Review: Italeri Stone Bridge 1:72 Scale No 6128

 Today's review is also quick and easy. Italeri Stone bride 1:72, set number 6128.

The kit comes in 6 pieces. The overall quality is good. The mold lines are all very minimal and very easily scraped off. I will have a painted picture of it next week to show. The model is quiet light and affordable. It cost me about 19 USD from a local Hobby shop.

Some scale pics with an Nomad Infinity model can be seen below to give you a sense of scale.

 The model is cheap and should work well for my Mordheim, Frostgrave and whatever else I decide to do.

Aruki

Review: G-Coat Origin-earth

Today's review is a product that caught my eye one day at a hobby shop. I picked it up because as many people I hate doing bases and I am horrible at them. The range as you can see is also available in 5 other textures. If I read the Korean correctly it is also water solvable(?). The bottle is fairly cheap as well, less than 5 USD.

You can apply with a brush or any sort of tool. I tried both. I found brushes were hard to use mainly because of the size of the models. You can add color to it before applying but I didn't.

I then painted over the top with Charred Brown for Vallejo Game color.

I then did a wash of Pale Grey from the Vallejo Game color range as well.

Overall, I found the product cheap to use and the results I am happy with. I will be testing it more on some other models in the near future with other colors. In the meantime I am curious on something.

Above you can see the nomads have had it applied. But while applying it and seeing it clump I thought it might work well as snow/ice type base. What do you guys think. If its piled up a bit deeper do you think it would work well as snow??

Well that's all I got for you. If you guys have any questions feel free to drop a comment.

Aruki

Review: Mantic Terrain Kits

Guys this will be fast and sweet. The good and bad in general. And a few specific complaints.

The good-
The overall price off the sets is good and the quality is good overall as well.
The scatter bits (crates and such) is great looking.
The terrain works great for bits for conversions.
The terrain works great for small solid structures (1x1, 2x1, even 3x1).

The bad-
Overall the sets take a lot of work to make look good because of the amount of time it takes just to get everything to fit together properly. (Be prepared to sand and such a lot just for connecting them)
Overall I found the connectors to be hit and miss depending on the piece. Even when unpainted, I cant see the "you can change it every time without much difficulty" actually being what they claim if you try to paint and then assemble as needed.
Bigger structures (even 2x2) really suffer from structural problems with the roof and assembling them can be highly annoying.


Now for a few specifics-
Urban sets- Overall I have had great luck with this series and find that they are very usable for other things as well.

Ruins- Looks great and have gone together the easiest for me. Has a lot of great details.

Fortified- The basic parts are mostly from the urban set but the "fortified" add on pieces are ABSOLUTE HELL ON EARTH, these things are a massive pain to assemble and take a ridiculous amount of time to get just basically built. I found some useful for making scatter terrain but for actually making the fortified buildings it is just not worth the effort.

Overal view-
The scatter terrain is great. The urban stuff is ok with a little work and has decent detail. The ruins are great and I can't wait to try some new painting things on them. Fortified suck.. All the terrain paints up nicely though some also have killer mold lines. Overall, I have found that the idea is great in general but the production is not accurate enough to make it as seemless as they wanted. Is a great way to fill your table with cheap small buildings though. The biggest winner is the scatter terrain, which I will definitly buy more off in the future.


If you have any questions feel free to ask.
Aruki

Review of Phoenix Forge's counts as tau

I picked up a bunch of models from phoenix forge on shapeways. You can find the blog here and the store on shapeways here.

I printed all of the models in White strong and flexible plastic. The overall detail is good and much cheaper then the ultra frosted detail. I got a single counts as custodian that comes in 4 pieces, 3 counts as wardens, 3 counts as castellan's and 2 counts as defenders. The only down side is that they don't come with stands. But I have a ton of GW ones running around from my tau so not a real problem. Check out the pics below and you will see these getting painted in the future.

As a side note he also has started making counts as eldar ships.

Aruki

Review: Max Mini-Mechanical Shields

I picked out these shields because I just ran flat out of luck finding or getting the shields I really desire for my Siege Mantels. 

