To set the scene, Mantic Games put together a Kickstarter for Deadzone. They removed all of the Deadzone miniatures from their shop so that they could start again with some new miniatures... a sort of reorganisation with some units disappearing in order for them to be replaced with more upto date versions. Obviously, my attention was grabbed by the Forge Father part of the Kickstarter; namely these:
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Yes the new design for the Steel Warriors was great but I didn't fancy jumping on board with the Kickstarter... so the long wait started. Well, this week, after a preorder, my Forge Father Faction Starters arrived:
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Straight away I noticed that the video cassette style boxes had been replaced by sturdy cardboard ones but they were very tough and had lovely artwork on them so it was all good so far.
Inside each box were 6 Forge Guard:
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These appeared to be exactly the same miniatures as had previously been released and were made from injection moulded plastic that can be glued with polystyrene cement. Also in the box were 4 Brokkrs and 20 standard mantic bases:
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Again, these were the same miniatures that had previously been released and were made from premium plastic (restic) that needs to be glued with super glue and can be difficult to clean. The bases are injection moulded plastic. Finally, we have 10 of the brand new Steel Warriors:
Click the Pix!
The first pic shows how the Steel Warriors arrived with some of the components being on a sprue and the others in a bag. The contents of the bag are in the bottom image. Each box contains 2 lots of sprues/bags so that you can build 10 troops.
The Steel Warriors are made from injection moulded plastic that can be glued with polystyrene cement.
Due to me already having loads of Brokkrs (from previous a Kickstarter) and already using the Forge Guard in my Squat army, the focus of this post will now swap to only the Steel Warriors because they are the bit everyone will want to know about.
First of all, the Steel Warriors have lots of nice details. There are enough components on each sprue/bag to build 5 standard troopers with machine guns wearing the same helmet. There are also additional helmets to peronalise your troops to be leaders (little winglets), gunners (targeting lense), out of gas masks or a main leader with ornate helmet. There are a couple of extra chest pieces to flavour things up along with 2 flamers, a melta, a heavy machine gun and a missile launcher. There is also a pistol and hammer combo with a bunch of little bits of equipment to add to belts, like ammo pouches and grenades. There are 7 back packs to add to your troops to finish them off and plenty of shoulder pads to bulk them up (including some heavier ones and a pair of ornate ones for the main leader type).
Due to the multi part aspect of the kit, you will be able to pose your miniaturesin lots of different ways with a bit of mix and match giving a huge range of possibilities.
In order to see how they went together, I started with the first one and immediately noticed a number of issues:
- The fit between the torso and legs was very poor (it left a large gap).
- The fit between the chest and back plate was poor, with very little plastic to glue and no firm connection (allowing for the parts to slip)
- The cup for the head to fit in seemed just big enough if you wanted the head to face forward but if you turned the head, it rose up out of the cup.
- The arm sockets were larger than the ball of the arm so you have to spend extra time making sure the arm stays where you put it.
- Some of the details have been lost during the casting process.
- The assmbled troops are bigger than I expected (not an issue for people playing Deadzone but for me personally, it is an issue).
So, let's have a look at some of the issues:
Click the Pic!
In the image, you can clearly see the big gap between the torso and top of the legs. This could easily be filled but you would expect a better fit. There are only two small points of contact (front and rear) that keep the torso glued on. You can also see the poor casting of the torso in the shoulder socket. When you look at the legs, you can see the poor quality of the details in certain areas. It is almost like the moulds didn't have enough plastic in them. Now, most of the detail is insanely good but there are a few areas that you will have to spend time repairing them and that lets these down... fortunately, it seems that most of the problem sits with the legs and unless you want to go all 'Golden Demon', on the table top it won't matter too much.
So... how big are they? This big:
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In the upper pic I have a pair of existing Forge Fathers either side of the new Steel Warrior. In the lower pic, I have a GW Squat, a new Steel Warrior Torso on a pair of GW Squat legs, a Steel Warrior and a GW Space Marine.
To finish up, I really love the style of the new miniatures and because I would class myself as an experienced modeller, I will have no problem assembling them and possibly repairing the damage to the legs. If you are inexperienced, I can see the assembly of these becoming really frustrating, really quickly (just the gap between the torso and legs... the rest should be no problem).
Now to explain why I think they are too big. Well, I bought them to fit in with my other Squats as part of the army. I didn't really pay too much attention to how big they looked because I thought they were so cool (rule of cool blinded me to size!) so when they arrived, I got a bit of a shock. That is why in the image above, I have tried a torso on a pair of Squat legs to see if it works and I think it does... so I now have the problem of making 20 pairs of up-armoured, shorter legs.
For everyone playing Deadzone with these new miniatures, I am sure that the size will not be an issue... especially seeing as they have been designed for that game!
That about sums everything up. If you have any questions, leave comments and I will try to answer them.
See you from the sidelines!
2 comments:
The old plastic squat legs seem to fit well. I had a similar problem with the new GW dwarf range had to cut their legs off and just sculpt feet right on the body to get a Squat height. Gives a decent armored coat look for my Squat Militarum Tempestus Scions so not all bad.
Scale creep in dwarf minis is crazy, about 1.5 times the height of the 1980s stuff.
lol im reading your blog for a years, and i did not known that the squats are SO small =))))
RVA.
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