Zvezda Soviet Reconnaissance Team

I bought these figures along with a bunch of other stuff when I helped wahj buy the figures for his Soviet platoon plus support. They are from Zvezda's "Art of Tactics" range and are more expensive than their regular range, but come in hard plastic. You get four figures, which can be based individually, or together on a small dioramic base. I chose to base two of the figures on our standard 20mm round bases, and the radio operator and the guy with the map on the dioramic base, so they can represent a Forward Observer team.

I like the proportions and poses on these guys. The details are a little soft, and the slings for the SMGs are not really raised enough to allow for easy painting. The faces do respond very well to a brown wash though.

I painted them in the "amoeba camouflage", but I think my green is too dark.

Soviet scout squads are fielded as 9-men units in Chain of Command, so I needed more figures to round them up. As it turned out 20mm Soviet scout figures in camouflage smocks aren't as common as I thought, but I managed to find a suitable pack from Elhiem:

picture from Elhiem Figures

As you can see, there are four rifle-armed figures, which is exactly the number I need to form a squad. The three SMG armed figures and the two I already have will form the rest of the squad, and I have a spare officer figure which I suppose is always useful to have around.