I came across with this product during my search for suitable hobgoblin miniatures for my Legion of Azgorh army. The most emphasized point for these plastic miniatures is that they have loads of weapon options and indeed they have. That was a very important factor for me since the hobgoblins in my army list can also be kitted with various weapon options.
The price is another strong selling point for them; but before I let this review to become a huge block of text, I'll try to introduce a review format here. Who knows, maybe it becomes a standard...
Packaging:
The miniatures come in a lightweight cardboard box with graphics at mediocre quality at best. The box itself is definitely not strong enough and in my opinion, even on the shelves the boxes will wear out quickly, let alone enduring the perils of postage. I bought them from both
Wayland Games and
Maelstrom Games and they sent those boxes in another heavy duty box.
Score: 5/10
Contents:
Eight identical, stackable plastic sprues, that's all. There are no leaflets, no booklets, no assembly instructions, no safety instructions, and
NO BASES. Just 8 identical sprues from which you can build 24 orcs. On each sprue there are;
- 11 weapons (+1 quiver)
- 3 shields
- 7 heads
- 10 arms
- 3 lower body
- 3 torsos (reversible torsos they say, YAY?!)
Wow, pretty big tally... But have you noticed that there are no command bits? Yes, no standards, no instruments for musicians. I think they could have squeezed in some banners and instruments at the expense of the other bits, though.
Another point I have to mention is that you can't kit your entire unit with bows. There are just not enough bits to make it happen. There are only 8 bows (one in each sprue), so out of your 24 orcs, you can only equip 8 of them with bow. Weird I say...
Score: 7/10
Quality:
No flash and an acceptable amount of mold lines on the miniatures, perfect. The detail level is also higher than my expectations, considering the price range of the miniatures. The only part I did not like is the details on the hands. They lack the details on hands and fingers so badly. Thank god they are just hobgoblins :) There are also some people who are less than satisfied with the the way the hands look, arguing that the open hands make the minis look unfinished; but I don't get that feeling.
There are no off-scale bits that I could see; but at some points, the minis are very thin. Almost as thin as Mantic's elves, so they might be susceptible to being snapped off at those points. Time will tell I guess...
Score: 7.5/10
Price:
With £14,85 for 24 minis, this box is a steal. Since it is a chaff unit mostly, you will be needing lots of them in your army. With £0.62 per mini this box gets the job done. Period.
Score: 10/10
OVERALL SCORE: 7.5/10
Just don't expect too much for this price. You get way more than what you pay for. Here is a quick summary for your convenience:
+ Awesome price
+ Lots of weapon options
- No bases
- No command bits
- Lacking bows
- Poor packaging
The miniatures are on my workbench currently. I will share photos of painted minis soon.
As I mentioned at the end of my last post, there were 9 more hobgoblins waiting their turn on my workbench. I finally found time to get them done today. With these 9, the hobgoblin bow regiment is 25 strong and can be fielded legally (min 20 to field). I still need to do a movement tray for them; but I think I am done with painting these greenskins for some time now.
In this post, I am using a different photo technique. Arbal over Colored Dust shared some fabulous information on how to build a simple photobox for shooting miniatures and it was too good to pass. I went on to build my own and took some photos with a fancy background image. Mr. Lee tells me that the background is blending too much with the minis. But hey, these are hobgoblins, which means there is not much to show off, right? Maybe I have to use a more neutral background in the future though.
