. It's a new Zvezda kit so not strictly a PSC release but that's where I buy my Zvezda kits.

The SdKfz 222 is a great little armoured car that you can use in loads of armies. It's stats are shown below:

Sd Kfz 222 (2cm)	Wheeled	1	0	0	Co-ax MG.
2cm KwK38 gun	16"/40cm	3	5	5+	Self-defence anti-aircraft.

I've been thinking about getting some of these for a while so I may have to take the plunge now.

PSC have also announced their 15mm SdKfz 251/D Halftrack conversion kit. The kit has 24 crew figures and parts to build 16 halftrack variants: 251/10 Platoon Commander with Pak 36, 251/8 Mortar, 251/9 Stummel and 251/16 Flamm  for £16.50. You will still need to buy the standard 251/D halftracks but you do get lots of nice options for about £1 each which is a pretty good deal.

Quick review: PSC Russian Infantry

I got a couple of boxes of the PSC Russian Infantry in Summer Uniform from Graham of Simple Miniature Games last night. I only wanted one box but the swine tempted me with a great price on two! So anyway I thought I'd do a quick review.

The box itself has a clear plastic window on the back so you can see the models without having to open the box (which I imagine is a boon for retailers). It also has the usual painting guide.

The box itself contains 15 junior officers/NCO's, 95 riflemen/SMG's & 10 lmg teams. They are moulded in light grey plastic and come on five identical sprues.

Mine had no flash anywhere and the mould lines are minimal. Certainly less than on most metal miniatures. The casting is crisp & clean, again better than a lot of metal miniatures. There are a few figures with soft caps the rest have the usual helmets. On each sprue you get 26 figures, the breakdown is as follows:

2 standing firing
4 kneeling firing
2 kneeling pointing w left arm
2 standing throwing grenades
2 advancing weapon low
4 standing unarmed figures (one of which is female)
10 multi-part figures that need assembling (includes lmg teams, & inf with various weapons)

It's these multi-part figures that I don't like. You can see the poses you get in the picture below of the assembly sheet.

I assume that they are done this way because of casting issues. But the contact areas are tiny. I don't see why I need to glue the heads on two prone figures for example. I guess you get more variety in poses. But I'd rather have less variety in poses to get one piece mouldings than have to fiddle around trying to glue one tiny piece to another tiny piece.

Anyway what do I think of them. First off they are great value for money. Quality of moulding is good but I think the detail on the PSC German Infantry is better. The main downside for me is again, as with the PSC German Infantry, having to assemble some figures. Overall 8/10 I would buy more if I needed them. But as I have 260 figures now I hope I won't ever need to buy more.

Plastic Soldier Company German Infantry

I got a box of the Late War German Infantry from Graham of Simple Miniature Games on Thursday night. So I thought I do a quick review.

The box itself has a clear plastic window on the back so you can see the models without having to open the box (which I imagine is a boon for retailers). It also has the usual painting guide.

The box itself contains 10 junior officers/NCO's, 90 grenadiers & 15 lmg teams. They are moulded in grey plastic and come on five identical sprues.

Mine had no flash anywhere and the mould lines are minimal. Certainly less than on most metal miniatures. The casting is crisp & clean, again better than a lot of metal miniatures. On each sprue you get 26 figures, the breakdown as  follows:

3 standing firing
1 kneeling firing
2 kneeling pointing w left arm
2 standing throwing grenades
3 advancing weapon low
2 walking carrying ammo boxes
13 multi-part figures that need assembling (includes lmg, radio op, & inf with various weapons)

It's these multi-part figures that I don't like. You can see the poses you get in the picture below of the assembly sheet.

I assume that they are done this way because of casting issues. But the contact areas are tiny. I don't see why I need to glue the heads on two prone figures for example. I guess you get more variety in poses. But I'd rather have less variety in poses to get one piece mouldings than have to fiddle around trying to glue one tiny piece to another tiny piece.
Anyway what do I think of them. First off they are great value for money. Quality of moulding is great but having to assemble some is a pain. Overall 8/10 I would buy more if I needed them.