Russian KV-1: The Beast reviewed

The KV-1

To provide some much needed mobility for my Bolt Action Russian's I've invested in a KV-1. After some consideration I went with the Hobbyboss 1/48 scale kit. At £11.99 it seemed like a great bargain. I knew it would be slightly over-scale compared to the 1/56 models my opponent will be using, so I decided against the mighty KV-2 as it might look enormous.

The Build

Its been ages since I built a model kit so I thought I might do a short review of the kit as well as showing the outcome. Altogether you get about 200 parts spread across about 6 sprues. This includes some brass-etched parts and a some copper wire to make the towing ropes. The main chassis is a single-piece casting with most of the suspension already moulded on. They offer several variants of the kit which I assume mostly feature different turrets, but there are a few detailed parts too that seem to vary.  The instructions were clear with no obvious gotya's or out of sequence steps.



Main body and details



Wheels and turret

As is my custom I painted the bulk of the parts before they were assembled or part-assembled to avoid any tricky painting later. As this was being built for wargaming I omitted one or two of the details such as hatch handles.



Main chassis



Tracks



Turret

The only fiddly part of the build was building the tracks. These are solid plastic and feature tops, bottoms, and individual links to build the sections around the wheels. The tops have some nice looking sagging to suggest weight. It was a bit of a faff but they do provide a jig for the curved sections which helps a bit. Just be patient and take your time. I made some tea, put Test Match Special on the radio and set too.

 

The final verdict 

I was pleased with the final results and at half the price of the official Bolt Action vehicles it was certainly a good buy. It will be larger than the 1/56 vehicles but I hope that can be justified as the KV-1 is a monster and hopefully they will not end-up in close proximity on the table.

KV-1 front

KV-1 rear

KV-1 with 28mm infantry

KV-1 close-up