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 Xeno wrote:

Everyone of the kneeling figures I examined also had the toe of its right boot (the one pointing towards the ground) missing. However, a little green stuff can fix these guys up easily enough -- they are a maze of fine details and small parts....

...One real problem is the heads: there was noticeable mold slippage that resulted in lopsided heads. Since the faces are divided down the middle, this means lopsided faces. However, I should have enough salvageable heads to assemble a squad; the mold slippage seems to be a real problem only with the helmeted heads. The caps are fine.

Thanks for the review, I'm glad these worked out for you. However the two problems above are deal breakers.

1) Missing toes on every cast means that they are casting with bad molds, not simply that one figure might have been miscast. That's a real NO-NO. Bad molds get replaced, they shouldn't be used.

2)The lopsided heads point to more poor QC. Not very confidence-inspiring.

Have you contacted them for replacement parts? I imagine many folks will be waiting to see how other folks' kits come and how Defiance handles complaints for those who find such flaws unacceptable.

The Defiance Games container picture (about their best so far, even if it doesn't show much of the container)

Speaking of pics . . .

So, my Chinese arrived and I assembled a few. After a bit of screwing, I actually took some pictures. Here's my more in depth opinion of them.

In theory, these would be a great set for an inexperienced modeler or something looking to assemble an army extremely quickly. Of the five bodies included in the set, two only require attaching a head to be complete, and all of the bodies are designed with a high armor collar so all you have to do is squirt in a little glue, plug in the head, and your done. The fit is tight enough that it should stay with problem. For the remaining three bodies, there are holes on the side to plug in the arms, and the loose rifle arms are paired so all you have to do is glue them on and you're good. Assemble time for a single figure should be under a minute each, and maybe 30 minutes for the entire box if you're particularly choosy about head and arm positions. Also, the plugs mean it's simple to test fit parts without glue, right?

The basic body:



We immediately run into the first problems.

The collar that the head plugs into was only particuarly molded or outright missing on several figures and thin or cracked on several of the remainder, meaning you have to put some effort into getting the head to stay, plus possibly carving the neck stump to make sure it'll sit properly.

The peg hole system for the arms is used only on the special arms (the shoulder'mount machinegun, the sword, pistol, pointing hand, and the satchel charge) and the pegs are far too small for the arm holes. The holes themselves are so large that there isn't much surface area for the arms to bond since the peg is too small. The rifle arms lack the begs entirely, and have only a small amount of bonding area. It took a little work to get the arms to stick, ad the machinegun was especially a pain in the butt because the gun's weight kept dragging it off the figure.

As a side note, I had a hard time figuring out how to attach the grip arm.

Special arms: the machinegun grip is on the bottom left, and the other is some kind of pistol, I guess, that looks half-finished.



The machinegun is a rather strange, awkward, and difficult to position weapon.




Casting problems with the neck hole:





Now, let's talk about casting flaws, shall we?

There were, believe it or not, only a small number of air bubbles on the bodies, and usually in inconspicuous places like the bottoms of the feet, which'll be glue to the base anyway, so who cares, right? As a general thing, the bodies are cast well and detail is crisp and deep. For a crap painted such as myself, these guys'll be easy to paint. However, the casting flaws there were . . . oh my.

For starters: the right toe of the boot on EVERY SINGLE kneeling figure was missing. That's all figures from two sets.



On many of the arms, the edge of the shoulder was missing and, given how little surface area there already is for glue bonding, that's a problem, on that would be easy to fix with green stuff, but that's barely acceptable, even to an easy-going guy like myself.



The single piece bodies had a couple of common flaws: the first is that on the one with a visible gun stock, said stock was always half cast. The end of the barrel was frequently missing (~50% of the time) on all rifles except, ironically, Mr. Half-Stock. If you needed an excuse to make these little less like AK-47s, there you go. You'll probably have to trim them all down anyway.





The heads are so-so: they have a mix of ethnicities with four different helmeted heads, three different heads with caps, and a couple of character heads including an officer in peaked cap and a dude with a bandanna.






