Early Imperial Roman Legionaries - Victrix Product Review

I'm definitely into EIR and I like plastic models.  I was very much into the EIR's that Warlord Games released a few years ago despite their short comings, pun intended.  Back then I thought they had good detail despite a couple of poses having some serious problems.  The big issue with them was the scale.  The scale would have been fine if their Auxilliaries were giants in comparison in size.  Anyways enough about that.  This review is about, in my opinion, some awesome plastic multipose models.  It's sort of a two for one review of Victrix's Attacking and Advancing kits.  Both of which are 25 models strong.  Both kits come with a Centurion, Aquilifer, Optio, Cornicern, Signifier, and 20 Legionaries.  Ah, but that is not all, the Advancing kit includes helmet crests for making Praetorians.

So onto the sprues, what do you get.  Each kit includes a Command Sprue for the Centurion, Aquilifer, Optio, Cornicern, and Signifier.  They also include both bear and lion skins for the command model.

Each kit also comes with 5 sprues of Legionaries.  Below is the Advancing sprue.
 

Below is the Attacking sprue which also comes with a head option having the cross bars on the helmets.
 

As you can tell the Attacking are little bit more dynamic.  The Advancing are obviously in a marching style of pose.

So once assembled you get a good variety of models.   I went for a kit bashing concept with the two kits to assemble to units to fill out my Roman army.

The two on the left are from the Attacking Sprue.  They have the pant legs.

I really love the looks of these, and the scale fits with what Victrix is doing in their other ancient lines.  With this size, it should make them much easier to paint all of the fine detail than say the Warlord Games models which we will compare in this review.

Below you can see the guy on the far right is from the Advancing sprue, a bit more stale, but no pant legs in comparison with the Attacking.

 The detail on all of these models are extremely crisp, great undercuts, great and easy to pose models.

The models themselves are very easy to clean up, there was very little in the way of mold lines to remove.  One word of caution though, is to be careful with the pilums and and standards as they are a bit slight and fragile.

Below you can see how they compare in scale to various other models, Romans, and otherwise.  On the left and right are the Warlord Games standard bearers.

 A side shot comparison of the standard bearers.

Below are the Victrix: Attacking, Warlord Veteran, and Warlord EIR Metal.  

 Below the Warlord Centurion and the Victrix.

Below the Warlord Musician and the Victrix.

 Below:  Victrix Baeleric Slinger, Warlord Veteran, Victrix Attacking, Warlord EIR Metal, and Warlord Republican Roman.  This really illustrates the absurd inconsistency of scale in the Warlord range.

A bit more of a close up.

 A comparison of the Victrix and the Warlord Republican Roman

Comparison of the Centurions.

 Below a Saxon Miniatures' Arthurian, Victrix, and Gripping Beast Metal Viking.

Victrix vs Warlord

 Victrix vs Warlord Legionaire fixed posed.  The right is my conversion to fix my least liked Warlord plastic EIR pose, to make the model stand more at attention.

 And finally the Victrix shield vs the Warlord Shields. 

I did not have any Foundry EIRs on hand during this, but having had them in the past alongside of my Warlord Games EIRs, I'm sure the Victrix are bigger than them as well.

Saxon Miniature's Saxon Warlords Review

 I love the viking warlords that Saxon Miniatures has.  Having started painting my Saxon army, I decided to pickup their Warlords to add a bit more character to the army.

 This is a pretty cool selection of miniatures.  Not all of them are pictured as I pulled out three of them to add to my crusaders army as they look more Norman like with kite shields.

I really like the poses on these, some are dynamic, some are majestic.  Details are sharp and crisp.  There is not a lot of flash on the miniatures.  The only things that are kind of rough are the ones with the capes.  The capes requires sanding, filing, and scraping to smooth out the casting.  Other than that I think they will paint quite well.  As you can see, I don't really like metal spears, so I switched those out using some left overs from the Gripping Beast plastics.

The one above and to the left is King Alfred.  Pretty neat miniature.

So how do the models look when compared to other manufacturers:

Below left to right:  Saxon Mini, Perry crusader, Saxon Mini, Conquest Games Norman, Foundry Viking, Perry Mini.

 Below:  Foundry Viking, Saxon Mini, and Gripping Beast Metal

Below, left to right: Perry crusader, Saxon Mini, Conquest Games Norman, Foundry Viking, Saxon Mini

 Below, left to right:  Gripping Beast plastic Viking, Saxon Mini, Perry crusader, Saxon Mini, Conquest Games Norman.

