Caesar 三國演義

Though not born on the same day, same month, same year, we hope to meet our end on the same day, same month, same year.
May Heaven and Earth attest to what is in our hearts. Should we betray our friendship, may Heaven and Man turn against us.

– The Romance of Three Kingdoms

The Peach Orchard Oath (桃園結義) is one of the iconic moments in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo Yanyi; 三國演義), in which Liu Bei (a scion of the failing Han dynasty), Guan Yu (the future god of war), and Zhang Fei (the dour-handed warrior) swear brotherhood as they prepare to campaign against the Yellow Turban rebels.

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of the four classic novels of Chinese literature, and a work of historical fiction based on the Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo Zhi; 三國志).

The novel has been a source of inspiration for popular culture in both China and Japan, with numerous films, comics, and video games based on the story and characters. Now, Caesar has produced a set of toy soldiers to represent the army of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period.

The set consists of 33 figures in 14 poses, three of which have separate arms that need to be glued to the body. The Caesar plastic bonds well using CA glue without the need for any sort of treatment.

The rank and file troops are armed with swords, bows, and spears.

Four character figures represent the three sworn brothers – Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei, along with the renowned strategist Zhuge Liang (aka Kongming/Koumei) with his trademark cap and fan.

Unfortunately, these figures were made in "heroic" scale, so they're about a head taller than the rank and file. Guan Yu is even taller due to his reported height of 6'8" (based on the length of a Han dynasty chi).

I imagine that doing some head swaps with approriately sized bodies would bring them to 1/72 scale. Certainly putting Guan Yu's head on Zhang Fei's body, and changing the snake-spear head with the halberd head could be one conversion.

Anyway, it's nice to see Caesar back in production, and I look forward to more of their upcoming figures.

I'll end with a link to a play through video of the Capcom classic Dynasty Wars, which was my introduction to The Romance of Three Kingdoms, and which was the only arcade game that I actually played through to completion (back in the day).

The original name of the game is Tenchi wo Kurau (天地を喰らう), which is also the name of the manga by Hiroshi Motomiya upon which it was based.

Speira Miniatures

I placed an order with Speira Miniatures back in April, and received the models from Sweden in July, after a lengthy stop in Illinois.

Speira has a nice range of in-house historical miniatures, but their range of fantasy miniatures all seem to be 3D files licensed from other companies. I will cover some of their historical figures in the future, but this post will primarily be about the fantasy miniatures.

The first two figures are a pair of skeletons designed by Runeforge Studios.

Like most 3D resin printed skeletons I've seen, these do not disappoint. I really think that resin 3D printing technology is ideal for making skeletons.

The next figure is a dwarf (Roteante) designed by MiniaturesOfMaddness. I requested that it be printed as an 18mm figure because I imagined it would be on the tall and bulky side in 1/72 after seeing examples posted by Sceavus.

Unfortunately, the 18mm print looks undersized to me. Rotenante looks scrawny and underfed next to the 15mm Scibor dwarf (left), and is much smaller than the Caesar dwarf (right).

Next are three female figures – Elena, Aline the Bold, and a Female Warrior, all designed by Artisan Guild. I have to admit that I'm not a big fan of the Artisan Guild models. Overall, their models seem to be influenced by a kind of WoW video game aesthetic that is too cartoony for my tastes.

With respect to these figures, the proportions seem off, and the first two poses are overly exaggerated. Still, I'm guessing they'll look okay after being painted up.

The final miniatures are lamassu terrain pieces, which I believe are in-house 3D designs by Speira.

The bull-type lamassu measures 54mm to the highest point.

The lion-type lamassu measures 60mm to the highest point.

I ordered the lamassu statues because they brought back faded memories from the 90s, of a fantasy diorama that I saw at the now closed Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica.

Notables from the D&D world associated with Aero Hobbies included the owner, Gary Switzer, and the renowned J. Eric Holmes who bought his first D&D rulebooks there. Of course, by the time I visited the store, the kid at the register didn't even know what Demogorgon was.

Now that I think about it, I probably should have ordered the 28mm prints, because I seem to recall that the pieces at Aero Hobbies were larger than these 1/72 prints (but it could just be my imagination). In any event, having something closer to the scale of the lamassu that are part of the Gate of All Nations would look quite impressive.

