Warlord Games IS-2 Heavy Tank - basic build

So, the Warlord Games / Italeri IS-2 Heavy tank is now assembled.

As a kit, it has a number of issues. As mentioned earlier, there is one typo in the instructions. The turret assembly lacks reliable support. The joins are too fine for the thickness of the plastic. The mantlet assembly does not align properly.

The four fuel tanks have not been installed yet because they are difficult to align properly. The connections look more like flash than a properly engineered join. The fuel tanks on the Rubicon T34 kits look crude but they do align correctly. Neither of them have the end handles.

Plastic hand rails are provided, however I made them out of 0.7mm brass rod. They are all the same size, and I used the 24 inch handrail part of the 4mm to the foot scale hand rail jig.

 I did lose the turret lift tab from the back of the turret, so I made one out of plastic rod. A dwarf aerial was added in front of the cupola. The cupola is rather crude, a number of features have been simplified. On the real tank, the AA gun and the hatch assembly would appear to be able to rotate. The loader's hatch requires quite a bit of modification to make it fit flat.

The upper and lower hull need to be joined before the rear engine plate can be added. This means my normal technique of keeping the upper and lower hulls separate for painting will not work.

Warlord Games IS-2 Heavy Tank -

Well, I have complained that the Marder sprues did not have any part numbers, you have to look at the photographs of the sprues with labels.

The instructions for the IS-2 has a mistake in the numbering.

As you can see, it says that the top track is part 46, except it is not. Part 46 is a spare track unit of four links.

Poor proof reading...

IS-2M tank at IWM Duxford

Warlord Games IS-2 Heavy Tank - contents

I recently bought a Warlord Games IS-2 Heavy Tank.

The box contains two sprues to build the tank.

An instruction booklet with photographs of painted models, a data card and damage markers.

Of note is that the damage markers now come with plastic 25mm lipped bases rather than the MDF ones in the previous boxes.

It also comes with one sprue of Soviet infantry (eight figures), a Soviet weapons sprue and a Soviet Infantry leaflet (see the KV-1/2 post for photographs of those sprues).