Last one for now!
Here's another two sets of figures. This time from their 'Hammer of the Gods' range. Viking Huscarls and Saxon Thegns.
Both sets have the usual large pile of plastic. Detail is slightly softer than the figures in my earlier reviews, although still OK. Both are made from hard plastic making clean-up and assembly easy (why, oh why, do manufacturers still use b****y polythene for their figures?).
In both sets there are eight identical sprues containing torsos and arms and four identical sprues of weapons, heads, and shields.
The Saxons have three types of shield, two types of swords and axes with bows, spears, horns and a dragon standard. A nice touch is a couple of pairs of arms joined at the hands enabling you to show figures holding weapons two-handed above their heads ready to strike - anyone who has assembled figures knows the difficulties of aligning separate arms so that the hold on a weapon looks natural and realistic.
The Vikings have only one type of shield and that's where the bad news starts.
The weapons sprues from both sets are only slightly different. Both have identical weapons with only the accessories being different in each set.
Even worse, the sprues containing the torsos are absolutely identical in both sets.
I can appreciate that these figures would all wear the same type of clothing and use similar types of weapons. I can also appreciate they would most likely have similar chain mail 'armour', but that's no reason for Wargames Factory to include identical sprues in both sets!
I suspect they may have done the same with their 'unarmoured' Viking and Saxon warriors - Bondi and Fyrd - in this collection but I'm not risking my hard earned pennies to find out!
They could have combined these two sets by including only six torso sprues and three each of the weapons sprues. That would leave you with twelve sprues in each set - the same as now - and enable you to build either 24 Vikings or 24 Saxons or a combination of both. Much better value for money and much more appealing to buyers without the company incurring more in production costs.
After all my praise over the other sets I've bought, I've found these two sets really disappointing. However, that does not detract from the qualities of the other sets and even these sets have some merit.
Had I known beforehand, I would have bought one set of 'armoured' figures and one set of 'unarmoured' figures - one of Vikings and one of Saxons - and ended up with a nice selection of figures which would have left me well pleased.
The Vikings
[ATTACH]123378.IPB[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]123379.IPB[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]123380.IPB[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]123381.IPB[/ATTACH]
The Saxons
[ATTACH]123382.IPB[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]123383.IPB[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]123384.IPB[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]123385.IPB[/ATTACH]
Here's another two sets of figures. This time from their 'Hammer of the Gods' range. Viking Huscarls and Saxon Thegns.
Both sets have the usual large pile of plastic. Detail is slightly softer than the figures in my earlier reviews, although still OK. Both are made from hard plastic making clean-up and assembly easy (why, oh why, do manufacturers still use b****y polythene for their figures?).
In both sets there are eight identical sprues containing torsos and arms and four identical sprues of weapons, heads, and shields.
The Saxons have three types of shield, two types of swords and axes with bows, spears, horns and a dragon standard. A nice touch is a couple of pairs of arms joined at the hands enabling you to show figures holding weapons two-handed above their heads ready to strike - anyone who has assembled figures knows the difficulties of aligning separate arms so that the hold on a weapon looks natural and realistic.
The Vikings have only one type of shield and that's where the bad news starts.
The weapons sprues from both sets are only slightly different. Both have identical weapons with only the accessories being different in each set.
Even worse, the sprues containing the torsos are absolutely identical in both sets.
I can appreciate that these figures would all wear the same type of clothing and use similar types of weapons. I can also appreciate they would most likely have similar chain mail 'armour', but that's no reason for Wargames Factory to include identical sprues in both sets!
I suspect they may have done the same with their 'unarmoured' Viking and Saxon warriors - Bondi and Fyrd - in this collection but I'm not risking my hard earned pennies to find out!
They could have combined these two sets by including only six torso sprues and three each of the weapons sprues. That would leave you with twelve sprues in each set - the same as now - and enable you to build either 24 Vikings or 24 Saxons or a combination of both. Much better value for money and much more appealing to buyers without the company incurring more in production costs.
After all my praise over the other sets I've bought, I've found these two sets really disappointing. However, that does not detract from the qualities of the other sets and even these sets have some merit.
Had I known beforehand, I would have bought one set of 'armoured' figures and one set of 'unarmoured' figures - one of Vikings and one of Saxons - and ended up with a nice selection of figures which would have left me well pleased.
The Vikings
[ATTACH]123378.IPB[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]123379.IPB[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]123380.IPB[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]123381.IPB[/ATTACH]
The Saxons
[ATTACH]123382.IPB[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]123383.IPB[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]123384.IPB[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]123385.IPB[/ATTACH]
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