Quick Review of Plastic Soldier Company 15mm Soviets

The Soviet hordes ready to be primed for the Motherland.

After dithering with the idea of doing Eastern Front in 10mm, Historicon finally pushed me over the edge into 15mm.  My buddy Mike and I really enjoyed the North Africa armor game of Fireball Forward we played, and with 40 tanks on the table it convinced me that a 15mm game with tanks could look reasonable. At least it looked reasonable to me at the time. I've even begun to soften towards Flames of War which I've managed to resist until now.

Mike and I loaded up on rules (Fireball Forward and the Flames of War Starter Set), some Zvezda tanks (50% off at the show) and we each grabbed a boxed set of plastics. He took home some Wargames Factory Late War Germans, and I grabbed a Plastic Soldier Company Russian Infantry in Summer Uniform.

I've built plastics in the past.  I started wargaming with 1/72 Italeri, Revell and Airfix and even when I moved to 28mm I built a number of plastic WGF and Warlord Games plastic kits. Still, I was pleasantly surprised by the Plastic Soldier Company Soviets.

Like most plastics, the detail is softer than metal and the poses are a bit flatter, but there was still a lot of decent poses, and no real "stinkers" that are unusable. The plastic is much harder than the soft plastic in 1/72 kits, and there are also a number of multi-part sculpts, that require arms or heads to be attached separately. Unlike the 28mm plastic kits Iv'e built, these aren't multi-pose kits. The arms and heads only attach in a single configuration, but the precision with which the pieces fit together was frankly shockingly good! Most likely as a result of the computer modeling from which the molds are made, the pieces fit in snugly making the build fairly easy. Some of the bits are quite small (the officer's arm in particular is quite tricky), but with patience and good lighting I didn't run into much of an issue.

Basecoated Plastic Soldier Company Soviets. Ready for Army Painter dip and basing.

I totally botched priming them though and managed to obliterate the detail on a few figs, but it was totally my fault. On the 90% that I managed to give a nice even coat, the detail is still crisp and clear. I've started painting them up, and while I'll likely pick up more metals in the future, I'm really happy with the PSC plastics which went together easily, had zero flash, and are half the price of metals.  Certainly the most painless way of starting up World War II in 15mm.