 Below:  Gripping Beast Viking, Saxon Mini

Conquest Games Medieval Archers Review

Finally picked up a box of the Conquest Games Medieval Archers.  I've been waiting for this box set, so beware I'm sporting archers now for my armies.  They are 28mm scale plastic models like their other kits.  This is definitely their best effort thus far with the models, don't let their horrible box art fool you.  I do think they like hurt their sales greatly by using such terrible box art.  They would in my opinion be much better of not using any art and just have really well painted miniatures pictured on the box.

Lots of nice stuff here, lets go over the contents of the box.

You get 28 miniatures, which includes the command sprue shown below which is the same sprue form their infantry box.  It has two of their Norman infantry men and the cool casualty mini you see on the right.

You get 2 accessory sprues that have one body as pictured below.  Note that they have put longbows and short bows both on the sprues.

Below is one of the main frames.  As you can see the accessory sprue shows up once more in the lower half of the sprue.  In the kit there are 6 different bodies, 16 different heads for a total of a whopping 60 heads overall.  There are 36 longbows arms, 30 short self bows, 48 right arms (I really love the open hands), 6 left arms with pointing hand.

 Below is close up of the one corner.  Good detail on these, like I said this is their best kit yet.

One of the few things I did not like were the quivers, but I think I have been able to fix that a bit.  The sprue below shows the bodies and heads.  Lots of good heads, covering different looks.  I think you have some very good selections here.  I'm mainly looking for mine to play with my Saxons and Vikings and Dark Ages.

So how do they compare to other manufacturers, well you can see I pulled out a bunch of models.

 From Left to Right:  Above one of my Conquest Games plastic infantry, Conquest Games Archer, Gripping Beast Plastic Viking, Conquest Archer, Foundry Viking.  Below:  Gripping Beast Plastic Saxon, Conquest Archer, Gripping Beast Metal, and Perry Crusader.  One of the things you will note on the Conquest Archers like their infantry men are the very thick stands.  I'm basing on 20mm squares and they barely fit.

 Below:  GBP Viking - Conquest Games Archer

Below:  Perry Crusader - Conquest Games Archer

 Below:  Conquest Games Infantry - Conquest Games Archer

 Below:  Foundry Viking - Conquest Games Archer

 Below:  GBP Metal Viking - Conquest Games Archer

 Below:  GBP Viking - Conquest Games Archer

 Below:  GBP Saxon - Conquest Games Archer

 Below:  Various poses of the Conquest Games Archers

Overall and A for the kit, and F for the box art.  These are going to jump to the front of my paint que.

Saxon Miniatures' Viking Warlords Review.....Great Characters

I had been wanting to add some more characters to my Vikings and along came Saxon Miniatures with their line of figures.  The miniatures are some of the best character models that I have seen in a long time and reasonably priced models.  Everyone of them is unique in look, is dynamic, and is well posed.

Alot of times when you see miniatures introduced the scale is all wonky and does not work well with where they are directing the focus of the miniature line, in this case in that 28 mm scale for WAB, Hail Caesar, SAGA and other such games.  Scale on these however are well done.  Below is the Saxon Miniature on the left and one of my Gripping Beast plastic Vikings in a similar pose.

 As you can see they fit pretty well together.

Below you see the same miniature, this time alongside of a Foundry viking.

Below, from left to right:  Saxon Miniature, Foundry, Saxon, Gripping Beast Plastic

Below are some more of the Vikings, a musician, command model and another Warlord that appears to be in Rus like garb.

 Same miniatures below, 1/4 turn.

 Below 3 more of the Saxon Miniature's warlords alongside one of my Gripping Beast Plastics.

Below 1/4 turns.

Below two more of the viking warlords, from left to right:  Saxon Miniature, Foundry, Saxon, Gripping Beast Plastic.

Below the 1/4 turn of the Saxon Miniatures.

 Below are two more of the viking warlords, this time with one of my converted Wargames Factory models.  On these two I used Gripping Beast plastic weapons with the models.

They are very cool looking models, and fit very well with all of the vikings and saxons that I have in my collection.  I'm very happy that I rolled the dice and purchased these, and greatly look forward to painting up these models and adding them to my collection.  If you are into Vikings, I definitely recommend these.