Zvezda 1/100 WW2 Tanks and Armoured car

I had seen the name Zvezda knocking around the model world on the Internet for some and they appear to go hand in hand with cheap plastic kits, I was put off a bit by just how low cost they were originally and so stayed away. It was only recently when I started looking in to getting some 15mm WW2 bits that I came across some pics of the Zvezda models painted up and they looked half decent, so I found a great supplier on eBay and ordered up three kits, a German Panzer III, German Armoured car and a Soviet T34, trying to order the most widely used vehicles used by both sides during the war and these seemed to fit the bill. All three kits came to only £8.66 including delivery and I was really impressed when they arrived the day after ordering them!

My first reaction when opening the box was that they were packaged in some pretty small boxes but then I kept forgetting they were 15mm so were going to be small anyway, it's weird but I've never really put together a 15mm model "kit". All three vehicles came on sprues with some assembly instructions, flags and a stat card, I gather this was to support some game that Zvezda have released.

15mm Forged in Battle figure for scale

The two tanks went together a breeze, they were low on parts and were capable of being snap fit, the Armoured car on the other hand came in a fair few very small pieces on the sprue that needed to be carefully removed and put together, it's one thing to buy a single piece metal or resin 15mm model and another to try and build one from its smallest components! Needless to say I made a pigs ear of it, there were gaps in the build and several bits needed re glueing back together before assembly....fat handed tw@t!

But even after this they were all really easy to paint up ready for the tabletop, they had just the right amount of detailing to pick out but were still really quick to finish, I think I spent 45 minutes on each one starting with a black base coat, sloppy coat of brown, dry brushed the main base coat, couple more dry brushes getting lighter then picked out the details and worked in the shading using brown and black washes, finally dry rushing some mud to the bottom of them.

Overall I'm really impressed with these kits and i will be ordering more soon, at such a low cost I can pick up a few different kits here and there and just enjoy putting them together without ok much stress...and they should fit in well with a new gaming project I've been working on....... :)