Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Second Thoughts: Warlord's Panzergrenadiers (30 figures and 3 vehicles) and Late War Germans (25 figures)

While I was initially impressed by these boxes, now that I've been assembling them, I'm feeling let down, especially when compared to the Soviet box.

There are a number of problems:

  • There are only 5 poses so I now have 11 of each.
  • Warlord compounds the above problem by repeating three sets of arms. 
  • There is no prone figure so you have no choice but to make the LMG gunners into Rambo.
  • The right hands of the rifle arms don't hold the weapon well, unlike the Soviet figures.
  • The arms don't integrate very well with the bodies. The shoulders stick out far too much and you don't get a nice joint. Each shoulder requires some knife work to make them far more seamless.
  • The one accessory that I expected was some MG ammo belts to add to the figures. The late war Germans, especially Panzergrenediers, are notorious for lugging belts of ammo around with them, but none are included. There's sort of an ammo box but it seems awfully thin. Belts would have been far more useful.
And on top of that, I cannot even borrow the extra Soviet arms I have. The Russian arms are significantly bigger.

It's my understanding that the Soviet box is a later product. The experience that Warlord gained from these inferior German figures shows up.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Bocage

I have created some test bocage. I' rather pleased with the randomness and bulk of them so I plan to go into production of them (about 3 feet worth at a minimum) after Hold the Line next month.
Yes, there's a rather lost Soviet officer but he's the only fully painted figure I have for scale.