Scouting Parties Meet in the Freezing Wood

The plan comes together. Apologies for not taking any shots of the build. The T-26s were very simple and the Toldi IIa was good quality as you'd expect from IBG. Lots of details despite the scale.

Now for the figures from Orion... To be honest they kind of suck but I just keep using figures from Orion. My local hobby store has them on hand so it is easy to just keep using them despite their issues with molds, plastic quality, and mold lines.  

Another angle on that. 

Here it is with the sawdust/plaster mix applied. If you look very closely you can see the shell marks in the Toldi's front plate and the holes I drilled into the T-26 on the left. 

Another angle with some 40k guys hanging in the back. 

Rocks placement. I've also done the basecoats on the tanks with my airbrush. 

Another angle on that. 

Here's the tankmen as I'd originally imagined them both. Also I'd like to say, yes, the man with the submachine gun is holding a PPS-43. I'd really have liked him to have a PPSH but you get what you get when you buy late-war tankers with early-war tanks.

You do have to suspend your disbelief a bit maybe for this whole setup to work, did the Soviets even have the 1933 model T-26 in the field in 1942? Probably yes but I doubt they'd put 2 in an operating team. Or maybe they would. 

The creekbed filled with stones from a real life creekbed from near my house. 

Big time skip here, I've already put down the acrylic medium in the ditch off camera and base coated the whole thing. You can sort of see where things are going. The snow is half glued down and I just took this in the middle of doing the other half. 

I'm not a big fan of individual tracks, I think I just need more experience. Funny Story: The whole reason why this Toldi is tracked is because I dropped the rear roadwheel on the floor and it completely vanished. I had to make something up to fix it, so I borrowed a roadwheel from another kit and used it as the broken wheel in the final diorama. You can see the completed T-26 turrets in the back. I was pretty much done at this point. 

Alright and here's the final product. I just took these pictures with my makeshift lightbox. 

Other than the snow I think all of the natural material here I got from the woods. 

Something I do wish I'd done better was tread tracks.  

I'm pretty happy with the water, especially compared to my earlier diorama. 

Some action shots. I don't know what this guy is gonna do to a tank with his smg but you may as well try. 

Close-up on the burnt-out tank. The shot went straight through the driver's hatch. I'll let you imagine why there are only two crew outside. 

POV shot. 

Thanks for checking this out. Still a couple more old things to upload so I'll get to them soon enough. It's fun to go back to what's already done and think and write about it some.