Mantic Dwarves

Hi!

I recently got a regiment of 20 plastic Mantic Dwarves and thought I would post a bit of a review of them.

When they were first released I had been a bit dismissive of them as I thought the detail was a bit poor and they were too cartoony. Looking at the actual figures I must admit my first view was well out as the miniatures themselves are rather decent. Possibly it was the studio paint scheme but they really don't show them to their best.

For plastic figures they are surprisingly mould line free and only minimal cleaning was required as the sprue has been cunningly wrought to conceal the lines in areas which are not visible. In fact one could just about get away without even doing any but for the purist in me I removed what little there was. Its worth noting that the plastic sprues are really sturdy, possibly a bit more so than GW kits and I ended up having to use pliers to get the main bodies off after chopping into my finger with my hobby knife!

The figures themselves are sharply detailed but stylised a bit which makes them very different from the GW Dwarves and actually have legs! Some care needs to be taken in putting them together on their bases as I got half way through constructing them before realising they wouldn't rank up!

Hopefully I will be able to get them painted up soon so folks can see them but for the princely sum of £10 from ebay, you really cant go wrong! I will be using them both for Kings of War and 3rd edition Fantasy Battle and the only conversion work I have done was to bush out the champions beard a bit and make a new standard out of wire as the one in the box is a little on the small side for my likings!

Overall I would recommend them to anyone wanting to collect an affordable army and look forward to painting them up!

All the best!

Dwarf and Orc Reviews!

Hi!

I thought it would be a plan to post a review of my recent Leviathan purchases so without further ado:

Orc Necrodon Spearmen

The pack comes with three identical beasts and riders. Sculpted by Kev Adams they have a really good sense of personality but I was slightly disappointed that there was only a single sculpt as variety with skirmish games is better, especially in an Orc horde.

Also the casting quality of the resin was a bit mixed. As you can see in the picture theres rather a lot of flash and in one case, some large air bubbles in the Necrodons chin. The metal sculpts on the other hand are perfect. I know they were having difficulties with resin casting up at Scotia due to the cold weather so that may be the cause.

The only other problem I have with the sculpt itself is that the cast on legs of the rider have a very unorcish skinny waist!

Dwarven Multi Guns

The pack contains three identical multi barreled cannons with built in gun shield. The casting quality for them is much higher than those of the orcs. The sculpting is also really nice and I will be looking forward to fielding them in my dwarven forces!

My only criticism is that the dwarf artillery crew which is available from Scotia is a bit mixed in quality (alas I forgot to order any so my guns have no crew!!)

Dwarven Mk2 Wargolem Black Thunder

I ordered a bit of a conversion of the Black Thunder with the mk1 Wargolem arms so I could represent them as updated editions and having a look at them, I think they are going to look fantastic once finished. The casting quality is again a real problem though with lots of flash and the main bodies themselves having a bit of a dirty look to patches of them. I don't know much about the casting process but it looks like dust has got into the resin when it was wet.

All this aside I believe that with a good clean they will be fine and add a really eye catching element to my dwarven force!

The Goblin Carnodons I ordered are reviewed HERE on my blog.

I am rather surprised by the overall quality of my recent purchases as they are more like the old stuff I got right at the beginning of my project. The previous orders I made had a far better finish to them. This may be due to the weather conditions as already mentioned, or the moulds are needing looking at. I will place another order in a couple of months and see how it goes!

In other news I may be offline for a few days as my computer is going in for repairs and I am off to Scotland next week. Hopefully I will get chance to post a few bits and bobs here in the meantime though!

All the best!