THE ZENGIDS Seljuk Cavalry Painted Strelets figures miniatures 1/72 25mm medieval arab nomadic crusades wargaming

 At last I manage to finish some project, fully, succesfully and completely!

I wanted to paint something, and hence I gave a look at my various boxes. The set that more needed a painting was the Seljuk Cavalry, as they are almost identical as the Arab Cavalry from Strelets (so much I had to recheck on PSR who was who!) and for wargaming this is very annoying. I preferred to keep the Arab Cavalry as it was for the moment, and hence paint the Seljuks to enhance their "seljukicity"  :P .

While looking at them it struck me they were not completely fitting for me what I would understand as Seljuks. Call me picky, but I would imagine them more nomadic and slim. These, hence, suggested me something later, and much more arabic.

Hence with a bit of research I decided to paint them as Zengids, which was a Beylik, a small state loosely under the Seljuk authority, of Seljuk ethnicity but quite mixed with arabic influence, based in Mosul. They fought against the Crusaders taking Edessa most famously.

They fitted inside what one would call Seljuk, and it's quite impossible nobody releases a set of Zengids proper, hence perfect  :-) .

So, I applied mainly yellow-orange-maroon, with some touches of nomadic blue and dark colours.

Once finished the painting, they struck me as much too clean, and hence I used Games Workshops inkings, that while not wonderful, they give a good sense of realism, and they give a bit of varnish protection too, which allowed me to skip that tedious phase.

As a bonus, I did a small foot archer  :-) .

The highlight of them, is I believe, the chrome paint. I used a marker, and so I painted two swords and the masked seljuk.

Hope you like them and would love to read your impressions  :P .

Crusader Castle 1/72 MiniArt Fortress 72004

This is a kit my father built and I painted it for him. Instead of the typical grey, we decided to go for a southern looking rock, like in the Holy Land or similar, inspired in the Maltese limestone.

This kit from Miniart (which can be found at a really cheap price online) is screaming for a base, and so we went for a raised stand. It is made of cardboard-wood from the back of some frame, porexpan, and  liquid membraning for roof that works very well for this job, as is thicker than white glue, stronger, and it was already available in sandy colour.

I painted with acrylics a few crags on the landscape, and glued a few shrubs here and there.

My father glued the door to the keep in a raised position, to make it more difficult for invaders, and so I sculpted with milliput some stairs.

The castle has been left as modular and can be taken apart, for easy storage and to build in different configurations and bases.

The kit itself is a bit poor and requires a bit of work, parts don't fit, big gaps, not well thought, but at this price one cannot complain.

And well, let's see who guesses first from where I took the image of the flag :) .

Simon de Monfort Army - English Medieval Infantry Zvezda 1/72 Painted

Lately I have been into Medieval-ancient stuff, and here I present you with my Simon of Montfort army, for the Barons War. I interpreted that they needed to be identifiable if they had to battle against the king of England, so I've left clear in all of them the coat of arms of Monfort. There is a few conversions here and there, and I've mainly used the Zvezda English Medieval soldiers and Medieval peasants revolt.

RedBox IRISH TROOPS War of the Roses RB72044 In depth review 1/72 figures soldiers miniatures

Today I will make the review of a super new release, the Irish Troops from the War of the Roses!

Box; A complete success in my opinion. Okay, is not a very perfect drawing, but it very nicely depicts the subject, with lots of charisma, showing the figures you get.I was hooked when I saw it and the box art prompted me to buy it. 

THE FIGURES - 8.0 out of 10 - (40 figures, 10 poses)

Detail; Are these figures really RedBox, or some alien with sinister sculpting powers have substituted them? no, RedBox have improved, and these are figures with sharp detail, reminding me of the first Strelets sets, but maybe even better.They lack the fine detail of Italeri or Zvezda, but these are figures that will be easy to paint, as every piece of detail is clearly defined.


Poses; Good set of poses, we have the famous "Kerns" (Skirmishers), a sort of leader, nobles, archer, many halberd troops and one spearmen. The bad thing is that there ares just 10 poses, and really, 12 is the minimum. All the same, if we have to live with 10 poses, then the choice was quite good.

One of the things that annoys me is that both men with two-handed swords are not actually using them. Both two-handed sword poses are realistic and lively, but I miss a figure in slashing pose.

Also, I would have given one spear to the armoured halberdiers, as 3 armoured halberdiers seems a bit too much.

About the poses themselves, all very nice, active, and well executed. The skirmisher running is one of the best attempts at this pose I've seen.

