Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[jamiepwhite]

Hi,

I was surfing around the net and came across a site called Plastic Soldier Review, or something similar a day or two ago. This site reviewed various plastic figs and one manufacturer making plastic samurai and ashigaru was a Russian company called Zvezda. The price was very interesting, I think a boxed set of 44 figs was 9 or 10 dollars. Does anyone have any opinions or recommendations about plastic figs or Zvezda?

I was toying with the idea of building Japanese with these figs, around $50 dollars for a 25mm army is pretty cheap.

Thanks,

Jamie

[Frank Gilson]

Plastic figs are a viable alternative to metal in many cases...and heck, they're a lot lighter for the carrying!

Issues in the negative sense are figure quality, and flash. Some plastic figure lines, given the way they are molded, have excessive flash. Many lines have poor detail.

http://www.michtoy.com/

This company has a lot of plastic figs for sale, and is a good resource.

The plastic figure review site you found is a great one to get an idea of the higher quality figures. http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/

Frank

[jamiepwhite]

Another plastic fig question:

What brand of primer works well with the figs. I've been using a Krylon autobody primer on metal figs but I've heard through friends that this primer when dried is too rigid to adhere to the plastic figs. Any recommendations for primer or will acrylic paints and inks adhere directly to the plastic figs without a primer?

Thanks,

Jamie

[Terry Dix]

You might try the GW liquid primer. One of the drawbacks to plastic figs is the paint chipping issues.

[chrisbump]

I think that you will find that 1/72 is a long jump from the 25mm as we know it today. I have a large collection of plastics that I first painted as a young lad and for them 25mm is foot to the top of the head. Most manufacturers now measure from the foot to the eyes. So 1/72 are short for 25mm and really short compared to 28mm. In fact, there are manufacturers of 20mm figures and they were designed with the idea of using many of the 1/72 products already commercailly available. The 20mm RSM line of Napoleonics are very compatible with the Airfix 1/72 figures I first painted.

They are cheaper, and as Frank pointed out much lighter. They do bend easily at the appendages and the paint chips. They are so much shorter than your opponent's armies would be as to look out of place. Given the push for more attractive terrain and the quality of paint jobs now being shown at the various cons, I think that plastics would be a step sideways if not backwards.

But they are far less expensive.

Chris

[Frank Gilson]

While yes, the 1/72 plastic figures are smaller than the 28mm metal figures currently issued...I have a bone to pick with makers of such larger figures, which can often spill over our bases or make certain formations very difficult...especially for elephants and chariots.

If an entire army is composed of the 1/72 scale plastic minis, I personally think that'd be fine.

Frank

[Ambrose Coddington]

I agree whole heartedly with Frank here.
What matters more is how cohesive your force looks. It really doesn't matter if you look like a bunch of dwarfs.

I remember a game at Bill Low's house where someone (Don't remember who, sorry) had brought 10mm guys based on 25mm bases to represent actual figures (15 cpf kills a unit? He had roughly 15 figs for each required figure on the base) The pike were awesome.

It looked really good and didn't feel out of place. Though it might to someone who doesn't know how our game mechanics work.

Go for the smaller figures. They will look just fine.

Ambrose