Well after seeing all the horror photos and saying that I would not buy any of this stuff, I finally succumbed. What lead me to do it? well I read different threads on different forums with differing views the last one that I read was by Steve Buddle who was quite complimentary about the minis he bought.
So my wife wanted to go to Nottingham today and I took the chance to go see for myself and make my own judgement.
I went to Warhammer World store thinking that would be the best place to get the most comparisons among the models, my first impressions though were just how little stock they had but after careful browsing I selected a few blisters.
I did have to check through a varying number of blisters to make sure I got the best casts I could see but to be honest in all the ones I looked at the all seemed to be pretty much the same standard.
The problem with minis in blisters and attatched to sprue's is that they don't move about so much when you tip the packs about so you can only view them at the angles they are placed in there upon packaging.
However the ones I got seemed ok and so I went and spent my hard earned cash, (I did draw the line at Minas Tirith Gandalf at 20.50), and therein lies the main problem for me the price with single figures at 10 quid a throw and going ever upwards.
Any way I took the models home and have just done some basic prep on first of them.
I have to admit that after seeing the initial pictures on here in the other threads I was very surprised to find just how well these had cast, yes there are mould lines but that is just a part of the hobby we have to accept and there are air bubbles that have caused some very slight miscasting here and there but nothing that cannot be fixed with a little green stuff.
The flash came away easy and the mould lines so far have not been hard to deal with, the resin is soft and is very easy to trim and clean with a file or hobby knife the latter being the best tool to use.
The parts fit together (on this model at least) fairly well with only a little filling needed, the head is just blue tacked into position in the picture as that will be painted separately.
All in all I am pleased with the models apart from the price I feel that this range may come to something, though I don't think I will buy any more online as you do need to inspect the models to make sure you get the better casts, also I think that buying the boxed sets may be risky too as you can't inspect those until you have paid your cash.
I'll be keeping this thread going with the filling and the painting of the model to do a complete review.
Cheers Tim