Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Saxon Miniatures Acquired by Warlord Games

Part of me is not happy to see this.  Another part of me understands why it occurred and thinks it is a positive thing.  Hopefully, Warlord Games gives it and Collin full backing and gets its act together to move full force into periods its essentially neglected up until now.  I look forward to seeing what they do with it, good or bad its happening, and it may be good for those of us who like these miniatures and the periods that Saxon Miniatures covered. 




Warlord Games Store  

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Converting the Perry Crusaders

A little something that I wrote up for use by Wargames Illustrated.  Its about the time when I was crazy enough to convert some beautiful Perry Bros. miniatures in to a time period that moved along a little bit in to the future, so to speak.  Enjoy. 

Link to their web page

Friday, August 11, 2017

Stuff of Legend....Cerulean Templars

Apparently my first Space Marine army made an impact on someone.  http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/1200x/0b/9d/93/0b9d93b7b8d4be79718928f8e05a1c7c.jpg

Sunday, August 6, 2017

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.

Monday, July 31, 2017

The 2017 Viking Unit photo/vlog

Well again messing around with the video editing software.  There are few more features that I will use on the next go around.  I did pace the pics with the music, which is an easy selection tool that will definitely help in some of the other stuff that I'm doing.

So on to the last Viking unit, all of the pics in one place, plus some of the single models.


Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Goofing around with Romans and Youtube

I do a bit of video work and post a lot of my karting videos on Youtube quite often.  I recently purchased some new video editing software and have been playing around with to see what its capable of doing, which is much more capable than previous software.  So one of those playing around moments created this thing on my Roman unit that Warlord Games was kind enough to showcase on their web page and allow me to write about it and the condition that turned my real world upside down begining in December of 2014 to the present.

Here is the video on Youtube:
https://youtu.be/2717WJdQF88
Madhouse Workshop Video Link

Here is the link to Warlord Games Showcase:
http://www.warlordgames.com/showcase-imperial-romes-finest/
Warlord's Showcase Link

Yep very basic, I'm honestly not sure that I will do much with Youtube related to the hobby and the blog, I'm certainly not Dr. Faust, or the prowrestling commentator that Next Level Painting is, or the WiscoHornDog saga strategist, but you never know.

Sunday, July 23, 2017

For Rome! This time Victrix

No racing this weekend, not feeling right, all due to my head and probably the weather having something to do with it, being that its been very warm and humid.  So I felt like sitting in air conditioning and spending some hobby time.  I finished up some more Vikings on the work desk with conversions and sculpting and such.  Pics of them will follow.  So I decided to give the Vikings a rest and assemble two units of the new Victrix EIR Romans.  These models are spectacular.

They are a little bit limited on bodies, but when you combine the two kits, you get some good dynamics with the poses.  I'll be putting together a full review on them and comparison to the Warlord Games EIR's which I have done 100s of.  With these I'll have 50 more to add to my collection of Romans.  I'm really looking forward to their Auxiliaries which Warlord's were absolutely hooorrrribble, and the previews of their Gauls are cool as well.

So more to follow...... 

Saturday, June 24, 2017

The newest Viking Unit!

 I really love these big unit shots.  They are always fun with a movement tray that helps with conveying the story.
If you have been following along, you have seen all of these guys as individuals.  Now you see them assembled.
 Obviously there are a variety of manufacturers in this:  Gripping Beast, Foundry, War Factory Games, Warlord Games and Saxon Miniatures.













There you are.  Hope you enjoyed the journey.....onto more miniatures.

Sunday, June 18, 2017

War Factory Games Vikings....

 I'm not sure what has happened to War Factory games, they may have been acquired.  These are conversions of their Viking kit using a variety of parts.
 I needed a few more dane axe guys, so these fit the bill.
Striped pants are always fun, and I'm happy with this shield.
So next up is the big unit shot.  Yep enough models for another unit.

Friday, June 16, 2017

First of the Saxon Miniatures models

 This is one of the metal Viking warlords from Saxon Miniatures.  I really like these miniatures and have a couple of batches of them, both of the Viking and Saxon variety.
 This is a fun pose from the front.  I tried a little bit of freehand on the shield.
I have a couple more of this figure and will end up converting them.

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Next batch of GB Vikings....

The one above is sporting a Games Workshop Empire fanatic head.
Another dane axe guy.

 This one below is pretty much standard except for the added hair.



Another below with a GW head.


 This one has a cape from the Templar Fireforge kit that I added fur to.