First Impressions: VICTRIX 28mm Plastic Brit Naps

If these new Victrix plastic figures come out well I may have to rename this blog. I had a few hours clear today to work on a new project that I've been wanting to start for a while. I purchased 2 boxes of French Perry plastics and 2 of the new Victrix British Peninsular War Napoleonics and today have dived in with the first unit of Brits.

Here are my first impressions of the plastics:

PRO:
1. They are beautifully sculpted.

2. The poses are very versatile and there are enough figures to do lots of different types of basing schemes/unit sizes.

3. They are economical for building the core units of a Nap army.

4. Nice extras included with both the Perry and the Victrix boxes--with Perry French you get a set of plastic bases, and some painting info, with the Victrix you get a nice set of Napoleonic rules (written by Barry Hinton of "Beneath the Lily Banners" fame) that will get you started as well as painting info and game markers on the inside box flap.

5. The figures are hard plastic and will take and hold paint.

6. They are readily convertable to get a really unique look or pose with a little modeling work.

8. No nasty toxic metal around to harm the little ones.

CON:

1. They have to be assembled--(no real problem for most of us but if you are all thumbs it might be a bit of a hassle to assemble the figures)--assembly is slightly more fiddly than building a GW plastic figure since the figure and parts are 28mm (a separate arm casting is pretty small)--

2. They don't have the "heft" of metal...but that could be a positive if you do a lot of transporting of armies.

SO:

All in all I think a great buy...and I'll keep posting as the unit progresses. The first unit is going to be a British line battalion of 40 rankers and 7 other figures. I'll be mounting them 4 to a 40x40mm base to make a company and 10 companies to make a big battalion (that can of course be broken down for several different rule sets). I'll also mount the flank companies as 2 or 4 singles.

The little rule set included looks like fun and will inspire me to get a few units done post haste to give them a go. BTW they are called "The March of Eagles" and are available free online HERE