I took the first of my Forge World miniatures home last night and washed the first ten marines whilst my other half was doing some baking. This is the first time I’ve properly inspected any of the miniatures and overall they’re not too bad. There are some bits that will need to be green stuffed in order to remove mold lines and a bit of knife work needed on others. One of the shoulder pads does have a fault on one of the rims but with a little bit of work this can be modified to look like battle damage (which is quite in keeping with the Death Guard). One of the barrels on the Rapier might have to be returned as the mold has slipped slightly in the casting – although there is a chance that I might be able to sort this out with a knife. Decidedly less work than a metal miniature would have and even some plastics. One thing I have noticed is that Forge World sculpt realistic sized feet, the plastic marines tend to have overly large boots :s
It’s likely that I’m going to be working on Sunday & Monday installing a new server, so will bring in some tools and glue and begin to assemble my first squad, which I’m quite looking forward to. One of the nicest things about purchasing 30 marines at once is that you can actually vary the combination of legs and arms to get a bit of uniqueness to them.
One thing that I’m really impressed with is how Forge World label the “matching” parts. For example the left and right arms need to be used in pairs – so on the actual flat part that glues onto the body, they’re labelled with dots, so the first pair has one dot each, the second two and so on. The Terminator bodies and legs are also labelled in the same way, it’s so simple but highly effective as it means you don’t cut the label off when you remove the sprue.
I do however have one gripe. Although I appreciate that resin miniatures are prone to the odd air bubble and mold line, I really think that Forge World need to up their game another notch. When Forge World first started there weren’t many companies that produced resin miniatures, over the past few years this has changed and many companies produce exceptionally fine detailed miniatures in resin – Studio McVey produce resin miniatures for around £12.50 for a model and the quality is pretty much faultless, the same goes for many companies that produce sculpted bases. Forge World are competitive in their pricing (unlike Games Workshop), but the quality of miniatures isn’t quite on par with other companies. In the grand scheme of things, 30 marines of 6 components each (180 individual components) I’d expect around a 1% or 2% rate of – so between 2 and 4 components. I’ve already