From JohnM - Сталинградской: Winter War Soviets (156 Points)

I have been working feverishly to get my Stalingrad Soviets finished, this has been my biggest WWII project to date. Aside from 4 figures they are all from CPModels TQD line; and aside from one figure, I am quite pleased with the castings.

I used the Winter War OB published on the TFL site for the roster for these 1939-40 Soviets, these are very large platoons which will easily break down for middle and late war OB's.

The project required 82 figures to date and am very happy to have completed them. There are 4 infantry squads (three of regular infantry and one of NKVD) of 15 men each, a 3 man SMG scout team, a 5 man Maxim HMG team, a 3 man 50mm Mortar team, a 7 man Engineer team, a Sniper, as well as two Senior Officers and of course a Commissar to keep all the chappies in line.

Vallejo Model colours were used to paint the figures as outlined in my COLD submission. I used Golden Extra Coarse Gel on the bases with 4-Ground snow flock for the most recently painted figures. As these figures were going to be used for Stalingrad as well as Winter War, I needed something a little more like rubble.

I am presenting 39 new figures here for 156 points.

Two new squads marching through the destroyed centre of Stalingrad

Squad 2 this time in Ushankas

Squad 3

The only downside of the CPModel-TQD line is the number of poses. The only one I did not like is the firing figure in the Ushanka, the face is very poorly cast here and I just could not do a very good job. The helmets are wrong for Winter War. 

Back View

Minesweeping team, with the JL and the addition of the flamethrower team from below I have an engineering squad. I think a couple of these figures are from the CP line, but I am not 100% sure.

Flamethrower team.

Senior Officer with Commissar. These were painted before the contest in November. I believe the commissar is from the CP line.  He is a nasty looking fellow.

For completeness the rest of the platoon and supports:

NKVD Squad

NKVD Maxim HMG team with a two man SMG team as well as a sniper.

NKVD 50mm Mortar team.

I apologize for such a heavily photo laden post, but it was a big project. I believe that this brings me to just over 500 points (188 for Big Guns, 108 for COLD theme, 156 for Stalingrad) with the bonus of 50 points for the COLD entry. I am quite pleased with reaching half my goal before Xmas, this allows me to really focus on  my remaining entries as well as to start on the enormous collection of resin terrain I have received over the last two weeks, but more about that later...........

From Curt:Oh wow, these look brilliant John! Congratulations on getting this project under your belt - it's a great looking force to be sure. I really like the urban snow groundwork you've created for these - it's very evocative of a bombed-out winter city (very grim indeed). Your finished terrain looks great but I see what you mean about your upcoming project - some of those other ruins look suspiciously uniformly tan coloured. ;)  

Cracking work!