The casts are very clean. They will require basically no cleaning up besides the normal scrubbing and a little smoothing out on the edges. I look forward to painting and attaching all these guys.

The mechanical parts are just enough without being overwhelming. 

The cost was acceptable after dealing with all the failures I had. This is my first purchase from Max Mini and I am impressed. I look forward to getting some other things from them. So check them out. 

Aruki

Review: Mercs, the initial impresion

As with many of my first impression reviews please keep in mind that these opinions are based off of just reading. I have yet to play a game.

What I like/what interests me:
- the use of the card mechanic for moving/shooting/etc.
-2d and 3d playing options
-Story driven (highly recommend that you actually have real reasons and such for your mercs fighting each other)
-The cards clearly communicate all the necessary information
-mechanics for who goes when are well thought out and keep both players engaged
-Simultaneous actions are accounted for
-LOS, if you can see any part of it, you can shoot it.
- 3 states of cover and each one only effects how easy it is to shoot the person
-models can grant other models cover
-the rules are very scale able, so you can easily teach the basics or learn the basics and then add more rules over time
-you need very few models
- the idea of error on the side of carnage when it comes to disputes on things like cover and such


What i don't like:
-You need a lot of beads, tokens or whatever to mark out different things
-The book gives a lot of examples that are pure text and no reference images, but at the same time it also sometimes does the opposite. Where it is almost all pictures and very little text.
-Book covers very few of the factions, This one I know is partially due to the age of the book and the fact that there will probably be a new edition soon.
- all the painted minis in the book are the same 2 factions, part of this ties into the problem above, but at the same time there are no other examples of paint schemes for those factions and non for the others that are in the book. Even on there website they use the same paint schemes. This is one were I think they need to do some work on the website to better explain the factions and show some alternative color scheme options to help inspire people.


Overall I am looking forward to playing Mercs, I think it will scratch the itch that infinity didnt scratch for me.
Aruki

Review Deadzone Boxed game

This review was written as a first impression almost 6 months ago and then promptly forgotten about and never published. I have decided to only edit it in general and publish it because I honestly still haven't played a single game of anything in the past year never mind the past 6 months. Which on another note is something I hope to change this year. It also is just a nice splurge of things that interest me or I like in general about the rules.

So here are the things I caught my interest or I liked  about the Deadzone rule set/boxed game.
-The diagrams in the book overall are well done
-cover, you either are in cover or not, no middle ground and cover is determined for the whole cube not model to model.
- has a similar exploding die mechanic to Spartan games stuff but is also different enough to make it interesting., there is also a double and triple mechanic for successes.
- straight up equal or beat the needed score for dice rolls
-Scatter is based on the rollers point of view
- multi level terrain and rules for dealing with things like falling
- LOS has two types point and area. Point is like 40k TLOS and area is just being able to see into the cube.
- Weapon range and movement are based on the cube format.
- the states of models are undamaged, injured and dead.
-deployment- deployment is done via the card mechanic
-winning, 10 vp, kill everyone, time out with card mechanic and of course concede.
- has built in stuff for doing campaigns
-Vp are determined by using the card mechanic to get your Missions
- the terrain is great just wish there was more in the box


What I don't like or fancy
- Some of  the models are just hideous
-some models in the book still can not be bought
-these next couple are more of design problem in some ways
           -no quick reference sheet
           -no contents sheet for the boxed game or instructions for minis ( have to figure it out based on whats on the box which is annoying)

Now these two problems to be far are not as much of a problem for seasoned wargamers but it does cause problems for people who bought it on a whim or using it as a gateway to other games.

Overall I like it though and cant wait to assemble and play some games.
aruki

Review of Mantic Sci-fi Crazy box

Lets start with the contents.

