Crooked Dice Cold War Jeep - UAZ-469

Back in November 2021 I assembled and painted the Crooked Dice "Alien Jeep".

Comparison with other 1/50 scale vehicles showed that it was a bit large to be a proper UAZ-469 (even ignoring the two door design).

At Warfare this year I picked up one of Crooked Dice's new Cold War Jeep.

The kit comes in six pieces: A one piece body, four road wheels and a spare wheel.

The model has a fixed canvas roof.

Basic paint job:

Citadel Chaos Black spray undercoat.

Citadel Snot Womble Green base colour.

Windows are Army Painter Royal Blue.

Canvas is Citadel Death World Forest.

Tyres and windscreen wiper blades are MIG Rubber and Tyres.

As you can see, the Cold War Jeep is smaller than the Alien Jeep.

But scales a lot better with the Crooked Dice Land Rover.

T62 - Bovingdon

 T62 tank at The Tank Museum, Bovingdon.

Soviet Cold War Desant

 Not finished...

Empress BMD-01 progress

 As mentioned back in February, I received a BMD-1 from Empress.

It is now assembled and base painted.

So the detailing included an aerial on the left rear deck, cables attached to fittings on the hull nose and stretching back to the rear of the hull. Rubicon cable ends were used, the cable is brass wire. Holes are drilled into the hull a distance from end point (the distance being such that the cable ends will hook over the bracket and the ends of the wire). This secures the wire (the hole at one end is made very deep so that the wire can be tensioned by pushing the wire into the hole) and gives the impression the cable end is attached to the cable.

Notches were filed into the nose for the two bow mounted machine guns.

A rotating periscope on the rear hatch. A piece of thin plastic card is placed into a paper punch and a circular piece cut from the plastic. A piece of Slater's 0.06" microstrip makes the periscope.

The aerial is a piece of 1mm brass rod. The base is made from a piece of Plastruct rod.

It was at this point I noticed that the model was missing the periscopes just behind of the turrets. Again strips of Mircostrip provided the periscope heads.

The periscopes were painted with Humbrol 34 White acrylic (shown in the above photographs). They were then painted with Army Painter Deep Blue. The headlights are also Humbrol White.

This is the base painted model with Rubicon Soviet Tank and T26 decals. The numbers are from the Soviet Tank set (DCSV01) and the number in a triangle from the T26 set (DCSV05).

The grills have been shaded with Citadel Camoshade, as has the periscopes and hatches.

It now awaits final weathering and shading.

Empress BMD-1 IFV

 After "One Thing and Another", and before the current unpleasantness, Empress released a range of Cold War Soviet Paratroopers as opposition to their BAOR British infantry. I have just got round to ordering them. So they do not have to walk very far, and to give them some punch, here is the Empress BMD-1.

This has been re-worked from the HLBSCo version, an example of the original HLBSCo BMD-2 has been featured here, and is still awaiting finishing.

The first thing you will note is that the track guards are now metal, a major improvement as at some point before assembly I managed to break the resin ones on the BMD-2.

This will not have as much stowage as the BMD-2 as it will be representing a vehicle early in the conflict and so will be regulation rather than many years in the field (and having been air-dropped).

It will need the periscope fitted to the rear hatch, some aerials and probably the bow mounted machine guns.

Some research is required on the equipment placing.

Crooked Dice UAZ-486 - AKA The Alien Jeep.

 Crooked Dice have just released an "Alien Invader Jeep", which bears an uncanny resemblance to the Soviet UAZ-469 (though in the form of a two door variant).

Two Zone explorers check out the surroundings. Empress modern Russian and Universal Soldier.

UAZ-469 and Mighty Mite.

UAZ-469 and unfinished  M151.

HMMWV (Empress) and UAZ-469.

Tigr and UAZ-469.

Crooked Dice Land Rover and UAZ-469.

Spectre SUV and UAZ-469.

UAZ-469 and William Killian

T-55 Soviet Main Battle Tank

The Soviet T55 main battle Tank was  one of the first MBTs to be fielded, and is still in service with may armed forces.

 The Empress Miniatures model is supplied as a multi-part resin and white metal kit.

The model is easy to assemble, with the following notes. the turret plug was slightly too deep for the socket, I had to cut about 5mm off with a razor saw. There are some mould lines on the auxiliary fuel tanks which are difficult to remove.

I replaced the white metal hand rails on the turret with 0.7mm brass rod for durability (being clumsy).

I also added the Coax machine gun and the stub of the aerial using 1mm brass rod.

The fore and aft mud guards were reinforced with green stuff and milliput to keep them in place.

A tarpaulin was added to the rear of the turret and another was added to the two auxiliary tanks. Strapping from Slater's microstrip was added to the tanks.

The model was assembled into four block, the complete turret, the hull and the two track units. After masking the hull nd the track units, the whole thing was sprayed with Citadel Chaos Black.

The turret and hull were then sprayed with Humbrol 86 Light Olive from a can.

The tarpaulins and the mantlet were painted with Citadel Death World Forest and the whole thing dry brushed with Citadel Nurgling Green.

The tracks were painted (before adding to the hull) with a mix of Army painter Black, Army Painter Chaotic Red and Vallejo Black Grey using a wet palette. This was also used on the exhaust. The wheels were painted with Humbrol 86 Light Olive.

Numbers were added to the turret side from the Rubicon Soviet Tank decal set.

The straps were painted with Citadel Dryad Bark.

The tank was weathered using Humbrol Dark Earth Weathering Powders, hopefully held in place by a combination of Citadel Lahmian Medium, Agrax Earthshade and Army Painter Strong Tone.