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View Full Version : Dystopian Legions, Prussian mini-review



YourSwordisMine
12-08-2012, 06:50 PM
So, I thought would start this tiny review while I have the time. I got the first of my Prussians the other week and I've started to assemble and prep them for priming. I'll go over some of my initial thoughts on the miniatures.

I got one Starter, one Infantry Section, and one box of Medics.

The Starter set is really nice, you get everything you need to play Prussians, Dice, STAR cards, Acrylic Measuring Rule, Token Sheets, and the Quickstart rulebook. This is probably one of the cooler starter faction sets for a minis game I've seen in a long time.

You get one Hero (Oberst Werner Hahl)
One Lieutenant
One Sergeant
One Specialist (Verling Gun)
One 6 man Grenadier Section
Two Teutonic Knights

All the minis are white metal except the Knights, which for me would normally be a no go.. I much prefer plastic or resin. These are fairly decent metal minis, the details are nice, though there is quite a bit of flash, but the mold lines are pretty small, almost hairline. I even had to ink the minis to find the mold lines to be able to clean them. For me, that's a good sign. HOWEVER (and a big however IMHO), the placement of the mold lines on some of the figures is really bad...

We'll start with Werner Hahl. This is the Hero that comes with the Starter. It's a nicely detailed mini, even down to the small gears on his mechanical arm. The flash wasn't to bad, and the mold lines are thin and decently placed so that it doesn't mar the mini. I have two problems with the figure itself. My Werner has a miss-mold on his helmets brim, there is a section right in the middle that is missing and thus the detail is pretty much nonexistent... I can patch the brim with greenstuff, but I'll never be able to reproduce the ornamental detailing that is supposed to be there... The Second issue I have is with his mechanical arm and fist. The Arm itself has a small pin molded to the end of the arm to help with placement of the fist... Unfortunately, the fist has no accompanying hole to set it too... Where the hole should be, is a large molding tab...So once you've snipped that off, you then have to judge for yourself where to drill the hole in the fist should go... and if you dont get it right, its gonna make the whole arm look kind of wonky... Oh, and... HOLY CRAP! THAT'S A BIG FIST! It's really big... The pictures dont make it look as big as it really is...

The lieutenant is a nice model, if a little static. Its just staanding there mid draw of his sword. The detail is nice, and the flash wasnt hard to clean and the mold lines are thin and well placed. No issues with this model at all. He cleaned up nice.

The Sergeant is a nice mini. He carries a rifle like the rest of the section, and is pointing with his other arm. Mold lines were thin and well placed though there were some tricky spots. Flash wasn't hard to remove either.

Specialist with Verling. This guy is an ok model, he has the Verling resting on a shoulder and is more of an at ease pose. The mold lines were a bit tricky to clean, as there is more metal plates at right angles and the mold lines were probably the thickest of any of the models so far. There were some excess flash marring some of the detail on the butt of the Verling, but nothing too damaging. Also, the Verlings stock is pretty thin and it seems to bend easy... It wasn't hard to realign, but it seems a little soft...

I'm gonna talk about the Knights first before I get into the Infantry section. The Teutonic Knights are freaking huge! They are twice again as tall as a GW Terminator! They are just gorgeous models. The Legs and Torso are all one piece of resin. The Arms, heads and smokestacks are white metal. The ammo belts are also metal and are separate from the arms. As with the other metal minis, the metal drop-ons were simple to clean with crisp details. I do have some issue with the two knights I got in my set, there seems to be a bit of a miss-mold with the resin section. Both of the knights suffer from some defects with the feet and ankles. There is some excess resin within the joints and one of the feet details seems to off by almost a millimeter... The excess resin was easy to remove and if you carve it away carefully, you can keep most of the detail. However, the offset section would have to be filled and then new rivets sculpted to make it even with the raised section... That's going to be a pain to do... There are some sections along the waist that will need to be fixed with greenstuff as there was some damage to the piping along the belt, it will probably be the easiest to fix. Oh, and you are going to have to pin the arms to the torso, the Torso has ball joints, and the arms fit nicely, but pinning is the only way they are gonna stick.

Lastly, I want to talk about the fellows of the infantry section that comes in the Starter. These models are exactly identical to the Infantry Section Box. Which, I kind of expected. Cleaning these fellows has been a real PITA... Lots of flash, tabs, and horrid placement of mold lines... Luckily, the white metal Spartan is using is MUCH softer than either GW or Privateer Press, so removing flash and tabs isn't as hard as you would expect. The BIG problem is the placement of mold lines... While the lines are thin, they tend to go right through and over details.... One model has his face divided in half... cleaning was not easy and his face looks pretty messed up due to the slight offset caused by the mold line... It's not pretty...

On to the Medics. The Medics come in a separate box, containing two minis. Each medic is a different pose, one helmeted, one without. Cleaning was a breeze. Not the most dynamic of poses, but they are nicely detailed. I dont have much else to say about them except they were pretty flawless.

