Spent the last few weeks since RECON ORLANDO modifying the Wargames Factory "WWII Russians" and Gripping Beast "Crusades Arabs" into something more useful for my "Moderns" projects.
Behold: "Modern" Russians (good for 1960's-1990's as Russians, all the way up to today for any number of WARSAW-PACT supplied countries and some "Arab Fanatics" useful for any era since the introduction of the various weapons they are wielding (a mixed bag of everything from Kar-98's, M1 Garand rifles, Mosin Nagants, and other assorted WWII weapons to things like Uzis and L85A1 rifles)
Pretty dynamic mix of Russians. I'm not a big fan of prone figures, but thankfully the set only has a few of those
My favorite one in this picture is the far right one. I see him as in transition from shoulder-fire to hip-fire on the weapon while yelling. (Probably while yelling "SUPRESSING FIRE" in Russian
I didn't have enough AK-47's from the 2 sets of WGF "survivors" to outfit the whole 31 set of Russians with AKs, so I substituted Gewehr-43 rifles for Dragonovs. After some creative painting they will look "good enough" for my table (I think)
The guy throwing the grenades has a slung Gewehr-43/SVD. NOTHING shows the hate like eschewing the Rifle for a good old-fashioned grenading! (Actually I was running out of good spare arms for AKs and pretty close to the bottom of the barrel when I made him. The left hand "grenade" was originally a canteen that I carved down.
The officer with the Tokarev I'm naming Colonel Brekhov (Bonus points on whoever catches THAT reference) and making the supreme commander of my unit of expanding Russians
Two or Three Russians have short sleeves. Not sure how I like that… Haven't seen a short-sleeved Russian uniform. I'm sure they exist, but I sure haven't seen them in my cursory googling
Not sure if the uniform cap on the fellow 2nd from the left is still in standard use, but I was running out of M40/M60 helmets, and besides… I see these guys as "Category C" formation in anything outside of the early 70s. Basically what we in the US would call Army Reserve. But more like the Reserve of the pre-90's when the Reserve units here in the US had hand-me-down gear of questionable quality that predated the standard issue for the regulars. After abput 1991 we'd retired the M60 tanks and M14 rifles and our Reservists were pretty much geared up with the same stuff as the "Regular Army" (although usually one or two marks older) thanks to the drawdown after the fall of Communist Russia
The chick in the middle with the RPG I call Olga. I'm fascinated by the discussions about the suitability/fitness of women in combat when the Russians have been doing pretty fine since the 1940's and women have had the legal right to serve in the Russian Armed Forces throughout the Cold War period to today. In 2002, 10% of the Russian armed forces (100,000 of a total active strength of 988,100) were women.
The current tally of woman in the Russian Army is standing at around 115,000 to 160,000, representing 10% of Russia's military strength.
And this one is named after my Cuban Girlfriend and wielding a tankbuster
( source: link )
I never see left-handed figures on wargaming tables. Between 10% and 30% of the population is left-handed and unlike in the age of shield walls, slings, massed bayonet-charges, or any of that 
, modern armies don't have any selective pressure/bias AGAINST it. So because of that, I try REALLY hard to always have a few southpaws in my units. Makes for more variety.
the crouching guy with the "SVD" and the peaked hat looks more fluid when viewed from practically ANY other angle, but i missed it in the rush to photograph all of these
I'm using the "SVD"-armed soldiers as fireteam leaders right now, meaning in my platoon of 31 plastic Russians I have 1 officer, 2 RPG soldiers, 5 Designated Marksmen ("SVD") and 21 with AK47.
FAR from a standard TO&E, (And short ALL their MG support) but I have about a dozen TAG Russians to make up the rest.
I love the guy with the RPG. I can see him yelling either "RELOCATING" and gesturing to the next position, or "KILL THOSE ASSHOLES" while gesturing at something he doesn't have time to acquire with the RPG.
The chick in the peaked cap has another "SVD" because I figure the basic load for the SVD-equipped trooper is less than that for an AK trooper who has to carry ammo for the RPD/RPK in the squad (while the Designated Marksman in a unit is usually one of the lightest loads because of the nature of the job.)
Plus I just like the idea of a sniper chick
struggles to complete his SISI truck force.
