Painted T-90s - 1/50 Scale From Imprint

1/50 scale T-90 MBTs from Imprint, with 28mm Soviet in NBC gear from Eureka

This summer has been lovely here in Winnipeg, but we had rain all day on Sunday this past weekend.  This was good for a couple of reasons - first the garden really, really needed the rain, and second, I was able to finish off my Imprint 1/50 scale diversion by painting up the T-90 MBTs.

The Russian T-90 tank is a wargamer fanboy favourite of mine, based purely on the looks-cool-factor.  The angled explosive armour blocks on the front of the turret, the spooky anti-ATGM jammers on either side of the main gun, the stacked/angled smoke launchers on the sides of the turret, and the remote-controlled 14.5mm MG on the cupola, and of course the massive nearly-over-sized 125mm main gun all serve to give the T-90 a very, very ultra-modern/NF sci-fi look. 

The T-90 is a heavily upgraded T-72 tank.  Russia has a small number in service ("small" as in relative to their still large tank fleet, even after all of the reductions to their armed forces).  India has a version of the T-90 in service.  Other nations have looked at this vehicle from time to time, but I don't know if they have been ordered/used....others on the interwebs will be wiser on this matter than me... 

I am not enough of a tread-head to give an informed opinion of how the T-90 would stack up against the latest western MBTs.  I expect the M1A2s, Challenger 2s and Leopard 2A6s would defeat this tank on most measurements, but superior crew training and maintenace would be major factors regardless of the competing systems on the tanks. I would expect the T-90s would easily handle any third-world/former soviet republic opponents (upgraded T-55s, T-62s and T-72s with lesser upgrade packages), and with a trained/experienced crew and support, would give NATO tankers all they could handle

The T-90 appears to be ominous and awesome looking - regardless of how they would actually perform on the battlefield - and that counts for a lot on the gaming table.  Overall, I think it is a good thing for the world that the T-90 hasn't yet acquired a detailed "in action" record on the battlefield when you consider that they are in service with nations that, should a T-90 unit be called to action, chances are some manner of very scary global security crisis is underway.

The T-90 model from Imprint is top-notch, just like all of the other Imprint products I have ever worked with.  The model is mostly resin, but key pieces are metal - such as the gun barrel and the MG, as well as the cupola turrets, so you can model them open/un-buttoned if you wish.  The only modification needed to make the vehicles game-survivable was to add magnets under the turret and on the main body of the MBT - I can't believe I actually managed to do this without screwing it up too badly...

For the paint scheme I employed the same one I used on the BTR-80s.  The yellow on the camouflage came out a little more prominently for some reason, so I may go back to the tanks and try and dull the yellow down a bit.  I used paints from the new GW range for the most part, with weathering powders at the end.

T-90 on the left, a BTR-80 (also from Imprint) on the right

Together with the BTR-80s and 80As, my Chemical Commies can now expect both a nice ride and some heavy-duty fire support against their NATO/Zombie/Insrugent/Rebel/Seperatist/Big Pharma/ opponents on the Fawcett Avenue tabletop.  Of course the T-90 never really appeared in the time when Russia was still a communist state, so I suppose these would not count as "Chemical Commies", but "Chemical Putin Federalists" doesn't have the same ring to it...

My Golan Heights project is still fully underway - see the picture below for some goodies that just arrived in the post, including infantry and tanks from Peter Pig, and some T-62s from QRF.  Stay tuned!

Goodies in the mail....