Its been a few years since I've been asked to publicly review a book or a range of miniatures so it was an unexpected pleasure when Chris Parker from Day of Battle Games asked if I would review some of their new 3d printed figures. It was even more of a pleasure because while I rarely buy figures these days, I had been very impressed by pictures of the minis on Facebook and had wondered if they were as good in person and just what size of 40mm they were.
Here is the first of two reviews.
(ie Saxon, Normans & Vikings)
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| 40mm 1066 Saxon, Norman and Viking 3d printed in resin, quickly painted by me. (Look at the detail on the armour!!) |
I had three main questions in mind as I awaited delivery of the samples: Will they look as good as the pictures? What size of 40mm are they? Will my cheap craft acrylics work on them? The first answer was "Yes!". The second is below, and the 3rd was that my cheap paints worked even better on the resin than they are on metal or the soft and hard plastics used on most plastic miniatures.
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| LtoR: 40mm figures: S&S, DoB, Irregular ECW, PA homecast, DoB, Triguard Scots spearman, DofB, PA homecast archer, Elastolin vikings. |
As for the figures themselves, I was blown away by the detail, the anatomy and proprtions and the natural poses. All three of these facets were better than many of the 40mm metal figures that I've painted and equal to the best that I have painted. They do not come with bases but since all my Elastolin plastics are glued to metal washers, I just super glued these figures to washers before painting and they held just fine.
These particular figures were one piece except for the shields. The figures come with a shield but you can order packs of kite, large round or small round shields. They don't come with bases but that doesn't bother me, I was going to mount them onto metal washers anyway so as to match my Elastolins. I gave them a scrub with dishsoap, well rinsed, superglued them to washers, then just primed with some burnt sienna craft acrylic, and carried on from there. I'm probably varnish them so they fit in with my Elastolins and homecast PA Vikings but I haven'tdone it yet.
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| If only my eyes were as sharp and my hands were as steady as they were 20 years ago! |
In my books: ***** (5 stars) Fully recommended.
I didn't find any disappointments or issues with these, they were easy to paint with very crisp detail, and I like the look of them. Here's a link to the website if you want to see what figures are available.:For a look at whats available, here's a link: https://www.chrisparkergames.com/product-category/miniatures/medieval/1066/
Next up: 40mm F&IW
Great looking figures , I'm impressed with the results of this modern witchery !
ReplyDeleteNot quite like bending over a cauldron of bubbling metal, breathing the poisonous fumes while chanting spells as you pour the molten metal into the mould, but there does seem to be benefits to the new ways.
DeleteVery nice figures - the armour does indeed look fantastic
ReplyDeleteA heck of a lot better than my few attempts to sculpt mail or scale.
Delete"What size 40mm are they" Sums up one of the biggest problems in the hobby. In railway modelling you'd be burned at the stake (I may exaggerate a little) if you produced items which weren't to scale size.
ReplyDeleteYeah, there's a long history behind that though. The first published wargames rules on both sides of the Atlantic used toy soldiers not scale models. Despite occasional attemp to sell ranges of accurTe scale models, we've never gotten past that really so we have various sizes, many with exaggerated detail and proportions. There's no going back now!
DeleteGreat additions!
ReplyDeleteAlan Tradgardland
They are great figures.
DeleteVery nice, a good combination of crispness with dynamic pose.
ReplyDeleteNot the only ones out there but better than many of the competetion.
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