Note: The “First Look” series are not intended to be in-depth reviews of the products in question. Rather, they are supposed to convey the first impressions I had when I first received the product.

Direct Link: https://www.baccus6mm.com/includes/products/ancient/25mmgs.php
Price: 21.28 GBP
Shipping: 25% of order (5.32 GBP if only ordering this item)
Contents: 436 figures

Baccus is well known for producing remarkably good-looking 6mm miniatures. In fact, I’ve seen people say that Baccus’s miniatures actually have crisper detail than some 10mm counterparts. While I can’t verify this statement for myself (since I don’t own any 10mm miniatures myself… at least not yet), I can say for sure that Baccus miniatures look good enough for me to believe it.

My order of Baccus’s “25mm Ground Scale DBA Early Imperial Roman Army” has arrived last night, so I decided to write up a First Look article for it.

For those of you who are not familiar with DBA, it’s an abbreviation for “De Bellis Antiquitatis” and one of the most popular rulesets for miniature wargaming in the Ancients era. DBA is supposed to be played with either 15mm or 25/28mm miniatures, and provide different “ground scales” for each size.
If you are using 15mm miniatures, the width of the base of each unit should be 40mm, and 1 inch will equal 100 paces.
If you are using 25/28mm miniatures, the base width is 60mm instead, and 40mm will stand for 100 paces.

The idea behind Baccus’s “25mm Ground Scale DBA Army Pack” is to provide enough 6mm miniatures for you to cram onto a 60mm base. The objective is to make them look more like actual units, as opposed to the “few soldiers hanging around” look with larger miniatures.

Since the actual number of miniatures that are put on a base does not matter in DBA rules, this is a good method of making your game look more spectacular without having to change anything in how the game actually plays.

The first thing you’ll notice about this army, is how unbelievably small it is. I mean, a whole Roman army that fits in a postal package the size of a generic magazine?

Here’s what the army looks like, after I’ve grouped them into units and laid them out on a sheet of A4 (210mm x 297mm) paper. The round metallic thing in the middle is a 100 KRW coin (measuring 24mm in diameter), which I’ve put there for comparison.

The contents of this DBA Army Pack is as follows:

• 60 strips of Legionaries, 4 figures on each strip
• 36 strips of Auxiliary Infantry, 4 figures on each strip
• 12 strips of Auxiliary Cavalry, 3 horses on each strip
• 4 strips Bolt Throwers, a Bolt Thrower and crew on each strip
• 4 strips of Moorish Cavalry, 3 horses on each strip

That’s a whopping 436 figures in all!

Next, let’s take a look at each of these little guys up close and personal.

First up is the quintessential “Roman soldier”, the Legionary.

Most of the spears have been bent out of shape during their voyage halfway across the globe. But then nothing’s broken, and white metal is flexible enough for me to straighten them easily enough.

You may also notice the amount of detail that has gone into a miniature this small. One important point to remember is that this close-up is probably a lot closer than an average gamer will ever see (or care to see) these miniatures in real life!
Another nice touch is that each unit contains a “command strip”, which has a commander (centurion? decurion? I’m not familiar with Roman-era TO&E) and his retinue.

Next is the Auxiliary Infantry.

And here’s the Auxiliary Cavalry.

And the Moorish Cavalry…

And lastly the Bolt Throwers.

I think the Bolt Throwers are supposed to be cut off from the base, and assembled separately. I’ll have to fiddle around with it to be sure.

Anyway, it’s really fantastic to be able to field a suitably large-looking army for the cost of a couple of dinners!

I’ll follow up with another review when I get around to painting these guys. But don’t hold your breath, because it may take me a while to paint 400+ figures…

Note: The “First Look” series are not intended to be in-depth reviews of the products in question. Rather, they are supposed to convey the first impressions I had when I first received the product.

Direct Link: http://quickreactionforce.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/24_32_82_132/products_id/644
Price: 2.00 GBP
Shipping: 30% of order, minimum 3.00 GBP
Contents: 8 figures

QRF(Quick Reaction Force) miniatures are generally regarded to have the most historically accurate proportions and anatomically correct figures. Geoff, the owner of QRF, is also a real nice gentleman and an active TMP member, so I thought I’ll pick up some WW2 Soviets from him to see how I like them.

