Review; Orion 1/72 Gladiators Roman Figures miniatures soldiers Colosseum

We review again a set of figures with these singular set from Orion, the mighty Gladiators.

The Box 

Indeed a curious artwork, as it is using a 18th century painting. It actually does quite well the trick, and it shows that manufacturers could use historical paintings more often. It leaves no doubt about what you are buying, and personally I was hooked the first time I saw it and bought it without hesitating. 

The Figures

As typically in Orion, you get a large selection of poses, all of them made twice. Is a system as valid as any other, and while it leaves you wanting more of some poses, for a subject like the Gladiators is quite perfect. It gives you the chance of painting each figures of two different ways, while you can make them appear all in a diorama without having to disregard some figures.

The first thing we notice about this set is that Orion has been influenced by the film Gladiator, even to the extent of showing captions of the film in the rear of the box (I wonder if they have paid any royalty to the film producers, a thing which I have my strong doubts). 

Some of the figures are clearly based on the film, like the starring Rusell Crowe, and some other of the Gladiator figures. All the same, the accuracy level is quite high, with only some inaccuracies and doubts with the trumpeters helmets, which should never be like that, the man with the bull's head and some of the other helmets. 

But we have to keep in mind that there is plenty of scope for strange ornaments and gear in a subject such as this, we can only say for sure that the trumpeters are wrong, and even they could be in a special garment only used during a very brief period, that has never been recorded in history :).

The poses are extremely lively and full of action, and you can recreate beautifully the action in the arena. It is worth mentioning the superb figures of the lions and tigers/panthers, that are one of the best 1/72 renditions of this animals. 

There is a couple of poses a bit strange, such as the civilian that apparently has fallen into the arena, which holds his hand in his head of a rather strange way, and the man that has lost his hand, which looks completely unnatural.

The sculpting is very well done and anatomically correct.

There is some very small level of flash surrounding many of the figures, which will give you a long afternoon to aconditionate them to painting, which is absolutely necessary if you are going to paint the figures, and you can skip it if you don't.

The emperor figure is one of the best Roman emperors in casual gear you can find.

The only real criticism I have on this set is that I would loved some more civilians to assist as public, but I suppose this could be fully done in a separate set.

Another of the great things of this set is that you could use many figures for special leaders or commanders of other factions, such as using some as Thracians, or using them as roman rebels or bagaudae, as not all of them carry the conventional gladiator gear, besides having some civilians always useful for dioramas.

Note that in this set there is sometimes a bonus figure, a joker, of a gladiator with a pistol. Sadly, I wasn't lucky to get it. I think that he must be present in all dark-blue plastic sets, and mine was in reddish plastic. I bought mine quite a long time ago, but I think the joker was on the first editions only.

                                        The Verdict

Possibly, and in my opinion the best Gladiator set out there. There might be the more accurate Pegasus one, but it doesn't have so much life as this one. I feel that this is really the best set that Orion has ever produced, and while it can be a bit expensive in comparison with other figure sets (at least it was back in the day, when it was 12 € against 8 € that was the normal price) it is still fully worth it, more considering the good quantity of men and poses you are getting.

Historical Accuracy; 8/10, Acceptable.

Mould quality; 7/10, Good.

Fun level; 10/10, Superb.

Price/Quality; 7/10 Good.

My version

I have tried to paint every figure in two very distinct ways, and I am quite proud of the result. It was quite tiring, as first I basically painted most of them, after 5 or 6 years left them nearly finished, and I applied the last touches only recently. I wanted to paint them in a very high standard, and you cannot use fast methods to paint these figures, as they are mostly flesh in colour. Note I modified one of the men without hand, as I found it a very unuseful figure, and I added a sword to the saluting gladiator, and a roman legionary shield to one of the sword gladiators.

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Orion SLAVIC WARRIORS Slavs Figures Miniatures 1/72 Soldiers Army Slavonic

Today we talk about.... the Slavic Warriors from Orion, a very important faction from the Dark Ages, with plenty of uses. But is this a great set that will fill a huge hole in history, or rather 48 scruffy looking men that leaves a lot to desire? Discover it in this review!