Anatomical proportions; Excellent. Not as good maybe as Esci or Caesar, but in the top league. They aren't giants as Zvezda, don't have big heads as Italeri, they are not trolls like Strelets, etc. 

Execution (how the company has made the figures); there is a certain quantity of flash, but if we compare with other sets of RedBox this is nothing. The good thing is that it is easy to remove, it is a "clean flash". In other words, it is a bit of excess of plastic here and there, but clearly defined. Not like the Koreans or Chinese light infantry, where it is everywhere, and when you try and remove it, the figure ends up scruffy and looking awful if you are going to paint it. 

Also, the sword of the leader is not flat, but in a cross shape, clearly to help casting, and you will have to cut it to leave it flat.

Plastic used; very dark grey, quite good for painting, semi-elastic.


HISTORICAL ACCURACY - 8.0

Sadly, the War of the Roses is one of the few themes I don't have much knowledge about, basically because it escaps my scope of interest. Then, why on earth I am reviewing this set? because of it's Medieval (and Dark Ages) usage. After consulting the matter with somebody with more knowledge than me, and after a bit of research, I can say this is a solid set, with no big inaccuracies.

Maybe, there shouldn't be two so well armed nobles in a 10 pose set, but this is a thing of proportions not historical innacuracies. The light troops with the standard round shield is maybe a bit strange, but in any case, RedBox have actually tried to make something different, where there was not much historical info, they have tried to get what there was, and do it as best as they could. And they have succeeded in my opinion.

ARMY REPRESENTATION - 8.0
"The army representation score is the potential of the soldiers to be used for other purposes different to the one originally intended"

Besides the two men with the strange hairdress, the rest have plenty of usage. First, all men can be more or less used as late medieval Irish (1350 on). Many men can be just medieval troops from the north of europe, the light troops could be used as many sort of barbarians and,  
with some conversions, these figures can even have more possibilities. 


FUNNESS - 8.5

"I feel that many reviews are oblivious to this point - there are fantastic figures, which you can´t say anything against, but they are just too "correct", maybe too static, and so just boring. So I feel that this is an important point when deciding if you buy a set"

As I've said, RedBox have gotten a bunch of loose historical info and has made a solid set with a distinct "flavour" and appearance. All men are active and combative, except one. And they all have a sort of personality.

The only bad thing is the small number of poses, and the 4 leaders you have to accept, so conversions will be mandatory.


WARGAMING VALUE - 7.0

Even with few poses, the good choice of them gives a minimum score. 

PRICE-VALUE RATIO - 7.7

"The price value ratio of this soldiers will vary between every shop you go, and the best I can do is judge by their average price on eBay and online stores"

They are nicely done, and at the average price of 10 € roughly, where most sets are  today. There are just 40 figures, but at least they are not as expensive as some new Mars sets of worse quality.



OVERALL VALORATION - 8.5

This is a set not only good for those who like the War of the Roses era, but also to the Medieval collector/wargamer. I hope that this improvement in quality with RedBox continues, and if they keep this level they will soon disbank Strelets and become one of the best 1/72 manufacturers in the market.

Conclusion; A set as sets should be, as they were in the golden days. 

Would I recommend buying them over other alternative sets? ; There is no alternative, and will hardly be ever I think. But if there was, I hardly think it will be better.


If you have enjoyed this review and want to say thanks, the best way is to click in one of the advertisings in the blog. Every little help will be appreciated. 






PAINTED EXAMPLES

I haven't painted mine yet, but if you do, please send me pics to tam_cob@hotmail.com and I will include them here!

At the moment, I don't know if they have been painted yet by anyone! Be the first on the net to show them!

Thanks for reading, and see you in the next battle!

Italeri CHINESE CAVALRY XIII Century 6123 Medieval 13th Mongols Ming Song dynasty

Time to speak of a quite recent set, the refreshing Chinese Cavalry from Italeri. A much needed set, or just oversized Mongols? Find out!

                                                                       The Box

It's a good box, full of life, maybe the composition is a bit chaotic, and the colour tones are a bit light, but  overall it is good. In the back pic we come back to Italeri bad practices, where we are shown a figure that it would be very nice to have and it is not in the set, and I ask, why on earth? I want to know how to paint a figure I don't -and I can't- have? Okay, it resembles the archer, but he neither wears  armour nor the same hat.

Also, the man with the winged helmet is not so impressive. He has its wings molded on to the helmet, and I would have liked him to have had this pose. So the box art is  actually better than the figures.

Once open, this is what we see;

SCULPTING - 6.9 out of 10

Here there is very fine sculpting, (fine arrows perfectly represented), no flash at all, quite good poses for the horses, and plenty of detail everywhere, and the weapons are perfectly represented.

But (and this is a but of epic proportions) these men are gigantic! hey are big for 1/72 men, and gigantic for 13th century Chinese. They are even very big compared to other Italeri sets, and even comparing them to the most recent Italeri sets (you could say they are in a new style of the company which makes the figures bigger and taller) ,they are as tall as dismounted soldiers of other nationalities. 

I can normally overpass this common evil of new figures, for example, the Gothic Cavalry they are tall and big also, and the Arab Warriors  but some of these are even taller than them, and it just seems very wrong for  Chinese.

I need a pic to reinforce my arguments;

He is, without stand and flexing his knees, taller than the Caesar Lybian, and only slightly than the Italeri Italian Artillery Officer. Give him a stand, make him stand up, and he'll conquer the 1/72 world!

The horses also, don't look like nomad horses, which would be the primary source, but european heavy and big horses. Probably they had some big horses, but it doesn't look right. And the horse without armour seems bigger than horse with armour.

I could still maybe overcome this with very good painting, but we come to the faces, and they don't look like Chinese! There are and there were many racial groups in China, but these men could only pass as half-arabic men of the western frontier. If the set didn't have much detail, it wouldn't be a problem, but the faces are there and they are nicely defined. 

Italeri has done Mongols before  (set 6020, don't confuse with reissues of Zvezda nor Italeri Mongol Cavalry set 6124) with perfectly oriental faces, so I don't understand why  they now haven't been able to do it right.

HISTORICAL ACCURACY - 10.0

There has been a good work of research, and the Chinese culture has left us many examples of the warriors.

The only flaw I see is that these men should be labelled as "Chinese Heavy Cavalry", as they all wear armour, which would be most surely in nearly all kingdoms reduced to few men, not the 100 %.

ARMY REPRESENTATION - 7.5

"The army representation score is the potential of the soldiers to be used for other purposes different to the one originally intended"

Besides making all of the different Chinese kingdoms, with some modifying they could be Japanese, or just more Mongols or late nomadic tribes if you still don't have enough of them. 



FUNNESS - 7.0

All of the poses are more or less active, with two passive men and the others engaged in combat. We lack really more poses here. The unique style of weapons of the chinese and horse decorations gives them a special touch however.

WARGAMING VALUE - 7

No unique leader, no flag bearer and no musician, this is a very regular army set. With a bit of easy conversion you could get a General, using the head with a feather over the body of the man with sword. The 15 men are much better than 12 for wargaming purposes. 

PRICE-VALUE RATIO - 8.0

"The price value ratio of this soldiers will vary between any shops you go to, and the best I can do is judge by their average price on eBay"

Roughly 8 GBP shipped is the price, for 15 cavalry men is good. On retail stores you could maybe get it at a better price too. As the figures are very big, the positive point is that it will give you a sensation of having better invested  your money !) .


Please, if you like this review, make a click on the ads! This will help me buying a new computer, paying each month the internet bill, and buying sets which I will review and paint for you!:) .

PAINTING AND GLUEING - 9.5

They are made with a semi-hard plastic, which is really adequate for painting them. It also works well with glue. The details are sharp everywhere, and this makes painting them a very easy task.


OVERALL VALORATION - 7.7

A very good set spoiled by huge dimensions, probably the set I have in my collection in which this aspect is the most annoying, and I combine sets of all diferent manufacturers. Some people maybe won't notice too much, if you only collect later Zvezda and Italeri figures, they would more or less blend in correctly. But if you think that the true 1/72 is Esci, and you collect all manufacturers such as Hat, Caesar, Airfix, early Italeri, early Zvezda, etc, you maybe will think twice before buying them.

One of the strong points of this set is that it has no competion- no other medieval Chinese Cavalry are available on the market. The weak point is that there are no Chinese infantry for this period either,so you willl need to modify some late RedBox infantry 16/17th century to do the job, or get a Caesar set, and both would look as dwarves compared to these cavalry. Plus you'll also need light cavalry, and you would need to modify Italeri Mongols to do the job.  This leaves this set a bit alone in history, besides fighting on their own against Mongols, or some frontier-war against muslim kingdoms which you would have to get by modifiying too.

Thanks to Miniaturas Aconcagua for the permission to use his nicely painted miniatures.

Thanks to chuckster from Benno's Figure Forum for giving permission to show his beautifully painted miniatures.

Make any comment! We´ll love to read it! If you want to share your painted version of this set, send a email to tam_cob@hotmail.com with the subject "Painted Soldiers" and I will include them in this post.

Thanks for reading, and see you in the next battle!