To be honest, I’ve been hesitant to buy from QRF because many reviewers had commented that their quality “tend to be hit and miss”, and that their infantry “tend to look like stick figures”. After looking at these figure first-hand, I can understand where the latter comment is coming from.

QRF figures come in packs like these:

The pack contains 8 figures, with 6 riflemen in 2 poses and 2 sergeants in a single pose.

If you’re used to Games Workshop and Battlefront packaging, these may look unimpressive and unprofessional. But if you look at it from a different perspective, all that “professional-looking” packaging comes at a price, and the cost of such packaging tend to be reflected in the price of the miniatures you buy from them.

In any case, you’re never going to look twice at the packaging once you’ve torn it away, so let’s move on to the actual miniatures.

Here’s what they look like:

If you’re used to the look of Battlefront miniatures, these guys will definitely look like skinny “stick figures”. But if you set that bias aside and look at it closer, you’ll find that they are in fact modelled with anatomically correct proportions. Having seen the Battlefront miniatures first myself, I’ll have to honestly say that they took a little getting used to.

But one thing I can’t get over is how HUGE those bayonets are. I’ve been a grunt in the army myself, and I don’t recall my bayonet being anything as large as that! I don’t know if they’re historically accurate, but logic tells me it would be impossible to shoot with something like that attached to the barrel.

Another thing I don’t quite like is how “quiet” these figures look. Their poses look almost serene, and don’t really convey the danger and urgency of WW2 combat.

In any case, I know from experience that a bare metal figure looks totally different from a fully painted one. And I’ve yet to find a single picture of a painted QRF Soviet figure on the web.

So, I’m reserving my final verdict on these guys until I have them painted up.

You may look forward to a full review when I’m done!

Note: The “First Look” series are not intended to be in-depth reviews of the products in question. Rather, they are supposed to convey the first impressions I had when I first received the product.

Direct Link: http://www.maelstromgames.co.uk/index.php?act=pro&pre=bat_fow_sov_inf_102_000
Price: 10.80 GBP
Shipping: Free
Contents: 45 figures

Before I make any purchase, I usually try to do my “due diligence” and seek out reviews of the product I’m thinking of buying.
Unfortunately, there were very few reviews for 15mm WW2 miniatures, and even those few tended to focus on Germans, Americans and British. As for the poor Soviets (which happens to be my WW2 army of choice), I had difficulty even finding pictures of them, apart from the official ones by Battlefront.

Oh, and in case you didn’t know, Battlefront is the name of the company that produces the Flames of War miniature wargame.

My biggest grip with pictures of professionally painted miniatures is that they look so good that you don’t have any idea as to how much effort is required to make them look like that. What I really wanted to know was how they look like “out of the box”, so that I can guess the amount of trouble I’ll have in store for me.

Well, since nobody else had done this for me, I thought that I might as well use my experience to help others facing my same dilemma.

I was very much impressed with the 2001 movie “Enemy At The Gates” (starring Jude Law, Ed Harris and Rachel Weisz), so I decided to recreate the 1942 battle of Stalingrad as my first Flames of War project. So naturally my first purchase was Battlefront’s SU720, the Soviet Strelkovy Platoon in Winter Uniform.

Unfortunately, I had already opened the SU720 blister before deciding to write this “First Look” article, so I can’t provide a box shot of it. However, I do have an unopened GE720 (German Panzergrenadier Platoon in Winter Uniform) blister that I had bought together with it.
But since these platoon blisters look practically identical, I guess a picture of the GE720 should suffice.

Here’s what it looks like:

The SU720 platoon blister contains 9 rifle teams, consisting of 4 figures each. So that would sum up to 45 figures in all.
It contains a good variety of different figures, including various poses of riflemen, SMG, squad leaders and platoon leaders.

Here’s a picture of one of each pose:

The blister also contained a wonderful figure of a commissar running with the Red Flag, but I accidentally dropped it into the sink while cleaning it…
I know, I know, that’s why my wife calls me “butter fingers”.

I’ll have to see if I can call a plumber and rescue it.

Anyway, you may look forward to an actual review when I finish painting these guys up!