Review; Hat Roman Extra Heavy Legionnaries 1/72 Figures miniatures soldiers Trajan

More Romans with the Extra Heavy Legionaries for the Dacian campaigns, will they pass the cut?

              The Box 

Typical modern Hat box, just showing one man of the depicted set. I am not too fond of this style, for some subjects it is a good idea, and if well done can be as attractive as any other box. In this case, the result is medium low, you can hardly tell that the legionary is extra heavy, and it is rather standard.

  The Figures

HaT sets come in batches, depending on the sculptor apparently, and a bit on the materials. These came in the batch of a sculptor that made very sleek and thin figures, that once adapted and moulded, don't match the expectatives. The figures barely are 1/72, they should be labelled as 1/76.  Many have super thin arms, and all the swords in them are awfully done, they look like stupid short sticks. The pilums have nearly no detail at all. 

Continuing with the bad; the shields have a untolerable fit, they either fall, or the peg breaks, and most look bad, so you will have to cut the peg and glue them with Pattex, hot glue or something that bonds soldiers plastic which is tricky to find.

There is only 8 poses, 5 of them carrying the pilum. In this subject of Extra Heavy Legionnaries, made by Trajan to fight against the dreaded Dacians and their falx weapons who chopped off the legionnaries unprotected arms, it should be they other way round, 5 poses of hand to hand combat and maybe 3 with the pilum. There should be a extra heavy centurion. 

Also, speaking of the poses, two are almost identical, and all of them very flat and lifeless.
Besides this, there was other versions of super armoured legionnaries that would have been more interesting.
There is not much flash, but many figures, the two halfs don't match, so you get a distorted face.
And well, there is not much more to say. I will only add these even look bad, flimsy, puny and thin against the Hat set of Dacians (the Dacian figures without shirt look bigger and stronger).

The Verdict

This set was actually a gift for me, as I have many Roman soldiers and if there are available, I choose from other subjects, unless they are superb figures. The gift was welcome, but it could have been done so much better, being a interesting subject, that the impression maybe even worse. My recommendation is; wait until some manufacturer does a worthy version. 

Historical Accuracy; 10/10, Perfect.
Mould quality; 5/10, Unconvincing.
Fun level; 3/10, Boring.
Price/Quality; 4/10 Bad.

My version

I had these soldiers in a box and half of them had lost their shields, and the swords were ridicolous, so I considered a good subject to modify and then paint. I enlarged all swords, and made 4 armoured centurions modifying them. I also added some figures from other sets, and I painted them in 4 different colours, as different legions, for wargaming. The shields are printed with an inkjet printer in ordinary paper. These soldiers do need some work on them, and one must say they look much better and with their shields, I nearly forget how irritating they were before.

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GREEN JACKETS Italeri 95th Regiment Waterloo napoleon British Infantry review 1/72 Sharpe Bernard Cornwell

Today we review probably the better detailed set made ever in 1/72! the British 95th regiment or Green Jackets from Italeri;

The artwork is very good indeed. If these soldiers had a bad artwork, maybe I wouldn't have bought them. I am not an avid collector of Napoleonic era, and I just have basic knowledge about this era, so, without being able to actually see the figures (I bought them in a shop where I didn't even know if they would have soldiers) the artwork was very important. Congratulations to Mr. Rava, who makes nearly all artworks for Italeri, as this is a masterpiece.

These are the poses;

All 16 poses are repeated 3 times making 48 figures in total.

THE FIGURES - 8.0 out of 10 - (48 figures, 16 poses)

I've decided to innovate and speak separately of every aspect that conforms the figures;

Detail; Superb, wait, no, more than superb. Wonderful? no, more than that. Anyway, I can spot the triggers on the rifles, you could paint the eyes on the figures, it is just the best detailed 1/72 set I've laid my eyes on. And I have more than 10000+ 1/72 soldiers. They are, some of the few figures which have a very clear and distinguishable faces.


Poses; Very curiously, Italeri has decided to give you 3 men of each pose, 3 leaders, 3 sentinels, etc. Which is not ideal but not as bad as you could think. The poses are quite good and realistic, the only criticism is that they are very static, like if they were posing for propaganda photographs, they would look strange in a battle diorama, and they are supposed to be very fast and mobile troops who would be always on the move.

The first man in the third row deserves a special mention as probably the awkwardest Napoleonic soldier. He is holding the rifle as he would hold a baby.

The second man in the third row, is holding his rifle in a very unnatural way, as his hand reaches the end of the rifle. I doubt strongly that this is a confortable pose to fire.


Proportions; Very good, heads a bit big, but in overall quite correct. 


Execution (how the company has made the figures); simply perfect. Flash is absolutely non existant. Zones without detail are very few and perfectly tolerable.

These soldiers seem made to have their bases cut off, as they are very small and thin, which will desesperate people like me who doesn't like gluing them into big bases or dioramas, and many the fall constantly. The only solution is to glue bigger stands made cardboard or clear plastic.



HISTORICAL ACCURACY - 9.0

Besides some small errors in equipment, that as a non-expert I don't notice, these figures are generally right.

ARMY REPRESENTATION - 2.0
"The army representation score is the potential of the soldiers to be used for other purposes different to the one originally intended"

Detail is very good, so using them to make something different than what they are is strongly not recommended.


FUNNESS - 6.5

"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"

They are better than the Revell as they have many soldiers with the forage cap, which gives them a very different aspect, at least in my opinion, among so many Napoleonic soldiers which you can hardly distinguish if unpainted. 

But they lack a bit of life. They look tired. This set would be fine for a regular Napoleonic army, but not for the 95th regiment. For example, making a prone man as in the artwork would have been very appreciated. 


WARGAMING VALUE - 7.0

Many arguments said in the funness aspect comes here too. We can add there is no musician like in the Revell set.  

PRICE-VALUE RATIO - 6.0

"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 more or less at 11 €, which is not very good value, considering the 41 men and all the flaws mentioned. Also, two sort of "sentinels", or soldiers just forming, are unneeded in this theme.



PAINTING AND GLUING - 10.0

To paint is excellent, it is a special matte plastic, very unusual (at least my example, I have seen others that look shiny as HaT figures). Gluing is also good.


OVERALL VALORATION - 7.5

In overall, I like very much these figures. They are different than the usual Napoleonic ones, not one of those 48 forgettable-if-you-don't-paint-them soldiers. The Revell alternative is also very good, and I just prefer these for the men with the forage cap and maybe I would say a bit for the proportions.

Conclusion; Excellent attempt at sculpting, weird pose selection.

Would I recommend buying them over other alternative sets? ; Yes, but merge both and you will have the perfect representation.  


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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!

Here there is some examples painted by the MicroModels shop (although they are very well painted, for some reason you can't appreciate the faces correctly, probably due to too thick paint, don't be fooled by this pic, each figure has a very sharp and well defined face);

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