Battlezones:
1 connector sprue
2 accessory sprues
2 ruins sprues

Warpath:
1 maruader raptor

Deadzone:
1 Helfather metal mini
1 Plague Teraton
5 man enforcer troop booster
3 man plague troop booster
2 man maruader specialist booster

Dreadball:
1 Praetorian
1 Anne-Marie helder
 and what appears to be Ludwig

1 Kow poster

Now the pros and cons. Yes its worth the money overall value wise. I personally don't have much use for the dreadball stuff, and i cant believe I got another raptor, that's my 3rd from crazy boxes. However, out of all these minis this year they included only 1 base... 1 out of more than a dozen models. The only other sorta grumpy complaint I have is they one of the ruined sprues has piles of debris that you put together, I only have half of one pile due to there sprue selections. Other than that I like it and may actually buy another. I also received my set of acrylic deadzone counters, on first look they are nice but they seem to be rather small. Shipping was nice and fast though. I am considering getting another.

aruki

Review: T.J.H. Models asteroids

So awhile ago I backed this kickstarter. Here are what they look like.

They are good quality rock and I love the color. I do wish they were a bit bigger but not the end of the wold. They will work well for x wing, not sure how well they will work for FSA. They may actually be just the write size to give a bit of scale to the ships. I will figure it out when I get around to doing new group pics of stuff.  Delivery was cheap and fast, the only down size I have found is I need to varnish them. But as different people have different tastes when it comes to this it was a smart idea. The stands are normal fare and the places to glue them in are solidly glued. Overall I am quite satisfied with this purchase and wish I had gotten more.

aruki

Biostrip 20: review 3/3

Today, will be the final part in this review series For the first two parts follow the links below.
Part 1
Part 2

front

backs

The subjects of todays experiment are 3 dreadnoughts I got. I wanted to test Biostrip 20 on a larger surface area and 1 of the models appeared to have had a non standard spray paint used on it, in fact it seems like a latex paint. So was a good chance  The one in white on the left was the one that I could tell had strange paint on him. I have found well testing on the minis that for normal acrylic paint the sweet spot for them seems to be in the 5 to 10 minute range. Due to the nature of the paint on the one on the left (with the white paint. I did him first but only let the Biostrip sit for a minute or so. The other two where in the 5 to 10 min range.

first round of striping front

first round of striping backs

 One round was enough for the other two dreadnoughts, there was a little leftover paint in areas that where hard to reach with the tooth brush and where the paint had been covered or mixed with super glue. But a little clean up work was all that was needed.

The picturess below are after the first model was done again with a 10min time. It came out mostly good. The gold paint you see on the front is strange and will need more time, no idea what it was but it turns into more of a soup, the same with the black paint that is in many places still on the model. As a side note this dreadnought appears to have been based with something strange,

Not sure how well you can see the black that is left it is mainly on the feet and under the main body. Will give those parts and the gold on the front 1 more soak and scrub.

Overall, I still recommend this product, the two dreads with acrylics cleaned up really fast and the stuff obviously works on non standard paints that people use.

aruki 

Biostrip 20 review part 2 of 3

Overall, I recommend this product. I have had zero probelms with melting or bending or any of the stuff you often run into with other methods. I have also found it has very little dyeing effect on plastics. A few key things before the pictures and such, 1 key thing I have found is make sure you cover every piece you can get to. I missed some parts on other guys I was working on and had to go back to do it again. All of these models had been painted multiple times. It turns out the sarge with the banner pole had been painted about 5 times in total. Red, blue, yellow then red and then black. All the others varied from 1-4 times.

The 3 subjects

backs

after 1 hour and a quick scrub off and wash

Backs

after another 30min and scrub

Backs

 Overall they came out well and the little parts that are left on the two normal guys are acceptable to hand pick out. The sarge will probably need another dip the red paint that seems to be left is thicker than the other stuff and not normal acrylic.  Below I thought I would show something interesting. This subject was painted same as above ones. The main difference was that as I was applying the Biostrip 20, I decided to start cleaning him since I had notice that paint started coming off almost immediately.
This was the result with it being in contact for less than 1 minute before I started scrubbing and then washed off.

I found with the future models that If I did this quick scrub and then did an hour long session it worked even better than just letting them sit for 2 rounds.

This product I definitely endorse for any plastics or metals you have to strip. It works great and stores easily. There has been no stench from the cleaner left on the models or in the air while they were sitting with the stuff on them. So give it a shot. I have yet to test it on resin but will as soon as I have a chance. Since I have a few dreadnaughts coming in that will need paint stripped I figured I would do a third review of Biostrip 20 after this one. So look forward to it in the future.

