Well, as stated before my Dust shipment arrived. Everything save the Campaign Book Zverograd arrived in a single big box from the Miniature Market. The book I ordered from my FLGS. Unfortunately the shipment came in right before I had to leave for work, so all I war able to accomplish was lining up and photographing my haul.
The next day I set about unboxing and assembling the minis. Yes, some assembly is required. Grand'Ma (Koshka's personal KV47) came in four pieces (two arms, a body, and a base) so she got some superglue to hold all her bits in place. The normal KV47 walker is supposed to have interchangeable arms, but because of the way they're put together the arms droop and/or just plain fall off the mini. That required some superglue, and now the mini is permanently a KV47-A variant. Also, one of my Rifle Squad members wasn't attached to his base properly, but that was just a matter of gluing his foot back onto the base. No big deal.
One thing I did notice about the infantry is that the heads are haphazardly attached. The minis come looking in directions that make no sense whatsoever. Luckily the heads aren't really glued into place very well, and with a gentle tug you can take the head off of the miniature. The head comes with a peg that acts as both the neck as well as the anchor into the body, so a dab of superglue took care of that problem.
From there it was on to painting. I began with the models that would set the tone of the army; the Commissar Squad.
These fellows would be attached to various squads about the army, so their uniform had to match the rest of the force, yet stand out to denote their importance. The brown jackets would match the SSU uniform I would use (I tries to match their uniforms to those I found by Googling "Soviet WW2 uniform") and their armor was painted in what Vallejo Model Color calls "Soviet Green". The way I decided to make them stand out against the masses of normal infantry was to give them blue pants. This would be a stark contrast to the earth tones used elsewhere in the army, and served to offset the red stars on their hats nicely. One of these minis (the fellow pointing) will not be in my finalized army, but I painted him up any way.
The bases on the models are steel plating, so I painted them up appropriately.
My next project would be to tackle the Combat Squad. These fellows will be featured prominently in my army, so I decided to use them to determine the paint job on my infantry. I matched the colors found on the commissars' jackets and body armor. There's a lot more leather found on these minis, so you can see the coloration on that area of the minis much clearer in this photo.
Next up would be Koshka. I wanted to save the character mini for last, but I just couldn't resist.
I wanted her to match the rest of my army, so she has a black leather jacket and brown pants. Unfortunately this is what she's suppose to look like:
Oh, well. I still think she looks okay in my color scheme.
From there I decided to paint up a little armor. I grabbed the KV47-A and went to town. Again I Googled the appropriate camouflage scheme, and from there adapted it to a walker.
I probably should have gone with Grand'Ma (Koshka's walker), but I decided that if I was going to mess up a color scheme, I'd rather do it on a non-character mini. I don't like how the base came out, but aside from that the model looks good.
Yesterday and today saw me focusing on the Rifle Squad. They're done as of about an hour ago, and here they are:
They're a good match to the Combat Squad, and I'm glad that Fantasy Flight Games/Dust Studio decided to give them different headgear than the Combat Squad, as this unit is literally a hybrid of the Combat Squad and Sniper Team minis with a head swap. Don't believe me? you'll see once the snipers are finished.
That's it on the painting front for now. Grand'Ma is sitting on the painting table as her Nuln Oil shade dries, and she ought to be ready for me to get back to painting right about now. Time to turn the ol' podcasts back on and get to work.
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