On a side note, about 20 miles due west from Aero Hobbies, you will find a shopping center known as the Citadel Outlet, which has several lamassu incorporated into its architecture. It is said to be based on the palace of the Assyrian ruler Sargon II, and quite eye-catching as you pass by on the freeway.

City of Commerce

Püppchen

The Caesar 21cm Nebelwerfer 42 kit comes with an interesting little model of the 8.8cm Raketenwerfer 43 (which is not shown on the box art).

I could not find any real life pictures of a Raketenwerfer with skis like in the kit, but there are many toys and models of this specific type of rocket launcher.

Raketenwerfer without wheels (or skis).

This anti-tank weapon fired an 8.8cm fin stabilized rocket propelled HEAT grenade, and supposedly had such excellent performance that the OKH disallowed awarding a Tank Destruction Badge if it was used to successfully knock out a tank.

Raketen Panzer Granat 4312

The model has just seven pieces, and could be considered a very easy build except for one small issue – the model is made from polyethylene which is almost impossible to glue together.

There are a couple of methods for gluing polyethylene parts together. One method involves heat treating the plastic with a blowtorch, which I don't think will work for plastic models. The other is to treat the parts with a primer which will create a surface that CA glue will bond with.

The most commonly available glue for polyethylene is the Loctite Plastics Bonding System, which uses the priming method. The problem with this product however, is that the activator is applied with a pen-like applicator, which does not work well with small parts.

The activator can be purchased separately in liquid form as Loctite 770, but it costs about $10 an oz. From what I can tell however, it seems to just be n-Heptane which costs around $2 an oz. for the analytical grade stuff. You can also buy Bestine Solvent and Thinner which I believe is also n-Heptane for $1 an oz. (the route I went with).

I dipped the parts in Bestine, shook off the excess onto a disposable paper towel, and allowed the parts to dry for a minimum of 1 minute. After that, I just applied glue, and assembled the parts in the usual manner.

A test bond that I did with some pieces of the sprue from the model held with Bestine treatment, but the bond didn't have much strength. The control with no Bestine treatment didn't bond at all.

I wanted to make the test with the glue from the Plastics Bonding System, but my glue was all dried up, so I had to make do with Loctite Professional Liquid instead. I'm not sure if this made a difference, so maybe I'll do some more tests in the future.

The model itself seems to be holding up okay with normal handling, though I'm not sure how well it would fare with being used for gaming.

Important: If you plan on using Bestine or n-Heptane, Read the MSDS, be sure to work in a well ventilated area, and follow all safety procedures for handling dangerous chemicals. Heptane is flammable, a skin irritant, and potentially toxic if inhaled or ingested.

Orcs; Take 2

The new Orc Warriors from Caesar arrived in the mail today, so I've prepared a quick review.

My set contained 35 figures in 13 poses, two of which come with separate arms. The material is less pliable than the plastic used in the older Caesar fantasy sets, but takes CA glue very well.

The orcs come in a dark forest green plastic which was very hard to photograph. I had to adjust the image levels to make the details show up better, so the pictures do not reflect the actual color of the plastic very well.

I like the sculpts because the jaw size of these orcs is more subtle compared to the previous set, making them less cartoony despite still being influenced by the Warhammer/Warcraft look.

Unfortunately the subtlety did not carry over to their feet, and the orcs seem to be wearing huge clown shoes.

The swords and macuahuitl-like weapons used by some of the orcs are over-sized, and joined to the hand by a very narrow section of plastic. It seems like they may be prone to breakage due to the thinness of the plastic, but I may be wrong.

In any event, they match up pretty well with the previous set of Caesar orcs, though they seem to be slightly taller on average.

Orc Warriors Set 1 (in gray) v. Set 2 (in green)

Another recent acquisition that I want to present in this post is a set of the revised Heritage Goblins (Dungeon Dwellers 1240).

I don't know how many years it's been that I've been looking for these miniatures, but they seem to be particularly difficult to find.

People may be more familiar with the original Heritage Goblins, which (to me) have the look of goblins from the Rankin/Bass Hobbit and Return of the King TV movies.

The original and revised versions of the goblins match up fairly well in size, but the heads of the original goblins are even bigger than those of the revised versions.

Despite their over-sized heads, I will still incorporate these figures in my orcish hordes.

Where there's a whip, there's a way!

