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 :) .

HaT EL CID SPANISH INFANTRY Medieval Warriors 1/72 figures miniatures 8176

Time for another HaT review, this time the recent El Cid Spanish Infantry;

Box;

 Standard HäT box, this time the quality of the drawing is quite low, it doesn't attract you very much to buy the product, and with a set with very different types of soldiers showing just one man is not a good idea. Fortunately, the figures inside are better than the box art.

The rear of the box shows you the poses, basically drawn. I prefer the Zvezda way of showing the painted figures, as sometimes the drawings suggests  better quality figures that you really get.

Sprues;

SCULPTING - 8.0 out of 10

Although the detail is not very crisp,( it is a bit faint everywhere), they are really nice figures, some of the best HäT has produced, in a style I would love to see HäT continuing to produce.

HäT has the particularity of being nearly the only brand that has very distinct styles of making their figures, not just between different periods,but even in the same period and at the same time.It is not a progressive evolution, just a random selection of sculptors with very different techniques. 

In this case, all "El Cid" miniatures have the same style. This is a style with diffuse detail, but good proportions and quite good poses. 

             HISTORICAL ACCURACY - 10 out of 10

The research has been well done - I don't see any historical error. What is best, the research has been properly applied, with this set being different to other Medieval Christian sets, having a distinct "flavour" and maintaining a good balance between spearmen, swordsmen, archers, etc.

The only curious thing is that everybody is wearing full clothes and seem to be fighting in winter, as it would be hard to continue wearing such garments in summer in Castille and in the center of the peninsula, so they should be named "El Cid Spanish Infantry in winter dress".

ARMY REPRESENTATION - 9.0

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

Except the slingers and the skirmishers, all these figures are perfect to represent a myriad of Middle Age factions. With their long robes, the first that comes to my mind would be doing the Medieval kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, etc. 

Being also one of the nicest Medieval sets around, this is  very recommended to make that regional kingdom that no brand has the guts to bring into the market.

Even two or three of the light infantry (specially the swordsman with round shield) could be very nicely used to represent any Barbarian/Germanic kingdom of the Dark Ages.

FUNNESS - 7.0

"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 just boring. So I feel that this is an important point when deciding if you buy this set"

It is a good set, but a bit too oriented to wargaming. Everything is a bit standard. You are given no leaders nor special men, but it is supposed that you have to buy the HaT El Cid Spanish Command to have them.

The most fun figures are the two bearded men, which have a lot of character. The Medieval sets that have been made, don't give you many bearded men, and much less warriors passing their 40's, so the bearded man in this set with the mail coat clearly being in his 50s is a great addition.

WARGAMING VALUE - 10

We are talking about pure wargaming here. They have very wargaming dimensions, you don't have to glue nor attach anything, nothing breaks easily, everybody has big bases, you get a perfect balance between the different types of troops, etc. The choice of 96 figures given is also a clear reference to their wargamingness.

The only but, is that you need to buy the El Cid Command, as they are absolutely needed to complement this set, as it will give you a musician, flagbearer, commanders, healers, etc.

PRICE-VALUE RATIO - 9.0 

"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"

Is surprising in our days to have such a big number of figures given for a very reasonable price of 12 GBP shipped roughly. In retail stores it is usually more expensive, retailers seeing that they are giving too much for too little!

Some people who are not into wargaming, or just not happy wargaming with 48 figures or less, will perhaps find no use in 96 figures, and will find it too expensive. But with the possibilities of cutting them into different Spanish or medieval kingdoms, I find that 96 at this price is the best choice.



PAINTING AND GLUEING - 8.5

This is the new plastic HaT is using. It is sort of rubbery, it glues well, and is great for painting, as it is not slippery. The only bad thing is that it is not fully elastic, and if you bend a weapon too much   it will just break more easily than a more elastic plastic like Zvezda uses.



OVERALL VALORATION - 9.0

One of the (if not the) best miniatures HäT  has produced, filling a huge gap in history. Where before you had to buy French and English and modify them a bit, now this set will fill not just the intended Spanish kingdoms, but also many others. The reasonable price just adds more to this set that has to be a must for any Medieval collector.


PAINTED EXAMPLES
"Your figures could appear here if you want! just send me a email with the pictures to tam_cob@hotmail.com and I´ll gladly include them"

 Thanks to Miniaturas Aconcagua (http://miniaturasaconcagua.blogspot.com/) for giving permission to show his awesomely painted figures.