Aruki

Review of Biostrip20 : first test and thoughts

So I did use my Biostrip20 not too long ago on some epic rhinos to test it out. I used two models and let them sit for two different times. The one on the left sat for 35 minutes before being scrubbed off and the one on the right sat for 60 minutes. The stuff worked great and didn’t really require any special precautions. It had no distinctive smell and even my son who is sensitive to such things had no problems after being in the same room as them and touching them.

before

covered in biostrip

after scrub and rinse

Shipping was a little expensive for me but as long as the stuff stays wet it is supposed to stay good. The small tub (500ml) set me back £6.67 originally and shipping was £10.15. The only problem is even if you want to order multiple ones in that order they cost £10.15 each to have shipped. NOTE: this is the case for shipping to South Korea. Please contact them for your own quote on shipping cost. Overall after my first trial I liked it. But I want to test it on a more extensive basis before I use it as my go to for paint stripping. Though given the options I have this is one of the best and is much safer than anything else I have found in South Korea.

aruki

Review of Exodus wars miniatures as subs for Epic stuff

I have 4 reviews today.  First up is the Guild Support Centuria, These models aren't bad and the ap guns only had a tiny bit of flash. The rest of them were clean. I am using the Ap guns as tarantulas and the other ones as rapier platforms.

ap guns

not sure of name of them but I am using them as rapier platforms

comparison shot with thudd gun and mole mortar

 These guys are the Guild Shadow Knight Cell. I do like them the swords had a little bit of flash but otherwise they are nice. The one in the middle is an actual scout for comparison. The only one I don't like is the one on the far right. Mainly because they sit on the base annoyingly, other then that there are only two other sculpts.

I also got both round bases and the epic style ones. The holes on the rectangle epic style ones are a bit shallow in the holes but otherwise similar in size and function to the old gw ones. The round bases I like and I am mainly using for the artillery and maybe the bikes. More pictures and such as I get them painted.

aruki

Foray to the dark side #2: 40k edition

I got two sets of stuff for my go to Chinese website with the lander and thunderhawk from last post

I got a figure I will use for my warlord for my marines. He set me back $14.30   and can be found here. He needed no real cleanup. Just cut a piece off of his foot and the hammer and smoothed the out. He will also be one of the key pieces in my modified force. Which will be revealed next week. Keeping the shield separate for now so he can be properly painted up. The shield is a good hint at my plans FYI.

The second thing I got was a turret set up for my rhino/razorbacks. This set was a great deal and looks like it was just clipped off a sprue. It came with 1 heavy boltter and 1 lascannon pair as normal, but it also came with two turret assemblies and a few other bits. Set me back $6.90 and was found here.

Overall I am very happy with this round of purchases and look forward to getting more in the future.

aruki

The epic quest for epic :Another Foray to the dark side for epic part 1

As some of you may know I bought a couple more epic pieces from this Chinese website. This is the same website I got my warhounds from and the shield drones in my first test order. This time I got 2 more epic pieces and 2 40k pieces. Once again the shipping and service were great. They actually got my package to me faster than mantic got me my crazy box.


The lander to be honest is a bit tricky to assemble. Mainly because from what I understand even when forgeworld made it they were horrible at pointing out were the mounting brackets and rhinos went. You can finid it here, when I ordered it cost $13.00 The piece showed up with a few bits of flash but nothing major and no bubbles. After I found a decent image of an assembled one I had it done in about 20min. It come with a large hover base like you get with devilfish for 40k.

As you can see from the above picture I decided to not include the rhinos on it and only put a few of the brackets on to make it seem like the lander was empty. Mainly because I couldn't find a  look that I was satisfied with besides this. I actually spent more time hunting down images of this to try and build it right than it took for me to build all the other models.

The regular thunderhawk can be found here and cost me  $16.00. It had one damaged landing gear and a bit more flash than the lander but otherwise was ok. This went together no problem once I found an image, it also came with the devilfish large hover base. With this one there were no real problems, as a side note this also came with two different styles of cannon for the main body.

I will do another post in the next day or two with reviews for the two 40k pieces.

Until then,
aruki