From MikeP: 20mm WWII Soviet ISU 122 Assault Guns (26 points)

From Mike:

Here's my entry #5.  These kits are from the Italieri ISU 122 Fast Assembly Kit, which gives you two of these Russian bruisers, each in 9 parts.  No little bogies to cut and glue on, no flexible tracks to try and melt together. 

The only drawback to this kit is that it doesn't include decals, so I tried my hand at handpainting some slogans found on a website of Soviet posters.  One says "Cut the bastards!", the other says "Fight to the Death!".  I chose them because they were reasonably short, but I still ran out of space on the hulls.  Oh well.

The Challenge rules require that entries are based, so I stole heavily from Sidney Roundwood's amazing WW1 bases and cobbled together some bases that have an urban theme, suitable for a Fall of Berlin game which I hope to do when I get a bit more kit.

Two firsts for me with these models. They are the first tanks I've airbrushed, using Vallejo Russian Green, as I slowly work up the nerve to use my airbrush.   It was reasonably successful, and nice to get away from the mess that brushwork sometimes makes of vehicles when the paint bunches and clumps. The second first was using pigment. For the tracks and lower hulls I used Vallejo 73109 Natural Umber from their Earth and Oxide kit.  It was fun to use but in retrospect I think the "less is more" rule will apply.

Great work Mike! Congratulations on your two 'firsts', you did a very fine job with both the airbrush and pigments. I also really like the 'Roundwood' bases you created for them, though truth be told, I only require basing for figures that clearly require them (my bad for not being more explicit in the rules). 

These two monsters will give Mike a base of 24 point but I'm adding a few more for the bases and abreiviated slogans.