HaT Carthaginian Command & Cavalry 1/72 Painted & Converted

After a long time of inactivity, here I show you my latest work while painting soldiers. I no longer have time to write reviews, but I hope you enjoy looking at these painted and converted 1/72 soldiers;

I hold nice memories of these soldiers, as they were a Christmas present. I was amazed to learn that Carthaginian soldiers were made. I always found that the weapon and poses choice and assortment was curious, and after many breakages and strange combinations, I decided to paint them and give a final look to these soldiers.

I broke down the soldiers into these categories,

Generals
Cavalry
Punic Citizen Infantry
Lusitanian mercenaries

I transformed some of the "Spanish" heavy officers into just Punic Citizen Infantry, as I needed a backbone to my carthaginian army, and I had nearly more Iberian officers than infantry" besides this, they don't look too much like Iberians to me. So, I gave them large spears and transformed them.

The rest of the spanish heavy officers, the ones wearing the typical Lusitanian cloak, were retained and such and most were given typical Lusitanian shields I made myself, and I made some Falcata swords for them too.

I had to create some swords and borrow some spears, as if not there would have been too many soldiers with ceremonial or parade symbols (I was gifted two boxes of them, so they were the main bulk of my Carthaginian Army).

As a side note, this has been my longest hobby-related project in my life. I stopped it in 2004 due to lack of a fine brush to paint the details, and for one thing or another I left it until now to finish them! I improved some things when I took the project again too.

Among the figures,I modified specially a general to represent Hannibal, the figure with green cloak, and black palm on his shield.

Hope you enjoy, and I hope I can give good inspiration to any modeller out there.

(click on the pictures to see them bigger)

First Entry update; Arab Cavalry

I have added a new pic to the first entry, showing another way of painting the Italeri Arab Cavalry by Miniaturas Aconcagua, giving them a very dark and modern movie appearance; 

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!

Caesar Miniatures - ARAB CAMEL RIDERS AND BEDOUIN - Arabs Bedouins Biblical Era

Another Caesar set to review, will this be another top notch set with excellent sculpting, or a boring and meaninglesss set?


The box;

Maybe one of the best Caesar box arts, at least they seem rather human. All the same, compare it to nearly any other manufacturer and you won't buy these for the box. The camels seem gigantic, and the perspective is not right, but it gives a sensation of heat, and depicts correctly what you get (which is not difficult, you'll see why later).

SCULPTING - 8.5 out of 10

I am not complaining about the quality of details, lifelikeness of the figures, nor anatomic proportions, which are nearly a 10. But there are a couple of weird poses with spears, that although they could win a prize on "never done before" this is probably because you would never be in that pose if you carried a spear.

Besides that, probably the camel is a bit too big, and seems very strange looking, ( a bit like an elongated hamster ) , if compared to camels from other manufacturers.



HISTORICAL ACCURACY - 10.0

This is a double-edged question; did Bedouins in this period wear turbans, that sort of skirt, and were their weapons  spears, sickles and bows? Indeed, for what we know (mainly some egyptian reliefs) that is a big yes. And the reliefs normally don't lie, so that is that.

But will everybody wear absolutely the same, including having nearly the same face and beard? Most probably not. God, they didn't even make someone without a turban, besides the camel riders. It is like having the same man in all the different poses, you could make a stop-motion movie with them!!

So yes, they are historically accurate. But in my opinion, after buying this set, you have just "Light and Medium Bedouin Infantry".

Caesar many times strives for total historical accuracy, and they don't want to enter in any sort of controversy, so if they find a relief that just shows a warrior, you'll get 42 figures of that warrior.

ARMY REPRESENTATION - 6.0

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

Besides representing Bedouins from Biblical times until nearly the advent of Mahomet, you could use some as light skirmishers in medieval arab armies, some with a bit of conversion for Indian and Muslim kingdoms. The good thing, is that you just have to add something with sculpting , so they could be a very good base to represent Arabs and men with turbans throughout the ages.
FUNNESS - 3.0

"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"

I was quite disappointed after buying this set. It was an expensive one at that time (11,99 €, when most sets were 7,99 or less) and I expected something like the Trojan army, also from Caesar. Instead, even the supposed leader is exactly the same as the other men. I know that there isn't more information, but I think that with a bit of research and a bit of imagination you could have made them more interesting and appealing.


It seems that, for example, with sets like the Trojan Army, there was a very deep research, and the result was very good. Here, it seems they looked the Osprey where the camel riders appeared, saw a relief which showed the standard Bedouin, and here we go, we have a set. The funness in this set it is on the double-ridden camel.

WARGAMING VALUE - 6.5

This is a very good set for wargaming. You are given all the different sorts of troops, and in good ratio (albeit if a bit too many armoured men without spears maybe, this seems to represent an  elite Hittite army), so it scores high here. Some sort of standard bearer and king is the only thing it lacks to be a ten.

PRICE-VALUE RATIO - 7.5

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

As with most Caesar Miniatures, you can find them for 8 GBP shipped from Hong Kong, which is better than what I paid at a retail store.
--> P.S: If you like these reviews, and want to say thanks, a click on both ads is all I need :) . (If you want to comment, that will be appreciated, too.)