The Box

Not bad, with the typical Orion "website" style, and the box art is not my favourite style, but it is correct, and I have seen worse. On the back, we see the painted figures, while normally Orion showed the unpainted figures, and this is a change for the better (probably following Zvezda's steps). In the middle we see a sort of sacred "totem", which looking at the box seems that it is included (I did think that myself when I bought them!) but no, you don't get it. This makes me think I have to get some clay and make it. (Edit; as pointed by Umpapa, the idol is the famous Zbruch Idol, more info here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbruch_Idol)

                        The Sprues

SCULPTING - 7.0 out of 10

They are nicely sculpted, as Orion nearly always does. The anatomical proportions are good too. The problem comes with the moulding, as some examples have lots of flash, which is very difficult to remove due to the nature of the plastic used, and because instead of a big blob of flash, it is small sparks of flash all round the figures, which makes it very tedious to remove. 

Some examples don't have any flash (mine is quite good), but you can see in the pics how it is quite present, and by my experience with other Orion sets, if you get a bad one it diminishes the overall quality of the set.

The spears are pretty bad, I have seen worse (like the Early Byzantine infantry), and at least you will have the temptation of replacing the spear in one of the poses.

Finally, the third man on the first pic, I think it is depicting a slinger (no, he isn't a Indian waving a freshly cut head of hair). He has a very unusual pose, and the sling doesn't seem a sling, nor does it seem that it contains a rock. You probably be better off cutting it off and replacing it by another weapon. This is strange as Orion has done previously other slingers finely. It seems the sculptor couldn't make his mind if make a slinger or a another axeman, and finally he got the pose of the axeman with something similar to a sling.

The poses in general are not too conventional, which is very welcome when you have a lot of soldier sets.



HISTORICAL ACCURACY - 10 out of 10

Orion has done it's homework. They represent perfectly the Slavic Warriors. I couldn't be happier with the representation, it is exactly as I expected them to be, and they fit all historical depictions.

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"

If we extract some square shields, and change a bit the heads/hats, you can have a generic european/eastern european standard army from 400 a.c. until 1000 a.c.

With these figures you will have excellent figures for Germanic factions from the time of the Fall of the Roman Empire. You could transform them into early Baltic Tribes, use some as early Lithuanians, and of course as from all early Slav kingdoms. Some of the figures such as the bowmen could fit as peasants for Medieval Russian and Scandinavian kingdoms.

FUNNESS - 6.0

"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"

They represent very well the subject, but they are completely lacking a leader. They don't have any fun addition, everything is a bit flat, you would need to make conversions and take figures from other sets to represent heroes, priests, leaders, etc.

At least the figures seems fierce, and the man with the big club is very nice.

The archer standing, seems, at least from my first impression of the artwork, to be a woman. She(?)is slimmer than the rest, and she has long hair, but looking again, and as Orion doesn't say anything, probably she isn't.

WARGAMING VALUE - 7.5

They have a good ratio of different men, skirmishers, archers, slingers, axemen, men that could be used as Berserkers... but it lacks unique figures, or simply a repeated example of leader, sub-leader, musician, etc.

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"


Their average cost is 10 € shipped, which is fine for a quite new set depicting a completely new subject. It is a fair price really.





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PAINTING AND GLUEING - 5.0

The plastic is good both to paint and to glue, but you will have to completely remove all flash, and you could think it's not a big deal, but believe me, when you paint you need a figure completely flashless, and to achieve that it will be complicated. 



OVERALL VALORATION - 8.8

This is a notable set, and depicting a subject so important, and never made as it is, for me it is absolutely a must. I bought them right when they appeared from eBay. Some collectors if they are not too much interested in this period will not consider them so important, but I believe that in this world of miniatures so centered in famous subjects, having completely new factions not made before and that are not easily represented with other existing sets, the choice of Orion is praiseworthy.


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 for the permission to use his image of these excellent painted soldiers;

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