Soviet Zis-3 Artillery Battery Ready to Defend Mother Russia

I have been itching to paint lately. So I have been working my way through a lot of the models which have been sitting on my shelf for a while. First up was a battery of Soviet Zis-3 guns for my Soviet Army. When I originally purchased these I thought I had gotten a great deal but it turns out that I had actually bought the new plastic version of the battery. So I was very disappointed. I was more disappointed when I saw that the staff, command, and observer team came on a separate sprue of cheap, soft gray plastic. Obviously Battlefront has known these were going away for a while and have been planning ahead. The gray plastic was soft but actually brittle so the standing figures broke as I was snipping them off of the sprue; very frustrating.

In World War II the Soviets used the Zis-3 in both the artillery as well as anti-tank role. In Flames of War most of the infantry lists like strelkovy and motostrelkovy offer the battery as an artillery option but most players I have seen running it tend to push it up front with the infantry to blast away at the German tanks. That was what I really wanted it for as I usually use Katyusha as my Soviet artillery option. I used the my standard soviet paint scheme. I thought they turned out pretty well. You can’t really tell since the pictures I took on the table top didn’t.

As usual my favorite team to paint and model was the staff team. I’m sad that they seem to be gone in version 4. The sculpts were usually unique and I feel like the stand itself gives you more of chance to do more, almost like a little diorama.

Next on the docket is a platoon of Soviet Scouts.