However, a number (about 25%) of the head tabs between both sets were affected by misaligned molds making the face look like it had suffered a stroke:



Others looked misaligned, like perhaps the master model had been slightly squashed during molding or just were suffering from less overtly noticeable molding issues.

Plus, despite being Imperial Chinese infantry, the asian-looking heads had a sorta charicature look to them that was, frankly, just a little offensive.


Finally, here's some shots of the five I assembled:






Final thoughts

Now, I'm not knowledgeable on molds outside of what I've read online, but I can help but think that someone with some skill could fix the assorted casting flaws with a little work. Do that, redo the arm holes at a small size, and make sure the molds aren't misaligned, and literally every technical flaw in this set would be fixed and they'd be fine. The sculpts themselves, as I said, are clean and well-detailed as I hope the pictures above had shown. The material itself is fine. As I keep saying, Trollcast (or this variation of it) is light, rugged, carves well, glues well, and paints well.

Defiance Games has a repeated problem, I think, of not spending enough time in the prototype stage. They get flawed castings and, instead of going back and figuring out what went wrong and fixing it, they just same to shrug and go "good enough." Well, in the case of this set, it's not: flaws abound, from noticeable casting issues to problems in the design, and the smart thing to do with be to actually address those before selling the miniatures. As with the Germans before, they would have seen what was wrong (shallow detail, too-thin weapons, too many parts) and fixed them. Ironically, these guys dis address some of those issues -- the guns are chunkier, details are deep, and there aren't millions of small parts. It almost look like prototyping spread out between several sets, rather than one; at this right, the next set (assuming they keep learning) should be pretty good.

The problem, of course, is that you aren't supposed to sell the prototypes as unfinished products.


Lastly, have a few scale pictures:





Notice how tiny the Germans STILL are?

I'm very curious about the shipping container. That might be my first Defiance purchase, depending on cost and material.

The 'Makitainers' were $15 on the Kickstarter, they'll probably retail for $20 and be released a long time from now.

Rust Forge has containers in hard plastic for $12.99, they're not too bad overall and I'll probably buy more from them.

The AT-43 containers can be had for around $15 with luck, and they're painted already.

Last but not least, Defiance has before shown things off that never see the light of day...

The detailed reports on those Chinese are kind of disappointing

(from the point if view of somebody who really wants to buy the hard suits if the ever appear)

You really struggle to see why they'd send out a whole bunch of figures missing bits of a foot (mould slip is bad too but a glance might miss it, but those feet, no)

At least stuff got delivered reletivly promptly which is a big improvement

To be honest, these actually seem to be an improvement over the Germans, flaws and all. Hell, these actually seem more than passable as the flawed bits seem like they'd be much easier to fix. It also looks like they're using that darker material. That stuff seemed to feel more like normal plastic and tended to retain details better in my experience. How did the material feel? I've mentioned my Germans had an odd soapy feel to them. Did these feel more like regular restic or plastic?

It's same material, regardless of color. The color just comes from the dyes they use, and how much of said dye.

It ha a "soapy" texture, but I don't actually think that's a bad thing. It's easy to work with and carve. For instance, the officer figure I did, holding his rifle in one hand and gesturing with the other involved taking one of the pairs of arms holding a rifle, breaking off the left arm, and carving off the hand. It was the work of about thirty seconds and looked good. It like the material: it works easy, it's light, it's durable, it respond well when warped (I fixed a mildly warped machinegun by bending it firmly back it place, and it stayed), and it takes glue well. Just remember that super glue needs to be used in far smaller quantities that polystyrene glue -- a little dab. I haven't worked with other restics so I can't compare, but from what I've heard, at least, about Finecast, Troll Forge's Troll Cast is light years better. It's not brittle, it doesn't flake or turn to power, and you don't need to soap the stuff down and scrub up to make it workable.

A lot of the problems with the set can be fixed with green stuff. The problem, for some, is that the green stuff work will be extensive. In the arm sockets to fill in space for the special arm mounts or to provide surface area to glue on the arms, on the shoulders to fix air bubbles, on the stocks and barrels of the guns, and on the toes of the kneeling figures (or just cover them up with base flock as I intended to do). It's a lot of work for supposedly cheap, simple figures.

I think an important thing to note is that Xeno got these because Defiance could not deliver the vehicles he had ordered.

Combined with the quality of what he received, this says a lot (in my opinion) about how Defiance is doing at this point.

First I had been waiting for both the Marines and Germans to come out as I intended to interchange bits to make something a bit more to my taste.

First the Marines came out.

Then after a long wait, the Germans came out. Initially I was ecstatic and didn't really care about the complaints of others until I saw a size comparison. Germans were noticeably smaller than the marines.

Gathered that it was a shrinking issue with a new type of resin/plastic so I decided to wait and see if the issue could be rectified. Apparently it hasn't.

Sorry Defiance, but I think I'll be looking elsewhere now to get the look I want. (I would sculpt, but I'm still working my way to being able to sculpt that well in the first place.)

Tony's argument has been to provide models that go from sprue to table in record time. I think their mission statement is more akin to "we make so you can play a lot" rather than "exquisite miniatures to spend hours over, painting and lavishing."

It's just a different philosophy, I guess.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Tony's argument has been to provide models that go from sprue to table in record time. I think their mission statement is more akin to "we make so you can play a lot" rather than "exquisite miniatures to spend hours over, painting and lavishing."

It's just a different philosophy, I guess.

I'm a fan of that philosophy myself. I'm not a good painter, nor a good modeler (the best I can do with green stuff, for instance, is blobs on stuff and filling gaps), and most minis companies have priced me out of the 28mm market (even moreso now that some student loans are coming due and my disposable income each month can be measured in the double digits). I just want them to put the extra effort into perfecting the product. I honestly think part of the problem is that none of them are experienced on the casting end of things and all of their problems are due to learning difficulties.


And to expand on Cpt Jake's statement:

I was given the option to continue to wait on the JRAB (the UAMC vehicle) that I ordered, and was given an acceptable explanation as to why there was a delay, or I could exchange my order for the Chinese. I chose to take the Chinese to see what they were like.

Shame about the casting problems. I don't dislike the design of the Chinese models, even if they're pretty... well, it's been said that they're more gaming models than display models, and I guess that sounds about right. They remind me of older Copplestone sci-fi models that I painted a bunch when I was new to wargaming. Those containers, from what little I can see, may get my business though. It's been hard to find affordable shipping containers since AT-43 ended.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Tony's argument has been to provide models that go from sprue to table in record time. I think their mission statement is more akin to "we make so you can play a lot" rather than "exquisite miniatures to spend hours over, painting and lavishing."

It's just a different philosophy, I guess.

Expecting models to not consistently have the same preventable miscast error is not a different design philosophy.

Xeno wrote:

Spoiler:

Speaking of pics . . .

So, my Chinese arrived and I assembled a few. After a bit of screwing, I actually took some pictures. Here's my more in depth opinion of them.

In theory, these would be a great set for an inexperienced modeler or something looking to assemble an army extremely quickly. Of the five bodies included in the set, two only require attaching a head to be complete, and all of the bodies are designed with a high armor collar so all you have to do is squirt in a little glue, plug in the head, and your done. The fit is tight enough that it should stay with problem. For the remaining three bodies, there are holes on the side to plug in the arms, and the loose rifle arms are paired so all you have to do is glue them on and you're good. Assemble time for a single figure should be under a minute each, and maybe 30 minutes for the entire box if you're particularly choosy about head and arm positions. Also, the plugs mean it's simple to test fit parts without glue, right?

The basic body:



We immediately run into the first problems.

The collar that the head plugs into was only particuarly molded or outright missing on several figures and thin or cracked on several of the remainder, meaning you have to put some effort into getting the head to stay, plus possibly carving the neck stump to make sure it'll sit properly.

The peg hole system for the arms is used only on the special arms (the shoulder'mount machinegun, the sword, pistol, pointing hand, and the satchel charge) and the pegs are far too small for the arm holes. The holes themselves are so large that there isn't much surface area for the arms to bond since the peg is too small. The rifle arms lack the begs entirely, and have only a small amount of bonding area. It took a little work to get the arms to stick, ad the machinegun was especially a pain in the butt because the gun's weight kept dragging it off the figure.

As a side note, I had a hard time figuring out how to attach the grip arm.

Special arms: the machinegun grip is on the bottom left, and the other is some kind of pistol, I guess, that looks half-finished.



The machinegun is a rather strange, awkward, and difficult to position weapon.




Casting problems with the neck hole:





Now, let's talk about casting flaws, shall we?

There were, believe it or not, only a small number of air bubbles on the bodies, and usually in inconspicuous places like the bottoms of the feet, which'll be glue to the base anyway, so who cares, right? As a general thing, the bodies are cast well and detail is crisp and deep. For a crap painted such as myself, these guys'll be easy to paint. However, the casting flaws there were . . . oh my.

For starters: the right toe of the boot on EVERY SINGLE kneeling figure was missing. That's all figures from two sets.



On many of the arms, the edge of the shoulder was missing and, given how little surface area there already is for glue bonding, that's a problem, on that would be easy to fix with green stuff, but that's barely acceptable, even to an easy-going guy like myself.



The single piece bodies had a couple of common flaws: the first is that on the one with a visible gun stock, said stock was always half cast. The end of the barrel was frequently missing (~50% of the time) on all rifles except, ironically, Mr. Half-Stock. If you needed an excuse to make these little less like AK-47s, there you go. You'll probably have to trim them all down anyway.





The heads are so-so: they have a mix of ethnicities with four different helmeted heads, three different heads with caps, and a couple of character heads including an officer in peaked cap and a dude with a bandanna.






However, a number (about 25%) of the head tabs between both sets were affected by misaligned molds making the face look like it had suffered a stroke:



Others looked misaligned, like perhaps the master model had been slightly squashed during molding or just were suffering from less overtly noticeable molding issues.

Plus, despite being Imperial Chinese infantry, the asian-looking heads had a sorta charicature look to them that was, frankly, just a little offensive.


Finally, here's some shots of the five I assembled:






Final thoughts

Now, I'm not knowledgeable on molds outside of what I've read online, but I can help but think that someone with some skill could fix the assorted casting flaws with a little work. Do that, redo the arm holes at a small size, and make sure the molds aren't misaligned, and literally every technical flaw in this set would be fixed and they'd be fine. The sculpts themselves, as I said, are clean and well-detailed as I hope the pictures above had shown. The material itself is fine. As I keep saying, Trollcast (or this variation of it) is light, rugged, carves well, glues well, and paints well.

Defiance Games has a repeated problem, I think, of not spending enough time in the prototype stage. They get flawed castings and, instead of going back and figuring out what went wrong and fixing it, they just same to shrug and go "good enough." Well, in the case of this set, it's not: flaws abound, from noticeable casting issues to problems in the design, and the smart thing to do with be to actually address those before selling the miniatures. As with the Germans before, they would have seen what was wrong (shallow detail, too-thin weapons, too many parts) and fixed them. Ironically, these guys dis address some of those issues -- the guns are chunkier, details are deep, and there aren't millions of small parts. It almost look like prototyping spread out between several sets, rather than one; at this right, the next set (assuming they keep learning) should be pretty good.

The problem, of course, is that you aren't supposed to sell the prototypes as unfinished products.


Lastly, have a few scale pictures:





Notice how tiny the Germans STILL are?

Thanks for the excellent review. Great comparisons and descriptions and pictures so clear that it looking at Defiances's pics, it looks like they're trying to hide something. These are sub-par figures for which there is no excuse. The Marines were a solid product (not amazing, but solid) these are poorly cast with terribly QC. It's very disappointing because these have a style that would have made them excellent foes for the Pig Iron line of minaitures.

OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:The detailed reports on those Chinese are kind of disappointing

(from the point if view of somebody who really wants to buy the hard suits if the ever appear)

This is my feeling as well. Hardsuits are something that is hard to find in a budget model, and I'd be willing to put some work into fixing issues in a model as hard to find as this. For line troops however, there are too many better options to want to waste time on these.

Mathieu Raymond wrote:Tony's argument has been to provide models that go from sprue to table in record time. I think their mission statement is more akin to "we make so you can play a lot" rather than "exquisite miniatures to spend hours over, painting and lavishing."

It's just a different philosophy, I guess.

If it is, it's a FAILED philosophy. Fixing the flaws in these figs (the necks and rifle stocks alone) with GS is going to make these far more time consuming that GW cadians, WGF Greatcoats, DS Marines and many other lines.

warboss wrote:
Expecting models to not consistently have the same preventable miscast error is not a different design philosophy.

Very much agreed. It is possible to make affordable miniatures that are not crappily produced. Even looking outside of Defiance and their Marines, take a look at Khurasan Federal troops.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/522643.page

Excellent quality metal figures for $1.30 each. You want fast-to-the-table? These babies will get you there much faster than the Chinese troopers with no GS'ing and a much better result.

In today's miniatures market there's simply no excuse for figures with these problems. I'm a huge fan of affordable miniatures lines, but it seems to me that Defiance should have worked hard to make one set of miniatures that matches the scale and slightly improves the quality of their initial decent-quality Marines offering, rather than produce 3 subsequent products that are all of lesser quality and varied scale.

Things are supposed to get better, not worse.

 Brother SRM wrote:
Those containers, from what little I can see, may get my business though. It's been hard to find affordable shipping containers since AT-43 ended.

What is the big draw for the shipping containers that caused the price to skyrocket? I tried picking some up a few years ago as generic terrain but was shocked to see how much they were going for. In my case, it was just a whim so there was no way I was going to pay more than a few bucks for each.

 warboss wrote:

What is the big draw for the shipping containers that caused the price to skyrocket? I tried picking some up a few years ago as generic terrain but was shocked to see how much they were going for. In my case, it was just a whim so there was no way I was going to pay more than a few bucks for each.

I think it's just that they were a very nicely done product (nice fine details like latches and stuff) that no one else was making in that scale. When AT43 went down, the containers became the most valuable part of the game due to their usability in other games. Pricing was also probably affected that the containers were mostly available packaged with vehicles.

I wanted some, but couldn't find any cheaply. I eventually found a batch of NOS boxes for mega-blowout prices at a gaming convention and bought several Therian and ape-man kits just for the containers. Ended up costing me about 5-6 bucks each container, which seems like a great deal. I've got 6 now, but am still on the lookout for more. It's just a really useful terrain piece for Sci-Fi and Post apoc gaming.

Now it looks like several companies are trying this market
-Maki ( the kickstarter)
-Rust Forge: see our club's review here: http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2013/04/review-rust-forge-28mm-shipping-crates.html
-Slug Industries: Resin, IIRC http://slugindustries.wordpress.com/
-Laser-cut-card: http://www.lasercutcard.co.za/scenery Smaller, but cheaper.

I'm sure there are a few I've missed. So far, however none seem to have quite the level of detail and quality as the AT containers. The Resin ones are probably close.

If the quality and price are good, Shipping containers could be a slightly redeeming product for Defiance. I'll be watching with interest.

Am I the only one that thinks the picture is more about the Bug than the container?

That container doesn't look like anything else they've done so far.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nevermind, I read the caption of the picture.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And they are pricing them at 15$ a piece. A bit rich for me, unfortunately.

I am painting the five I assembled right now and have discovered that yes, these need to be washed before painting. The prime wiped off of a few patches where mold release was still present.

Oh well, live and learn

The shipping container price is actually average for what other companies are asking for similar product. The AT-43 containers on eBay are selling for a minimum of $16.50+shipping. Some are much higher. There is a 6 container lot for over $100 and I saw a 4 container lot sell for well over $100 a few months back.

These are in regular hard plastic, at least. Resin and MDF can be harder to work with at times.

I'm thinking about just buying a few sheets of textured plasticard, a pack of strips and just go nuts. I wonder why I didn't do it before.

Is Correlia design still afloat? They were supposed to make some.

Evergreen probably makes what you need (check out railway model shops)

http://www.evergreenscalemodels.com/

(their website is a pain as it doesn't show images so unless you know what you're after it's tricky)

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I'm thinking about just buying a few sheets of textured plasticard, a pack of strips and just go nuts. I wonder why I didn't do it before.

I thought about that too, but the time it would take to scratchbuild one would probably exceed the hourly wage equivalent I would need to just buy a plastic kit

EDIT: I just read in the comments on the Defiance FB page that the shipping container is the same kit made by Rust Forge.

I once bought a sheet from plastruct to make the ribbing of a plasma blastgun, it would be perfect for these. Once you have your measurements down, I think you could knock one out every fifteen minutes.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I once bought a sheet from plastruct to make the ribbing of a plasma blastgun, it would be perfect for these. Once you have your measurements down, I think you could knock one out every fifteen minutes.

Having worked with plasticard often, I think that 15 minutes is a bit off. You could make all the cuts, after measurements, in, maybe, 15-20 minutes and then another 15-20 for gluing. And after the cost of plasticard and your time is factored in, you really wouldn't be saving much at all. Going by Evergreens online pricing, you would pay about $10 in materials per container. Considering the tools you may not have, most people would possibly be better off just buying pre made kits.

YMMV, of course. I have most of my tools, and I tend to work in sequences rather rapidly. I also tend to do house chores while glue is setting and such.

I agree that they might not open and close, but a simple insert would, in my mind, replace pivoting doors acceptably.

Love your quote, by the way.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
YMMV, of course. I have most of my tools, and I tend to work in sequences rather rapidly. I also tend to do house chores while glue is setting and such.

I agree that they might not open and close, but a simple insert would, in my mind, replace pivoting doors acceptably.

Love your quote, by the way.

I convert like crazy and have practically every tool you can use for this hobby. I hate working with textured plasticard. Even with fancy Micromark tools (Awesome) its not always easy. The reason I buy kits is because I don't have enough time to scratch build.

And thanks regarding the quote, that and a tattoo is all I still have to remind me of my glory days of playing orks. I always felt that it justified the ork race. I mean, if a haughty eldar can find something nice to say...

One day, many moons from today, I will have my whole summers to myself (once I find a job as a teacher) I need to keep busy, otherwise I'd go nuts.

So Defiance will be "releasing" a kit produced by someone else? Did they buy the rights, or are they just reselling? What will it say about them if their best product is... from another company?

 Dr Mathias wrote:
EDIT: I just read in the comments on the Defiance FB page that the shipping container is the same kit made by Rust Forge.

The Rust Forge price is 3 bucks less. Another possible source for shipping containers is 1/48 or 1/43 scale trucks. The New Ray brand makes some neat ones. They are going to be larger than the options above and not technically shipping containers, but they are well detailed and plastic. This trailer is about 11 inches long.


http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3314230
If the semi trailers look too long, you could always use the panel trucks


I've added a Toys R Us line to the first one (sold under the "Fast Land" packaging) the other runs about the same online. but there are probably even cheaper toy options out there. The stuff on ebay tends to be aimed at collectors, (though here's something http://www.ebay.com/itm/LOT-OF-TWO-2-CONTAINER-TRUCKS-DIE-CAST-1-43-O-SCALE-NWB-/180759873079?pt=Diecast_Vehicles&hash=item2a1620c637 ) so it may be best to scour your local toy store.

Thanks for the review. I'll be staying away from those figures.

 Azazelx wrote:
Thanks for the review. I'll be staying away from those figures.

As will anyone with a lick of sense. This is a company that is better off dead.