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Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
with Gary Martin

With the release of Red Bear a good friend of mine asked me to help him get a new Soviet army ready. Luckily he wasn’t looking for a Strelkovy Battalion or a tank horde so I agreed to paint it up for him over the Christmas break.
 
His choice of army was a simple one but boy is it effective on the battlefield. It is a Guards Heavy Tank Regiment (page 44 of Red Bear) with 14 IS-85 tanks.
Red Bear
Red Bear
is the Allied forces (Soviet, Poles and Romanians). serving on the Eastern Front between January 1944 and February 1945.

Learn more about Red Bear here...

Red Bear
The Tank
The IS-85 is a great tank in Flames Of War.  It’s got the tough front armour 10 and side armour 8 which can deal with all but the biggest anti tank weapons. The top armour 2 combined with the rerolled hits from the Turret Rear MG makes these tanks monsters in assaults and tough to crack open.
 
Armed with the reliable 85mm D-5T gun they can fire two AT 12 shots when stationary or 1 on the move. Great for killing most medium tanks in Flames Of War; all of these parts add up to a tough tank to deal with on the table top but a real challenge is when you have 14 of them bearing down on you.  That’s the real advantage of this tank. It’s a good heavy tank that is cheap enough to field in large numbers so you can afford to be aggressive with them and charge forward.

The IS-85 in Flames Of War
      Armour
   
Name
Mobility
Front
Side
Top
Equipment and Notes
Weapon
Range
ROF
Anti-tank
Firepower

IS-85 Slow Tank
10
8
2
Co-ax MG, Turret-rear MG.
85mm D-5T gun
32"/80cm
2
12
3+

Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Painting
I kept the paint scheme on these tanks fairly simple.  I started with a base coat of Tankovy Green (FWP341) then gave the tanks a mud/brown wash.  I then reapplied the base coat but kept the lining on any hatches and the deeper recesses for shading.  A couple of layers of highlights were applied adding first some Dry Dust (FWP364) and then a spot of white for the final highlight.

Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment

To blend the hull colours I then applied some more of the brown/Mud wash.  This time you are looking to paint it on as a glaze rather than wash, which means you, are doing an even coat over the model and you don’t want it to pool in the recesses.  I keep a cloth handy for this stage as I wipe off any excess ink as I’m going. 

The overall effect of this is that you will stain the surface of the model which should blend your highlights together and darken your shading slightly.

Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment

The tracks were painted Dark Gunmetal (FWP480) and given a brown wash.  A few coats of the MiG Pigments Standard Rust (from QPS04 – Quartermasters Pigment Set) were applied to the tracks until they looked nice and rusty.  The Tracks were then dry brushed with the Dark Gunmetal (FWP480) again to pick up the raised edges of the tracks.

Right: MiG Pigments Standard Rust.

Learn more about the Quartermasters Pigment Set here...

Standard Rust
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
To make the Company commander stand out I added a white Air recognition stripe.  This doesn’t have to be too neat as they were applied by hand by the crew.  The stowage was then painted using Battlefield brown (FWP324) for any wooden areas and Comrade Khaki (FWP326) for the canvas.
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
I kept the weathering fairly simple on these by applying a little Vallejo Pumice gel onto the tracks, mud guards and wheels. If you don’t have the gel, you can always use spackle or filler instead. A little Earth coloured paint was added to the gel for colour.  It was then dry brushed with a light Khaki colour. The models were then sealed with come spray matt varnish and were ready to go.
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Objectives
Now, my mate and I have a bit of a running joke going with our objectives.  We usually add a burnt out tank from the other ones army just to help theme the objectives.  When I was running my 7th Armoured Division list, he had a burnt out Firefly with all the same markings as one of mine for an objective.  I returned the favour and had a burnt out Puma when he was running a StuG list with them in support.

Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment We had a couple of spare tanks left over so I decided to make some suitable objectives for him.  One is a captured IS-85 which just happens to have some of my Fallschirmjäger crawling over the back of it.

Left: The IS-85 objective complete with Fallschirmjäger.
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
The other was a more traditional (for us) burning IS-85.  I’ve been asked a few times about how I make my tank objectives so here is a step by step guide.

Right: The burning IS-85 objective.
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Step One
For this objective I’m going to use an IS-85 hull that has had the turret blown off.  To start you should undercoat the bottom of the tank.  I did this before adding the smoke for ease of use.

Left: The undercoated bottom of the tank.
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Step Two
I then added the smoke.  This is just GF9 Clump-Foliage.  You need to find some large clumps of it and super glue these onto the tank.  You need to use a lot of glue to get it to stick so don’t worry about being generous with it.  Add more clump-foliage until you get the shape of smoke you are looking for.


Right: The clump foliage added to represent the flames.
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment Step Three
The rest of the model is now undercoated with black spray.  I like to use the spray as it firms up the clump-foliage and helps it to keep its shape.  There will be some green patches showing through after the spray but these can be touched up using some watered down black paint.

Left: The tank and foliage completely undercoated.
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment

Step Four
Paint up the model as normal.


Right: The painted tank.

Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Step Five
The Hull is then given a dry brush of black round about the smoke to make the hull look like its charred.  The smoke is then dry brushed with Panzer Grey (FWP303) and then a highlight of Bunker Grey (FWP304).

Left: The dry brushed and highlighted smoke.
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Step Six
The base of the smoke is then given a dry brush of Orange and then Yellow to represent the flames.


Right: The dry brushed flames.
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment Step Seven
Finally the tank was based, and with that your objective is complete.

Left: The completed objective.
I hope this article has given you some insight into how this army went together.  If you are interested there are more pictures on my Wargames and Painting blog (http://wargamesandpainting.blogspot.co.nz ). It was a great army to assemble and now I get the fun of being crushed under its tracks during my weekly games. 

~ Gary.

Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment
Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment Gary Martin’s Guards Heavy Tank Regiment


Last Updated On Wednesday, April 8, 2020 by Wayne at Battlefront