I have recently finished a review of the upcoming Armies Army RUSK BTR 290 which will be ready for pre-order over Chrismas and will be hopefully released in January. This 15mm armoured personnel carrier is Soviet inspired and will be used as part of the vehicle park of the Russian United States of Kirov.
The packaging and shipping
First of all a bit about the packaging and shipping of this model along with some other miniatures which will be reviewed later. The miniatures came packed in a padded enveloppe further protected with additionnal plastic bubble wrap. I haven't found any broken bits so you can be reassured that your miniatures arrive in pristine condition when ordering from Armies Army through Black Hat Miniatures. The shipping was also good as the miniatures arrived within a week in Belgium from the UK.
The model
The 15mm RUSK BTR 290 is made out of a resin body and turret while the eight wheels are casted in white metal. The detail on this model is excellent while the company owner told me he is remoulding the vehicles as he found a small printline on his previous test runs. I must admit I hadn't noticed the printline untill the owner mentionned it but as you can read, the company owner only wants to release top notch products!
As you can see in the following picture, the turret comes with a bit of resin that needs to be removed as the turret otherwise doesn't fit the hole in the body. Looking at the resin piece, I think it was needed in the construction progress to make sure everything was well casted. Nothing to worry about as you can easily remove it with a sharp stanley knife and some small viles. Edit: the production models of this vehicle will be casted without the resin piece as mentionned above.
The assembly
The assembly of this model was quite straightforward as there are only 10 pieces which are well casted and don't need lots of work. The only work needed is the removable of the resin bit on the turret as described above and some minor flash on the metal casted wheels. For the assembly I used some regular superglue and it worked fine for both the resin and metal.To make construction easier I have first of all glued on the four wheels on one side and let them dry. Then I glued on the other four wheels and put on the turret without glueing so he can still rotate. I have added some pictures of the assembled model.
As I don't own much small scale miniatures I have added a picture of the vehcicle with some 15mm miniatures also made by Armies Army. As you can see the vehicle is very well suited for it's role as 15mm support vehicle when compared with these miniatures and would a fine addition to your armoured column.
Painted example
To give you an idea of how this vehicle can look painted up. I have added a picture of the BTR 290 painted by the talened Dwartist of the Lead Adventure Forum. As you can see an excellent model with great detail but note that this example has a different set of wheels. Edit: the production models of this vehicle will be supplied with the armoured variant wheels as seen in the picture above.
The conclusion
As you can see this model is well-designed and of excellent quality as supervised by the company owner who strives after utter perfection. When this vehicle is released in January it will be a great addition to your futuristic 15mm Soviet inspired forces or other futuristic forces. Interested in seeing more of these models in the making or interested in some released miniatures of Armies Army. Take a look here for more information.
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