Yep, you guessed it; my Rebels have arrived. I wasn't able to dig into them right away but I was looking forward to breaking the box open later. After the experience with the Plague zombies, I was eager to see what the Rebs would look like.
Unfortunately that didn't last.
The zombies all came on sprues like a traditional model kit while the Rebs were all separated out into different bags. "Okay, so a little less work", I thought to myself. Then I opened some of the bags and started assembling some of the miniatures... well, tried to assemble some of the miniatures. Unlike the with the zombies, plastic cement didn't seem to cut it with these ones. There was also a lot more flash and especially mold lines on the figures and they didn't seem to clean up neatly the zombies did. These are also made of a different material which makes me wonder if it is the dreaded restic that I'd heard so many bad things about from someone at my LGS. I was under the impression that they had phased this stuff out but now I'm starting to think otherwise.
Then there are the connections. Unlike the zombies with all their ball connections, these figures are all keyed but unfortunately not very well. Some of the tabs are so small in some cases that they don't even help get the parts in the right way.
I decided to push on, thinking that maybe it was just a case of getting the hang of them? Maybe? But no, unfortunately that didn't seem to be the case. I'd put together about half the box and was actually disappointed enough that I was really tempted to set them aside and call it a wash. They do have a mix poses and races that I might be able to work into my Antares privateer force but...
Feeling quite frustrated I decided to take a chance and ask about this on the Deadzone Facebook group, Deadzone Fanatics. Given that the hashtag #Deadzoneislife is not uncommon on the group, I was curious to see how my concerns and criticisms were taken. When you are dealing with diehard fans, you never can predict the response to pointing out a flaw with their favorite shiny. In this case I was very pleasantly surprised.
Not only did they explain the difference in the material but they also offered some good advice how best to deal with it as far as clean up. Apparently this set is cast in the premium plastic that was used for their initial products in the in range. More recent ones (such as the plague zombies) have been cast in hard plastic or PVC plastic. If you look on the Mantic webstore, they list what materials are used for the various products and if you will need superglue to assemble them (this is the only way to glue the premium plastic, regular plastic cement won't even touch the stuff). This is even the case for sets that include a mix of the two such as the Plague starter the contents of which you can see below...
Feeling quite frustrated I decided to take a chance and ask about this on the Deadzone Facebook group, Deadzone Fanatics. Given that the hashtag #Deadzoneislife is not uncommon on the group, I was curious to see how my concerns and criticisms were taken. When you are dealing with diehard fans, you never can predict the response to pointing out a flaw with their favorite shiny. In this case I was very pleasantly surprised.
Not only did they explain the difference in the material but they also offered some good advice how best to deal with it as far as clean up. Apparently this set is cast in the premium plastic that was used for their initial products in the in range. More recent ones (such as the plague zombies) have been cast in hard plastic or PVC plastic. If you look on the Mantic webstore, they list what materials are used for the various products and if you will need superglue to assemble them (this is the only way to glue the premium plastic, regular plastic cement won't even touch the stuff). This is even the case for sets that include a mix of the two such as the Plague starter the contents of which you can see below...
CONTENTS
This set contains enough components to build 29 high-quality plastic multi-part models, including:
This set contains enough components to build 29 high-quality plastic multi-part models, including:
1 Plastic 1st Gen Mutant
6 Plastic 2nd Gen Mutants
10 Hard Plastic 3rd Gen Troopers
Rifles, Flamethrower, HMG and Grenade Launcher Weapon Options
2 Hard Plastic Plague Hounds
10 Hard Plastic Plague Zombies
25mm and 40mm Plastic Round Bases
Mantic Points
Models supplied unassembled and unpainted. Requires super glue.
In this case, the 1st and 2nd Gen mutants are all made of the premium plastic while the rest are made of hard plastic.6 Plastic 2nd Gen Mutants
10 Hard Plastic 3rd Gen Troopers
Rifles, Flamethrower, HMG and Grenade Launcher Weapon Options
2 Hard Plastic Plague Hounds
10 Hard Plastic Plague Zombies
25mm and 40mm Plastic Round Bases
Mantic Points
Models supplied unassembled and unpainted. Requires super glue.
Armed with this information, I gave the rest of the Rebs another go and was quickly able to put together and paint a 150 point strike team.
I still need to finish off their bases and there are some more minis to assemble but my push for right now was to get this little group of miscreants done. So the question now that I've put them together and painted them, what do I think of them?
Going into this set blind as I did, I was ready to walk away after the initial problems that I had with it. On top of that they looked like they had pretty soft detailing so I really wasn't looking forward to painting them either. Then I reached out to the FB group and the help they gave got me motivated to get this project moving forward. Once I started painting them, I also realized just how detailed they actually are. In the end, I'm really happy with how these guys have turned.
The only real negative I found (now that I know how to work with the Mantic premium plastic) is the lack of variety in the sculpts. Then again given how diverse this specific faction is, I can understand limiting them to a couple of poses for each race. It would take a whole lot more work and money for Mantic to create more posable figures in all of these different races. They do have several more races associated with them as well so bringing these in will led to quite a varied mix of figures.
So what's next for me and Deadzone? After I'd ordered the Reb starter, I ordered a box of Plague 3rd gen troopers and I've gotta say that I am really impressed with just how many options there are with this one! Like what? Well, you'll just have to come back to find out about that. Until next time...
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| Need to work on getting more light in my light box but you get the idea... |
Going into this set blind as I did, I was ready to walk away after the initial problems that I had with it. On top of that they looked like they had pretty soft detailing so I really wasn't looking forward to painting them either. Then I reached out to the FB group and the help they gave got me motivated to get this project moving forward. Once I started painting them, I also realized just how detailed they actually are. In the end, I'm really happy with how these guys have turned.
The only real negative I found (now that I know how to work with the Mantic premium plastic) is the lack of variety in the sculpts. Then again given how diverse this specific faction is, I can understand limiting them to a couple of poses for each race. It would take a whole lot more work and money for Mantic to create more posable figures in all of these different races. They do have several more races associated with them as well so bringing these in will led to quite a varied mix of figures.
So what's next for me and Deadzone? After I'd ordered the Reb starter, I ordered a box of Plague 3rd gen troopers and I've gotta say that I am really impressed with just how many options there are with this one! Like what? Well, you'll just have to come back to find out about that. Until next time...
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