I finished painting up the Bohuns Rebels boxed set earlier this week so
I've had the chance to paint several different plastic figures. So I feel I have enough experience for a
proper review of the plastics.
First of all. Get in the mindset that these (plastics) first and foremost are board game
miniatures. The image in my mind when thinking about plastic miniatures from
various board games is soft plastic, slightly bent/off poses and weapons,
shallow details and that they are utility pieces that pimp the game so that you
don't have to use cardboard tokens or wooden meeples. Plastic board game
miniatures can range from abysmal to pretty decent. Some really poor miniatures
can be found in games such as Mansions of Madness 1st edition (and some
monsters in 2nd edition) and the Dungeons and Dragons board games.
Decent to pretty OK miniatures have become more frequent over the past couple
of years, but generally a lot of effort is put into heroes and less into
minions. Anno Domini 1666 is basically "all heroes" since the base
game does not come with duplicates, and all the factions have unique models.
The only way to get duplicate miniatures is if you buy the add-on packs with
extra dragoons, musketeers, moloitsy etc.
The multitude of unique poses and miniatures, factions and characters was
probably the main draw for many people during the Kickstarter. During the
Kickstarter Wargamer.pl also made several posts about the quality of the
plastics, and showcased some factory renders that looked very good. This may
have created very high and somewhat premature expectations of the final product. In the aftermath of the campaign there
has been a bit of talk about the actual quality that was shipped. A couple of
the games characters were slightly miscast, size of bases and shapes of bases
were not completely uniform in terms of slope/not sloped edges, and one or two miniatures appeared to have been
cast in a slightly different plastic and color.
At the moment there are some people waiting for replacements and to the disappointed
backers the words that - metal version of the minaitures is far superior and
should have been backed if you want tabletop detail - came across as a
tip served too late. Whatever might have happened at the Chinese factory
despite many quality controls along the way can't really be helped now anyway.
What I find interesting however is that there does not seem to be much in the
way of reviews of the components or the game online despite 17th century being a pretty frequently played period with Thirty Year War, English civil war and skirmish rule sets such as En garde among others where musketeers and the like could be used.
My review will hopefully help to show off the pros and cons of the plastic and metal
versions of the miniatures. The range is fantastic, poses excellent and the
theme and setting fairly unique. So the miniatures definitely deserve their
wider audience.
I myself backed the plastic version of the game with an all in + extras pledge,
but had to cancel my pledge and ask for a refund early this year prior to
shipping for various private reasons that had come up. I have only recently
purchased some plastic boxes and filler metal miniatures to make up a Polish
and a Cossack warband. I had two miniatures from the game that were
pre-Kickstarter metal castings
...................
Size comparison:
The first thing that struck me, and that made me disappointed (in myself
mostly) was the size difference between plastic and metal miniatures. This is
quite normal, as plastic shrinks and is usually smaller than metal if you use
the same sculpt for the molds. The size difference varies from passable, to
being way too much (think 25 vs 32mm figures). The models are detailed in a
realistic fashion, so size difference is easily spotted comparing hands, heads,
weapons and such details. I had forgotten about the shrinkage, otherwise I
would have gone all metal to match my already painted up metal miniatures in my
collection.
Will this bother you on the tabletop? Depends on how picky you are. It does not
help that the plastic miniatures come with cast bases that are slightly less
tall than your regular 25mm round slot base. You can easily cut off the
miniatures (I experimented with "Bohun" this way) and put them on
whatever bases you see fit. Since I already had a bunch of miniatures painted
up on 25mm bases I put Bohun on such a base. The size difference was helped a
little bit, but he still looks smaller than "Skrzetuski", and
comparing to "Wolodyjowski" aka "the little knight" they
are of equal height.
The way I see it, if you play a skirmish game with lots of miniatures, you
could make it work. But in a board game, or RPG setting with one on one close
combat encounters etc the size difference will be quite visible and possibly
jarring.
Below you can see size comparisons of metal Anno Domini 1666 and Saber & Blood miniatures (painted) alongside Anno Domini 1666 miniatures in plastic.
Buy either all plastic or all metal is my advice. Moving on.
Quality of the plastic:
The models that I purchased in plastic, Bohuns rebels boxed set, add-on
moloitsy, add-on Polish dragoons and the character back with Baska and Ketling
did not have any faulty castings or loss of detail.
The sculpts in general are well detailed with lots of historical bits and
pieces but does not feel cluttered. The plastic is relatively hard. Of course
thin parts like muskets, sabers and such require using hot water to straighten
them. Not by a lot, but you will need to do this. The same goes for the cast
plastic bases, as they may come uneven. This was easy and quick to fix. I read
on Facebook that a customer had problems with parts bending back to their
original shape after a few days, this has not happened to me on any of the
models I have.
The depth of detail can range from slightly soft to quite sharp depending on
item, and here I think a less skilled painted may be in for a harder time
painting up the miniatures. I've painted a fair share of board game miniatures
lately for Mansions of Madness, D&D and Lobotomy so I've grown accustomed
to painting these type of miniatures. You can make them look great, but they
require more controlled brushstrokes, blacklining and effort. I will continue
my thoughts on the painting matter in my next.
My main problem with board game plastic miniatures is, and have always
been, cleaning mold lines. In general, soft plastic is a chore to clean. I
favor scraping off mold lines on hard plastic and metal with my hobby knife.
That does not really work on these miniatures as the plastic is too soft for
that method. Instead you need to use a file or direct cuts with a knife to trim
your models. I found that the mold lines were often in hard to access parts of
the miniatures (still preferred to having them across faces or hands). I found
cleaning them tedious and time consuming, in the end I still did not get them
100% the way I liked and discovered mold lines after priming them. This is definitely
the biggest drawback of these plastics.
Some metal miniatures from the same range:
Quality of the pre-assembly
The miniatures are for the most part cast in pieces and factory assembled.
I did not find any sloppy or faulty assembly in my boxes, but there are slight
gaps that need to be filled. Of course this will be present on metal models as
well. I used green stuff to cover most of the joints and some dents that I
found on two models.
Finally - how do they paint up
Very well. It may help that I really enjoy the period, but the models have
the right balance between large patches of clothing and tiny details that make
them enjoyable to paint. The plastics require more from you as a painter.
Thinner layers, more black lining and some additional highlighting to bring out
the most from the sculpts compared to the metal versions.
As you can see below, the Cossack warband painted up pretty nicely.
Comparison of before/after painting plastic Horpyna and Bohun.
Cossack boxed set painted up
Metal "Kmicic" painted up:
Anno Domini 1666: Metal Skrzetuski, plastic Bohun, metal Wolodyjowski
Anno Domini 1666: Metal Skrzetuski, metal Kmicic, metal Wolodyjowski
Anno Domini 1666: Plastic cossacks flanking metal Kmicic
Anno Domini 1666:Plastic cossacks. Metal Kmicic and Skrzetuski 3rd from left and right.
Metal Anno Domini 1666 mixed with Saber & Blood
Painted plastic Anno Domini 1666 mixed with metal Saber & Blood
Painted metal Anno Domini 1666 compared to plastic Anno Domini 1666 dragoons
Final verdict:
The biggest advantage with plastics over metal miniatures from this range
is durability of sabers, scabbards and similarly thin details. Sabers are thin
in this scale, and my metal miniatures have had their sabers bent a couple of
times, either from use of during assembly/painting. It's difficult to get them
perfectly shaped again once you've bent them once.
Nowadays I really prefer plastics so I don't have to worry about chipped
paint or knocking/dropping the miniatures. I actually dropped my metal
"Zagloba" miniature which I had carefully green stuffed and glued
together today as I was moving stuff about in my cabinets and his arm and hand
broke off....
So durability is the main draw here. The metal miniatures have a nice weight,
but I would be afraid of using them in public games outside of my house just
because of the thin parts. The level of detail on the plastics is pretty good
considering that the miniatures are made for a board game, but if you want
absolute crispness - go for metal.
Price also differ between metal and plastics. The plastics are cheaper and thus
a budget friendly alternative. A faction box with 7 miniatures goes for 29 Euro
if you pick plastics, and 44 euro if you go for metal. It is possible to
purchase all miniatures as single metal minis if you want to pick and choose
specific models from all factions, at the price of roughly 8 Euro per mini
which imo is a fair price. Bear in mind that only the boxed sets come with
character and equipment cards for the game. Single metal miniatures do not come
with anything but a plastic base, and will thus be hard to use with the Anno
Domini 1666 board game.
I will pick plastic miniatures in the future as well, mainly due to the durability
and number of plastic models from this range compared to metal models.
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