PAINTING AND GLUEING - 8.5

As can be said for all Caesar models, the plastic is a sort of rubber that is rough and not slippery. Even if maybe a bit too dark , a lighter grey would have been better. They can be nicely glued. A bad thing is that they come many times with bent lances or bent bases,(which in theory  can be solved with hot water, although many return to their bad poses again.)

OVERALL VALORATION - 7.0

"A complementary set, just for the very enthusiastic of the period"

Disappointment, that is the feeling I had when I opened them 5-6 years ago, and that is the feeling I have now after doing this review. Okay, maybe I am wrong, and really all Bedouins even their chief and aristocracy, rich and poor, old and young, wore the same clothes and used the same weapons. But even if that was the case, without a absolutely historical confirmation, it would have been better to be bold and made something more special.

Why make Bedouins and not Babylonians, Hurrites, Gutis, Amorrites or Elamites? peoples that destroyed and forged great kingdoms? it escapes me. But I won't complain for getting an obscure tribe.

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"

Painted figures by  Miniaturas Aconcagua.

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

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.





Please make a click on the eBay listings to help support this site. If you plan on buying them, I will be very glad if you could do it through this ad, as it will help me improve these reviews by buying a new camera, new sets and paints etc:) .
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!

Zvezda VIKINGS 1/72 IX-XI AD north warriors Set 8046 norse miniatures figures Harald Hardrada

Today we review some epic miniatures, the Vikings.

A very good and correct artwork, showing the real poses made in the same set. The box art is good, but the figures inside are even better.

On the back we can see the painted soldiers (excellently, not like Mars, which is to show how not to paint them) and a brief description.  

Once open, this is what we see;

SCULPTING - 9.0 out of 10

Usual Zvezda set; detail a bit diffuse everywhere, without very sharp detail, but perfectly (and when I say perfectly, is perfectly) made proportions, lifelike poses (not the plain pseudo-egyptian poses we get in HaT and similar),  and absolutely no flash at all. 

All the shields are given separate, which gives a very nice detail to figures.


HISTORICAL ACCURACY - 10.0

We have a perfect historical accuracy here. Maybe we should have more axemen, the chief could wear a more special and ornamented helmet and shield (horned helmets are now regarded as unhistorical by modern historians, but for those we have seen hundreds of films and other representations, to see a full set of Vikings without any horns seems strange).

Another thing is that these Vikings seem Swedish Vikings of the east, the ones that confronted the Slavs, mainly for the archer with that hat and a bit for the standard bearer, but is nice to see an approach not so directed to fight in 1066 at Stamford Bridge like other sets.

ARMY REPRESENTATION - 7.0

Two or three could be used for any Dark Age barbarian/germanic faction (the skirmisher could be used as a Goth of the 3rd century to a light Medieval troop), many also could be used for Medieval kingdoms of the north like the Denmark, Norway or Sweden, or early Russian kingdoms. 

Finally, some could be used as early Angles, Saxons, Frisians or Jutes. 



FUNNESS - 8.3

"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 this set"

Vikings are always a fun theme. Maybe this are very historical, wargaming-adapted and correct Vikings, which makes them not so fun, but nevertheless we have besides the unique leader and standard bearer, a nice Berserker biting his shield, and the very interesting figure kicking a enemy, literally a figure I've never seen before, but you can be sure that Vikings bited, kicked and punched, any sort of way to defeat their enemies. 

You could say that this set is more really like a Viking Army, like those of the late Viking age, and not so much an adventurer gang of wild Vikings like those of the early Dark Ages.


WARGAMING VALUE - 10.0

Zvezda is a wargaming-concerned company, and this set gives everything a wargamer might need. There is many Vikings made, but none so useful to wargamers as this one. The leader, the standard-bearer/musician, the skirmisher and archers, etc.

PRICE-VALUE RATIO - 8.0

"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"

Not everything could be perfect in this set. The cheapest is about 8-9 GBP, and it can be more on retail shops. The question is that you are only given 41 figures, which seems a bit few, to make way for the shields that are made separate.


PAINTING AND GLUING - 5.0

Zvezda plastic is not too good to paint and glue, it will not be required glue if you don't to modify them, but painting them can be a bit tricky.


OVERALL VALORATION - 8.5

When they were released, there were existing already 4 sets of Vikings (Emhar, Orion, and Strelets have made two), of which I already owned two,  I don't like having more than one set of every faction, nevertheless , I did buy this set making it my third pack of Vikings. 

Is this the best set of Vikings? many would say yes, but my heart is still with my first set, the Strelets Vikings against Franks, but this is a very personal opinion. 

If you are a wargamer, this is your set. If you want epic and diorama usefulness, maybe the Strelets Vikings against Franks is better. 

I strongly recommend getting this set, even if you already have some of the previous sets. They are very nicely made, and although can be a bit expensive they represent very well a Viking army.

In my opinion, the Orion and Emhar sets seem to be very early Vikings, nearly more Angles than vikings in the Emhar one, and the sculpting of all the 4 previous sets are inferior in quality.


PAINTED EXAMPLES

Thanks to Miniaturas Aconcagua, I can show you this great way of painting them!

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