PSC 15mm Ancients

[piersParticipant 25489xp 2]

PSC posted this up today…

Its Friday… thankfully! That means another update from PSC HQ!

This week we cornered Will, or Caesar, as he likes to be called now around the office to get an update on how Mortem et Gloriam and the new 15mm plastic Ancients are going. Once we had hand fed him enough grapes and bathed him in Ass’s Milk, he informed us that production of the new books and miniatures was all on course and going well. We got to see some of the latest production test miniatures and some page spreads from the book as they work on it. Hopefully the attached pics give you guys some idea as well. All the wargames magazines have received a bag of sample figures so look out for their reviews and thoughts soon!

Lastly, after plying him with enough mead he also let us in on the ranges due to come out on or shortly after the initial release date… Late Imperial Romans, Goths, Huns, and Sassanid Persians and these will be followed by Classical Greeks and Persians, Early Imperial Romans and Celts! A truly bumper crop of miniatures.

But it doesn’t stop there, over time PSC hopes to release a veritable horde of ranges including Gauls & Galatians, Indian, Italiotes, Kappadokian, Later Achaemenid Persian, Maccabean Jews, Macedonian, Numidian, Parthians, Republican Roman, Scythian, Spanish, Successors, Thracian, Later Carthaginian, Sarmatians, Scythian and Saka, Dailami, Nikephorian Byzantine, Early Byzantine, Later Moors and Post Roman Britons!

PSC are looking to really expand 15mm ancients in a large way, and we are already looking at other periods to do in 15mm… so get your suggestions in the comments!

15mm historicals are gonna be a huge range for PSC, or in the words of Julius Caesar – “Go big or go home!”

At least Will told us he said that…

[nogbadthebad 5771xp 0]

But, but I don’t want any more minis…

[fightcitymayorParticipant 2104xp 0]

Nice to see them going with the somewhat standard 40mm base frontage for their 15mm Ancients game.  That means gamers’ already existing 15mm Hail Caesar armies will be useful right off the bat.

[beccasParticipant 1146xp 0]

I hope they have some of these figures at Salute this year. Very interesting times.

[zoidpinhead 12492xp 0]

Perhaps they have been stirred into action by the Grenzer Games KS, not that it is exactly tearing up trees.  I suppose it was inevitable that someone would try plastics at 15mm which is still totally dominated by metal minis.  As ever it will come down to the look of the minis for me, and how compatible they will be with existing ranges to allow me to add a bit of variety and fill out those annoying gaps in the plastics range for specialist troop types.

[commodorerob 11076xp 1]

@zoidpinhead it’s interesting when I read this I had to cancel my pledge for grenzer games KS as I was looking for new Romans for my MeG army. As PSC are making them and they will be base size compatable with MEG as they are the publishers it makes more sense to go with PSC. Plus Grenzer games are no where near their target.

[piersParticipant 25489xp 0]

@zoidpinhead

I think PSC have been planning this for a while… I saw the first test pieces last year in October.

As for compatibility, all the ranges are previous metal ones – either Lurkio, Corvus Belli or Xyston – so should be fine to mix with other stuff.

It will also depend on how people take to this new plastic material. It paints up very well, and has excellent reproduction of detail. It reminds me a little of the stuff GW used for their ex-metal ranges.

[torros 23816xp 1]

@commodorerob Single piece castings is a bonus as well as I dint think the Grenzer ones arent

[piersParticipant 25489xp 0]

@torros

Think Grenzer ones are multi part 15mm…

I don’t like sticking together 28mm plastics. Sticking together 15mm plastics wouldnbe my own special hell.

[torros 23816xp 0]

@piers I’m currently doing some 28mm plastic for the first time. It’s a challenge

[commodorerob 11076xp 0]

It depends on what you mean by multipart. Most 15mm metal figures have separate shields and spears.

 

I should have said I knew PSC were doing 15mm plastics just not the Romans yet but now I know this I am going to get these instead:-)

[piersParticipant 25489xp 2]

PSC sent me some samples…

I’m actually rather impressed.

[torros 23816xp 1]

I like that

[piersParticipant 25489xp 0]

@torros

Here is the mini review I posted on Facebook with some  more pics…

Well I finally got hold of some of the new 15mm Ancients from The Plastic Soldier Company. I even spent 20 minutes painting one up, but more on that later…

Firstly these are made using the Siocast system. This seems to be a method of using a plastic substance to be injected into metal style moulds. It is a plastic, it’s not resin or a derivative of it… it’s a plastic.

I should also say at this point that the figures I recieved are test models used to get used to the system and before PSC realised that their vacuum pump wasnt working properly! This is now fixed and means far less mould lines on the figures now… and they are sending some new versions this week, so I will report back on that.

The models are in a hard but flexible plastic. It’s not really like anything I have encountered before but it retains the detail very well. It does have a slight flex, which concerned me at first but after painting, it’s not a concern but now perhaps one of its strengths.

I painted the slinger in the pics up in 20 minutes and decided to be as harsh on it as possible. I did not wash the model first, I used a wash of black paint instead of an undercoat and then painted a base colour and two highlight shades, followed by a matt varnish.

Generally I dislike painting plastics, but these are like painting metal as the material has a texture like metal models. They are also sculpted like metals so I found it really easy and quick to paint. The detail was clear and stood out well.

Really it was like painting a metal 15mm figure. But I’m guessing most people want to know what happens when you flex it… well I after painting I bent the sling all the way down to the body, twice, and then up towards the head. It immediately returns to shape and position, but what impressed me most was the paint did not flake or crack. I’m sure if you really kept at it, then it would… but really that’s pointless, unless you do that to your metal models as some form of torture.

These will survive dropping, travel and gaming with no issue and likely be better off due to the material. No more bent spears, or broken slings and swords. What I thought was going to be an issue is actually a big bonus. Very impressed with that element of the model.

I’m not going to review the sculpt itself, all the PSC figures are coming from existing ranges and are well known. It’s really the material that is the key feature.

The only downside I found was having to remove a mould line around the figure, but if PSC have remedied this, then I’m hard pressed to think of any other issues with it. Once painted it wont be any different to a metal model until you pick it up.

As someone with no interest in 15mm or ancients, I know want to do a couple of armies for Soldiers of Rome using these. The light weight, the cost and ease of painting are all a big bonus. I’m unsure on price but they tell me the starter army boxes will retail at around £35 . Seems a good price to me.

I really hope people give these a go as I think it could really boost the popularity of 15mm and mass battle games in general. I’m also hoping PSC will venture into more periods… I’m told medieval is a possibility and perhaps… Napoleonics! Cant wait to get more of these ancients and paint up a unit or two to see how they look… between the new 10mm stuff also coming from PSC.

So we may be looking at a new revolution for 15mm, and as PSC have also done 20mm figures in this material, it will be very interesting to see how things develop.

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