Infantry Section Box. As I mentioned before, these guys are identical to the 6 fellows that come in the Starter set. Which means they suffer from the same problems... The main problem I have with this set is the contents... In Army construction, an Infantry section is composed of 6-10 models. Some of the models can be upgraded to NCO, Specialist or Medics. or There can be add-ons which can increase the section beyond the 6-10. For Prussians, Sergeants, Specialists and Medics are upgrades. While the Medics and Specialists can be purchased separately, the only way to get a Sergeant is from the Starter set... I really think they Infantry sections box should contain a Sergeant... Hopefully they will release a Sergeants box at some point...

That's it for now. I've only read the rules briefly... If and when I get the time, I'll post a review of them as well.

Sorry I don't have pictures... but my camera broke...

YourSwordisMine
12-08-2012, 06:54 PM
I also ordered the new December releases (Specialist box, new hero, and the mini-tankettes), once those are in, I'll review them as well.

I hope this review helps. While there might be some flaws to what I've gotten so far, it has by no means deminished my enthusiasm for this game or collecting or painting the miniatures. Dystopian Wars and now Legions are my two favorite games at the moment.

stampdog316
12-23-2012, 05:29 AM
I agree the starter boxes are a great value. At 100 points, you will be able to play with just the contents of the starter boxes until you get more comfortable with the game. My FSA infantry also had mold lines and tabs, but it didn't take long to clean them up. I hope this game becomes popular to where finding opponents will be easy.

YourSwordisMine
12-23-2012, 12:26 PM
I've been sick and havent been able to update this like I should. So here goes.

First, I wanted to let readers know that the issues I had with the Starter were mine alone... Someone at my FLGS had gotten a Prussian starter and I got to see his contents... His were flawless, except the fellow Grenadier with his face divided by a mold line... His Hahls helmet was fine as where both his Knights. So, pretty much my luck of the draw as always lol

I was able to pick up the other releases as well.

The Specialist box contains one Specialist with Verling and one normally armed Grenadier. The Specialist is really nice as he is fully armored and with Helmet and face mask. A more Action oriented pose and definitely in a different pose than the one that comes in the starter. The Grenadier is armed like all the other Grenadiers, though his pose is definitely different than the others from the Starter or Infantry Section boxes. Mold lines, flash and tabs were at a minimum and were easy to clean.

Professor Gustardt and Siegfried
Besides the fact I keep wanting to call these two Siegfried and Roy, they are really nice models. Siegried has a bit of an Igor thing going as he is weighted down by the battery and power regulator packs for Gustardts Tesla Gauntlets. Gustardts got a cool mad scientist look that definitely makes him stand out. They both should be really fun to paint. Cleaning was a breeze, little in the way of flash and the superfine mold lines are well positioned. My only complaint is that you have to pin both gauntlets... The Outsretched arm actually has a pin molded as part of the arm, but again, there is no recieving hole on the gauntlet at all... The other Gauntlet is just a flat surface for both the arm and gauntlet. Otherwise, a very characterful box.

Tankettes.
Ok, these guys are awesome! The first of the Ironclads that we've seen for Dystopian Legions so far (these and the KoB Tankettes). The Hull is in resin, the treads are white metal. The Resin hulls were both flawless. No air bubbles, flash or anything else. I dindt even need to clean them (other than with soap and water of course). The treads had a large molding tab, and there is a bit of flash, but nothing that really mars their detail. They are in two parts, the outer tread and the inner road wheels. The Road wheels section is what actually glues to the hull and the treads glue to the road wheels. You will need to pin these two connection points, especially the treads as the glue points are rather small.. The box also includes two acrylic bases for your tankettes. You can base them or not, its up to you. If you do base them, you might want to dremel down some of the detailing on the treads to make for a stronger gluing point... Or pin them.


So, haaving one box of everything nets you about 200 points (211 points for Prussians). For Prussians your army would look a little like this

Werner Hahl
Gustardt and Siefried

Lieutenant
Grenadier Section
- Sergeant
-Specialist
- x8 Grenadiers
+ Medic

Grenadier Section
-Specialist
-x5 Grenadiers
+Medic

2 Teutonic Knights

2 Tankettes

Not having a second Sergeant yet is a bit of a bummer as I like to make full squads... But this should work really well for bigger games. The only thing I would add to this army at the moment would be another unit of Knights and another 2 Tankettes

I hope this helps. Thank you for reading!

YourSwordisMine
12-23-2012, 12:32 PM
I agree the starter boxes are a great value. At 100 points, you will be able to play with just the contents of the starter boxes until you get more comfortable with the game. My FSA infantry also had mold lines and tabs, but it didn't take long to clean them up. I hope this game becomes popular to where finding opponents will be easy.

I got 1 box of current releases for the FSA as well (2 treadbike boxes actually, as they are awesome!). I must admit, the mold lines on these fellows were MUCH better than the Prussians. They've been far easier to clean, and the mold line placements are a lot better thought out than on ssome of those Prussian models. I was really surprised. Oh, and did I mention how much I love those treadbikes? Because I do! I want another 4 already...