I thought I'd start a new thread as I play around with my WFG greatcoats.
If you're not familiar with them, Wargames Factory has a program called the Liberty and Union League where people can suggest ideas for a plastic sprue and once pre-orders hit 1000 they'll make it (more or less, the plan is undergoing reconsideration at the moment). Greatcoats are the second project to come out of that (after zombies).
THE BASICS WGF has only done 1 sprue (but promises a heavy weapon and command sprue) but did a good job of packing it full of useful stuff.
You get...
3 bodies (1 crouching, 1 walking, 1 at attention)
3 left arms (cradling a gun)
1 left arm - pointing
3 right arms with bullpup shotgun
3 right arms with energy weapons
1 right arm with flamer
1 right arm with rotary grenade launcher
1 right arm with pistol
3 gasmask/fritz helmet heads
3 welding mask heads
4 (!?) bare heads with gasmasks
1 cap head with gasmask
1 cyborg head
1 cyborg head with gasmask
1 Cthulhu head
Assorted canteens, knives and pistols
Here's how the look out of the box
(yes I know it's a bit blurry)
And some of my early kitbashing
Penal legion, the guy on the left has flagellent arms
Special weapon troopers, flamer and melta gun. Backpacks are from a Perry Bros Napoleonics kit.
Vet and sarge, the vet will get a riot shield to show carapace armor.
In scale with a necromunda fig, I'll take one with a Cat or a Cad when I find one.
THE BAD I've been on WGF's forums for a year or so contributing to the discussion on these so (since they did not obey my every whim) I can't help but find some faults.
I think the mix of basic weapons is flawed, putting 6 different high-tech rifles is overkill when you have only one sprue to play with. I'd have preferred 1 energy weapon and then 2 other things, maybe a SMG and a sniper rifle. I would have much rather had the
RPG that was talked about than a grenade launcher. And I really wanted an oversized phallic energy weapon.
The flamer arm is hard to position right, I had to cut it and reposition.
I LOVE the rich selection of heads but wonder about the choices. 4 gasmask heads for 3 bodies? 3 welding masks? I'd have loved a peaked cap or some bare faces in helmets among the picks. And well, who doesn't love a Cthulhu head, but I have no use for one, much less 32.
The one head with no gasmask still looks a little mealty, the face is not as crisp as their gasmask heads. Basically I think they don't do organic shapes as well as mechanical (understandable since they use computer sculpting) and it shows in the faces.
The lack of a good hand to hold the knives irks me. Even if one of the knives has a left hand molded to it it would be really useful. But I have more than enough
GW kits to overcome this.
THE GOOD I make no secret of my hatred for Catachans and Cadians. When you compare them to something like flagellents (admittedly much newer) or Empire Militia (older than either) or these greatcoats it really shows how terrible they are as kits. They have almost no options, just one style of head each, they lack basic options like their special weapons and they're just not that imaginative. Rambo and
some football players is not nearly enough to represent the
IG.
Keeping in mind this is just one sprue, and it's half the size of a
GW sprue this is an amazing start. Much more diverse modeling options than
GW's basic infantry kits at a fraction of the price.
Should you start a greatcoat
IG army is of course the big question. I already have several
IG armies and I will. First because I like them. Second because I enjoy kitbashing and have more than enough bitz to use on them. And third because I want to encourage new plastic makers.
But unless you meet some of those criteria I would wait for the next sprue to decide.
