Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Mini Test : Wargames Factory

In my never ending quest for cool looking minis and potential IG regiments, I am willing to experiment with anything. This first mini test looks at the British Firing Line from the Zulu War range by Wargames Factory. The hint at the Praetorian Guard is obvious but how easily can one "40K" it?

Below I have assembled one of the figures in question. The main challenge from a modelling perspective, is that weapon swaps are rather difficult. The positioning of the hands doesn't allow form any "pistol grip" type weapons, like the standard IG lasgun. I added a lasgun from the FW Kreig Weapon pack and it fits rather nicely. The tricky part there is to be mindful of where you make your cuts on both the weapon and the figure.



A pack from the FW Cadian Squad upgrade kit fits in very well with the overall style of the figure and bulks it out a little so it can stand up to a GW guardsman. However, while it might be as wide as the real thing, it is not as tall. A side by side comparison proved our stand-in to be noticebly shorter.


All in all, these are a reasonable route to go if you are looking to field Praetorian Guard. Another option this kit offers is snipping off the heads and doing a head swap on a Cadian figure. It might be worth a try but I think it may be a little too small. If you go with at least a full squad or two, the numbers may offer some distraction from the shortness. And who can't use a few extra IG squads? I know I love 'em!


If you have any questions about these minis, feel free to comment or send me an email. I'll answer everything to the best of my ability.

The war goes on,
Hessler

5 comments:

Ettrick said...

Would the barrel of the historic weapon be easy to file down to accept a larger bore plastic rod to create something that looks like a shotgun?

Indiviual mini height is not an issue to me but I want the rifle to have more heft. Would that be a good remedy?

Col. Hessler said...

@Comyn: It might work. Take a closer look at the picture of the box. It has an actual figure pictured on the lower corner. The existing weapon is really small compared to 40K standards.

Best of luck.

Ettrick said...

Thanks. With a hard drive crash, I haven't been by the blog since asking. I've now traded a few GW minis for a few of these. I'm working on getting them together.

Unknown said...

Been a while since this post - but any chance of a side-by-side with your conversion and a current plastic cadian or catachan? Or if you've already done that I can't find the post. :)

Col. Hessler said...

I'll put something together here in a day or two.