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Hi guys. Several months ago I decided to embark upon a project I had long mused over.


1/72 plastics are a section of this hobby we share that have confounded me for a long time. Hard to obtain from regular hobby stores, and not really the best in terms of quality, there was little reason to use them.

Now, I've been trying to find a way to cheaply build large armies for kings of war, black powder and hail Caesar. Recently the quality of miniatures from manufacturers like Caesar and strelets has gone up.

As such, I wanted to show off and allow discussion on my progress and thoughts on these figures. Furthermore, I have been writing painting articles for michigan toy soldier on a range of figures from 1/72 to 28mm.

As a teaser of my plans, here is the beginning of my undead and kingdoms of men ( evil half orcs) in 1/72 based for kings of war.

The beggining of my forces of nature and empire of dust, with so.me basileans thrown into the mix as well.

Alright guys. time for a more indepth review of these models and my uses for them.

First up are the "Dragons of the far east."



Pretty standard white box, with product image and branding. Since Wells Expeditions is defunct, that is somewhat meaningless.

Inside the box are these fine fellows:



The paintjobs are about as good as DnD miniatures. Simillarly, some of the extremities (read: dragon mustachios) are slightly bendy. This is ok. I am not going to strip these, but instead prime directly over the factory paint jobs. The base detail on these figures is quite good, and I think they will paint up quite well. pair that with the fact that they are pretty much the only eastern dragons on the market and we're in business.

Moving on, we have the Han army infantry pack. Despite being a relatively short-lived game, Arcane legions had some excellent packaging, and this set, like the egyptian set next, is testament to that. Furthermore, it also does an excellent job keeping the sprues safe. As the primary reason I bought these kits, having all the models in one piece is good.





Discarding the specialized bases and unit cards that I will not be using, and what we are left with is two sprues of chinese infantry in 1/72nd scale. While the detail is somewhat light, the casting quality and overall look of the figures is excellent. Further, because they are all wearing roughly the same armor, they can all be painted like Terracotta warriors, making this set a steal for my intended army project.

Finally we have the Egyptian set. While i understand the reasoning of including greek and roman troops in this set (game set in the period when marc antony was with Cleopatra, who is from the Ptolemaic greek dynasty of egypt) I would have rather had more undead troops, as they truly provide the most unique sculpts of the set. The same comments on box design and sturdiness apply here. The greek and roman infantry will be used in different projects, specifically animated golems/basileans (greeks) and my 1:1 scale Roman Legion.





I painted up 15 figures as test ranks in about 2 hours. I am thinking of going back and drybrusing the Terracotta warriors with my base color again, but am undecided. Thoughts from the community are most welcome. please keep in mind these have flash enabled, and are not the best photos:





So far, they are proving to be well worth the money.

Tonight's WIP:





and for completeness' sake, the current state of my 1:1 roman legion (doubles as kingdoms of man) project.

Reinforcements arrived last night.

Yea. 123 mini's in the big boxes (3 characters that I will convert multiples of.)

Update:

Really liking the terracotta army.