MINIATURES REVIEW – Bulldogs (Wargames Atlantic)

As some of you will be aware, I will usually include ‘action shots’ at the end of most of my videos – and in those final images I’ll sometimes include a few miniatures.

Now, these are usually miniatures that I’ve bought and painted myself (though I do always check with the manufacturer to make sure that they are OK with me doing this) – but in the LATEST EPISODE I’ve actually included a few ‘review’ miniatures that WargamesAtlantic have sent to me.

(everything that arrived in the mail)

Anyway, as you can see in the above pic, they’ve actually sent me three different boxes to take a look at – but in this article I’ll be concentrating on the Bulldogs from their Death Fields range (as those are the only ones I’ve got painted yet).

Now, I will say that, when I first saw previews of these, I knew that I’d probably be picking them up at some point – as I already have a few of their other miniatures (see the ‘Cannon Fodder’ miniatures at the end of THIS video), and these ‘Bulldogs’ looked like a pretty versatile set (especially when you consider the kit-bashing possibilities with some of the other Wargames Atlantic stuff). So, as you can probably guess, I was particularly pleased to receive these. 

(the box contains 4 identical sprues – each containing 6 miniatures)

 

Now, as you can see, you get a ton of head options on each sprue (as is common with the ‘Death Fields’ range), and I expect that a lot of folks will be using the pith helmets to create Praetorian-style Imperial Guard units (as the original GW models are pretty expensive to get a hold of nowadays).

(pith helmet with and without gas mask / WW1 style cap / Brodie helmet with and without gas mask)

However, I quickly noticed that if I instead used the beret wearing heads, they’d have a similar vibe to some of the early Stormtrooper models that GamesWorkshop released – and that’s a look that I rather like (as it will work quite well for the OnePageRules ‘firefight’ army that I’m putting together).

(models assembled with the beret heads)

Anyway, as far as the assembly goes, they did require a bit of mould line removal, and a tiny bit of greenstuff work on the back of the arms and around the neck (i.e. the kind of thing I’ve come to expect with most multi-part kits) – but, as you can see in the above picture, the detail on these guys is pretty good.

Then, when it came to painting, I just used my usual technique of priming in grey and then:

• Paint in all the base colours.
• Apply washes (different washes over the different colours).
• Highlight (and tidy up any ‘tidemarks’) with the same base colours.
• Add a final highlight here and there (mostly just on the face, clothes, and armour).
  

(the finished models next to some of the ‘cannon fodder’ miniatures)

And I think they’ve turned out quite nice. I mean, I’m not an award winning painter or anything like that – but I do like to put nice looking models on the table… and I do think that these are nice looking models (i.e. there’s plenty of depth in the recesses of the models for washes to do their job).

So, I suppose the only question that remains is – would I buy them?

Well, as I’ve already said, I was thinking of getting some of these anyway – and now that I’ve seen them in the flesh, that hasn’t changed. In all truth, I think they actually look a bit better in person than they do in some of the pictures that I’ve seen online.

However, the main complaint that I can see people having with these is that they don’t come with any bases. For me though, that’s a bit of a non issue – as I always use (2mm thick) mdf bases for all of my miniatures (to maintain a consistent look). But I can see how that might be annoying if you were hoping to get everything you need in one box.

Be that as it may, if you’re looking to add some ‘space Brits’ to your collection (possibly even steampunk looking guys if you use some of the other heads), then I don’t think that you can go wrong with these.

In the UK they’re priced at £25, and since there’s 24 models per box, that’s a tiny bit more than £1 a miniature – and you really can’t grumble about that!