Dark Alliance Zombies

Zombies depicted in early zombie films like White Zombie, and I Walked with a Zombie followed the traditional Haitian model of zombies as reanimated corpses under the control of a bokor.

The modern zombie as a sort of devolved ghoul originated from the cinema, starting with Night of the Living Dead. Their hunger for brains came from Return of the Living Dead, and the zombie "rager" came from 28 Days Later.

The Walking Dead started its run as a comic series about a year after 28 Days Later was released. The comic book was adapted into a successful TV series which has been running for five seasons.

Based on the box art for the Dark Alliance Zombies, I'm guessing that at least some of the zombies in these sets may have been inspired by the show (I can't say for sure, since I have yet to read the comics or watch the show).

Set 1 consists of 48 zombies in 12 poses. The first picture is of adult zombies. The final three figures include a nurse, a doctor, and a police officer.

The second picture consists of a teen zombie, and 4 child zombies.

There was a bit of flash on one of the figures, but otherwise, this set did not require much clean-up.

Set 2 also consists of 48 zombies in 12 poses. The first picture is of adult zombies, several of which would pass nicely for traditional Haitian zombies. The kneeling zombies at the end consist of a female zombie gnawing on an arm, and a zombie maid that would be at least 7' tall if she were standing upright.

The second picture consists of 4 child zombies, and one adult crawler. Three of the child zombies are creepy baby zombies.

The figures in the second set required a lot more clean-up in comparison to the first set, but after getting rid of all the flash, the sculpts are just as nice. The problem with the set however, is that there too many novelty figures. With four duplicate sprues, I could create a zombie daycare staffed by giant maids.

The final pictures are comparisons of Caesar (light gray; left) and Dark Alliance (dark gray; right) zombies.

The details of the Caesar zombies are not as soft as those of the Dark Alliance zombies, but there should be no issues with using zombies from both manufacturers together.

New Caesar Fantasy Sets

After a long hiatus, Caesar has released four new sets of plastic miniatures through their Miniknight line.

The first set is of Lizardmen Warriors (F107), consisting of forty or so figures in 12 poses (the box says 11 poses, but I think there was some sort of confusion between number of poses with another set).

Two of the figures need to have some limbs attached. The sprues also have shields for some of the other figures. The parts attach quite easily with a bit of CA glue.

Lizardmen armed with spears and swords. The first two figures required assembly.

Lizardmen armed with clubs. The figure in the center (wearing armor) is a unique pose and does not have duplicates.

Lizardmen with missile weapon.

The figures range in size from man-height, to over a head shorter than a man. The sculpts are rather rough, and don't look like the type of lizardmen shown on the cover of the box. In fact, the figures are very reminiscent of skinks from Warhammer.

I use Warhammer skinks as D&D Troglodytes, so the Caesar figures will make a nice addition to my Troglodyte forces.

The second set is of Ratmen (F108), and consists of roughly 40 figures in 11 poses.

I think that the pose count was mixed up with that of the Lizardmen set, and though 12 poses are shown on the box, I believe that the two figures I've marked are actually the same pose (although with different shields).

One figure needs to have its limbs attached. The sprue also has additional shields. The arms attach easily with CA glue, but I recommend putting the glue into the holes in the torso, then fitting the arms into the body.

Ratmen with spears and clubs. The first ratman on the left required assembly.

Ratmen with swords. The ratman on the far left is a unique pose and does not have duplicates.

Ratmen with missile weapons.

These ratmen are essentially Warhammer Skaven. They are a head shorter (or more) than a human. The sculpting is decent, but still not as nice as the earlier Caesar fantasy sets. There are a lot of mold lines on the figures as well.

The third set is titled Undead Camp (F110), and consists of about 40 zombie figures in 11 poses.

The first group of figures are armed zombies that are probably best suited for fantasy settings.

The second group of figures are more generic zombies that can be also used in modern settings.

The final figure in this set is the unique pose, which is of a Chinese hopping vampire. This is easily my favorite figure in the set, and I wish they would have included more of them.

The final set is of Modern Zombies (SF004), and consists of about 40 zombie figures in 11 poses. First are the male zombies. The big zombie at the far right is a unique pose without duplicates.

Next are the female zombies, and a male crawler.

The zombie figures are all well sculpted, and the set allows zombie hordes to be quickly and easily assembled.

The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grisly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom