Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Fireforge Russian Foot

      I bought these a while ago and I am only now getting around to writing this review. Fireforge has brought out something that I've been waiting on for ages; Dark Ages Russian foot. I have a Byzantine army and have been cheating for years using Vikings as Rus. Now I can finally do the right thing and field a real unit of Rus warriors to assist the Emperor in defending Byzantium from the barbarians.Doubtless they will be striving to get promoted to the Varangian Guard!

      These figures show their Viking heritage but have a decidedly Eastern/Slavic look. They are molded in a medium soft gray plastic with very crisp details. A good selection of shields and weapons is provided, a bit heavy on the archers to my taste but that is just one man's opinion.You could easily back-date these by swapping in more round shields and hairy faces from other sets of minis.I can barely wait to start converting these models.


once again the back of the box shows a photo of the very pretty painted minis, 
one of these days the guys in marketing will realize that this would sell more boxes

not that there is anything wrong with the cover-art, very atmospheric
not at all like the tragic Wargames Factory cover art


  
 let us get to the important bit of this, the contents of said box,
bases, minis and spears

 you get five sprues of minis, side A

the same, but this view is side B


the detail is crisp and the poses are natural

 back of the above figures, no flash and only the faintest hint of mold-lines


the weapons are cleanly cast and in scale to the minis

the spears are delicate and nicely done

but it is the faces that steal the show

my main concern is that I will not be able to do them justice

     If you are a Dark Ages player these are a great addition to the available miniatures. The Rus hired out as mercenaries and fought as allies or enemies with all of their neighbors. This set is very versatile and well done. Highly recommended.






2 comments:

  1. Wow! I wasn't even going to look at these but I see a whole lot of Dark Age possibilities in them. Excellent review and thank you so much for the photos. No on my future purchase list as they will really add great variety to my Gripping beast plastic Dark Ages forces. cheers

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice figure. I bought their Templar's several years ago. Half start and half paint. Painting white sucks for me. I agree they make great figures.

    ReplyDelete