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

MEDIEVAL RUSSIAN (or UKRAINIAN) - LW (or Metch/EVO), Middle Ages 1/72 Figures Miniatures

We proceed onto the 5th review, this time, a weird and obscure set, the LW Medieval Russians (so obscure that is also sold with another name, Medieval Ukrainian Army, by Metch, and also sold by EVO)

Here is the original box;

And the Metch one;

If the quality of the box art is proportional to the figures' quality, then you know what to expect in the next lines of this review. The first image is not bad although it seems ancient and is not very appealing ,and the second one (the one I bought) you have to be 5 minutes guessing what you are really buying, only to find out that it is impossible if you don't open the box, adding to it that it was just a sloppy printed ordinary paper glued with paper glue, I don't know why I really bought them.  

This is what there is inside the small box;

SCULPTING - 4.0 out of 10

I am sorry that the image isn't good enough, hope the painted pics at the bottom can give you a better idea. These are a sort of Strelets wargaming figures, very stubby and quite fat. But these also have huge long noses (yes, it isn't a typo, I have said noses!). All the same you could say that they are better than the worst Strelets sets, because at least they retain the proportions (more or less).

Another curiosity, is that this set is directly (and without any doubt) copying two poses, concretely the horses, because the first is a Esci horse modified with a bit of armour, which makes the rider seem gigantic and is actually taller than the horse! and a Zvezda Mongol horse with two added sacks (and without the stand, and they don't stand on their own, so you either glue them to a diorama or you have to make the stand yourself ), which seem to carry either potatoes (historically inaccurate) or rocks. Well, I suppose they could be apples too.

You are given three separate weapons, which are not really adequate - here nearly everybody will throw them directly to the rubbish, I have reused some, but better be preparing some spare spears.
All the poses are not in  combat situations, just the 3 foot men without weapons- you could say they are "prepared" to fight, albeit if in defensive situation. The other ones are just marching, guarding or standing by, so this limits a lot what you can do with them.

You are also given a dead man, I never like dead men in a set, but in a 48 figure set this can be acceptable, and inclusively can be a nice addition. In a 8 or 16 figure set,it is outrageous (in the painted examples below I have modified them to be "alive", up and fighting!, although they have a rather flat side)

HISTORICAL ACCURACY - 9.5

The historical accuracy here is at least very high, everything is right and you really cannot say much against. Maybe the design of the dead knight is a bit too western, but it is quite acceptable.


ARMY REPRESENTATION - 7.0

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

 This set can be really only be used to represent eastern medieval kingdoms, Poland, Ukraine (as Metch sells them), the various Russian kingdoms (Vladimir-Suzhdal, Novgorod, etc) and maybe late Lithuanian.  

FUNNESS - 7.0

"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 just boring. So I feel that this is an important consideration when deciding if you buy this set"

Even if they have few poses, all the poses are very rigid, and you get very few men. The funness of this set is its bizarreness (if this word exists ) ; the figures have quite a unique feeling to them, and the leaders have a lot of charisma, as of wealthy and important dukes or nobles. 

The Metch set includes some orthodox paper flags, and some typical Bum tents. The flags are useful, and you can give the tents to a more suitable army.

WARGAMING VALUE - 2.0

Depending on which set you buy, you are given either 8 men (totally unacceptable quantity) or 16, which is a bit better considering you are given 4 horses (in the case of Metch). But if you are a wargamer, keep away from this set. The only good thing is  it will give you leaders and different men, and if you have all the sets for slavic medieval armies, it can come in handy just for the sake of variety.

PRICE-VALUE RATIO - 2.0

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

In this case, these are some of the rarest sets you can try to own. They aren't sold by eBay (at least at the moment, but as usual, you can always try to search), though god help you if you want to get hold of them. I paid in a retail shop 11,95 €, which was a bad purchase in all senses (I might have a super rarity now, but at that  moment I just had 16 very expensive fat miniatures).



PAINTING AND GLUING - 4.5

The plastic is a bit slippery, and it glues very badly ( but which you will probably need to d). The only good thing is the detail is sharp and you see what  you paint.

OVERALL VALORATION - 6.0

They might score very low in many, many aspects, and now they are not the only Ukrainian Medieval men, but their weirdness makes them special. If you can get them (the 16 figure Metch set) at a reasonable price by all means do it, but that wouldn't be more than 4 or 5 €. 


PAINTED EXAMPLES
"Your figures could appear here if you want! just send me a email with the pictures to tam_cob@hotmail.com and I´ll gladly include them"

 These figures have been painted and modified by myself. I have given spears to the soldiers. To make them more natural, I used some of the flags originally given by Metch , and I  have also made some shields and stands for the cargo horses.

EDIT;

Another interesting way of painting them by Miniaturas Aconcagua;

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