Krasniy Oktyabr

So - orders placed 14 May, and today (9 working days later), I have my fleet packs and my copy of Shipwreck.

So I peeked earlier, decided I really liked the look of a c 1990 Soviet fleet, and started the process tonight. The fleet packs cost me about 12.50 UK pounds each, and represent excellent value. (I notice in the latest catalogue they are listed as 15 pounds each, so they may have gone up.)

Here's the Soviets, all sizes... 6 corvettes, 6 subs, 7 destroyers/cruisers, and two aircraft/helicopter carriers. I rather like these.

I have heard mixed reviews of the Navwar vessels, but on the whole I was very happy. They don't have the detail of GHQ 1/2400 (nor did I expect them to), but they are perfectly adequate. I had to do a couple of minutes running the x-acto over them to adze off the mould lines, but otherwise they look the business. The only one that had any real issue was the Sovremenny destroyers, where the mould seemed to have been ever so slightly misaligned, and it just took some rather more vigourous scraping to get an acceptable finish.

Assembly was the gantries on the Boris Chilikin fleet oiler, and a separate 'island' for the Admiral Kuznetsov. No challenge there.

So now they are primed gray, and the first step is a black wash, then a serious 'wet-brush' of a lighter gray.

"Krasniy Oktyabr" ? Well, when you have three Typhoon Class subs, of course one of them has to be "Red October", Comrade Captain...