Egyptian T-55 Company in 15mm

Egyptian T-55 company in 15mm - models from Battlefront

Before I got too much further back into Horus Heresy stuff, I wanted to finish off a project I had started back in the spring - completing Egyptian and Israeli forces for Battlefront's "Fate of a Nation" supplement.  I had painted quite a bit of stuff through the spring and summer for both sides, but true to my short-circuiting attention span, I eventually got distracted by other projects even with the finish line in sight!  This T-55 company was the last component I needed for the Egyptian force. I finished three T-55s in July, started on the rest of the company, but suddenly trailed off on to other things.

The T-55 - an inconic piece of Cold War era kit. A decent and modern MBT for the era of the Six Day War, they didn't get a chance to do too well in 1967 for the Egyptians, and the IDF destroyed a great number of them, and captured so many they refit them for IDF service!

I have the attention span of a gnat.  Anyway, while I did this other stuff, six T-55s were sitting on the painting table with a base coat of paint. After weeks of passing over them I finally snapped and finished them off this week.  So here is a completed T-55 company, nine tanks strong.

The tank with the open hatch will be used to represent the company commander

These painted relatively fast, but as I said in my previous post on these vehicles, the quality of the cast metal accessories is very, very disappointing. The cupola MGs, fenders, hatches, fuel tanks and crew were all very poor quality castings.  A great disappointment considering how much you pay for them.

Tactical numbers are from Battlefront; I don't know that the Egyptian army of 1967 was too rigorous when it came to turret numbers, but I think it adds a nice flourish to the vehicles

The main colour is GW's "Zandri Dust", pin-washed with GW's "Agrax Earthshade" wash and weathered liberally with some dark brown chipping and a bit of soot and dust coloured weather powder. The numerals are all decals from Battlefront.  And while their accessories seem to be taking a dive quality-wise, the decals are top-notch!

In Flames of War, the Egyptian companies essentially move as platoons...so this will be a horde of tanks...

This completes my initial Egyptian force for "Fate Of A Nation". In addition to these bad boys, I have a company of IS-3s, a company of mechanized infantry, and a pair of ZSU-57-2s.  It works out to something like just over 1000 points of stuff for the table.

We'll see how long they last on the table tonight!