Victoria Minatures Review

[duz_]

Hi All,

I will start this thread with my personal experience with VM models, however for those who have also purchased her stuff please feel free to add your own experience too!

For those who aren't aware I recently purchased some of her Van Diemen's and a few female Tannenburg models.

Pics:

I ordered them via her web store and had them from Aus to the USA in a couple of weeks. The prices were decent and shipping was free because I hit the minimum. I also believe that she has dropped (at least temporarily if not longer) the minimum purchase requirement for free shipping too.

The models showed up and they looked great! Both from a sculpting PoV and general resin casting.
There was very minimal flashing, although with them being Resin there was still the anchors you had to remove. However minimal cleaning required otherwise.

The releasing agent seemed to be quite tenacious too, so my initial attempts of washing them were somewhat questionable.

This is where I guess things got a bit tedious for me.

Although her sculpts look great they are a bit of a pain to put together, especially if you haven't thoroughly washed them as the glue won't stick.

She does give you a lot of little bits you can add to the model, like grenades, pouches, knives etc. However these are infinitely small, which is part of my excuse for not washing them well enough, as they they snap off the sprue very easily.

Also given the way her arms are somewhat inter-changeable between lines the shoulder and arms don't necessarily go together as well as you might like. In my particular scenario the shoulder spots on the torso were significantly larger that the diameter of the arms. However given how the arms we're moulded I couldn't always centre them for the models to look correct. From a distance you probably can't tell, but for me I know its there and its some what frustrating to see this flat of a shoulder before the arm and shoulder pad start. It also caused some gaps which I did have to fix with GS stuff afterwards.

The scale is slightly smaller than GW, which is fine if you're using her weapons, however if you try and mix and match like I did, it can seem a bit off. Although to be honest not that much worse than some of the GW sculpts.

The above points had mostly to do with the male Van Diemen models, as for her female Tannenburg models.

Again they look great, they're not over done like some of the other female sculpts you see around. However there were a couple of things that did bug me, despite not being as bad as some of the other mini's available her female Tannenburg models are certainly well endowed, although this could be exaggerated somewhat so you can actually notice on the difference on the table. The other thing is, her female face sculpting on them isn't the greatest. Again you probably would never notice once they're on the table. Fortunately these arm's seemed to go on better as I assume the epaulet arms were specifically designed for this line, where as the Van Diemen models I suspect were probably made to be backwards compatible with all the existing lines.

I don't want to sound like I'm hating on them, I really do like the sculpts in general and can't wait to get them on the table. Its just the little things that can be somewhat frustrate me and question whether or not I'd do it again.

A couple of suggestions for those considering buying some (which I would not discourage!)

• Super glue gel! The control and thickness will help mating the parts and fill in some gaps
• Washing in an ultra sonic cleaner
• Use tweezers for those fiddly bits

That should make your life a bit easier!

I'm curious to see what other peoples thoughts are, I hope I haven't scared anyone off. As her own website says these are for the more experienced hobbyist. I might also add that you want to have the patience to deal with resin, because it doesn't matter how good it is, resin always sucks.

[Tallarn Commander]

Duz, thank you for taking the time to write up this review. I ordered my first set of Victoria Miniatures infantry last week, a small female Praetorian squad. I'll be sure to use tweezers, gel glue, and to thouroughly scrub them clean.

[Stofficus]

I have a few Praetorians from her from ages past for playing Kill Team. 

 

They certainly are fiddly models to put together (though I'd rank them infinitely less fiddly than FW Guard models [there is no greater pain in life than assembling DKOK]), and the small extra bits are an exercise in patience, but the end result is some of, as far as I'm concerned, best looking Guard range out there. The detail is excellent, and the parts are largely interchangeable. 

 

While I don't have any of her female models yet (certainly on the agenda - the lack of female Guard from GW is a missed mark in my opinion, and the other ranges out there, well....), she has stated they are exaggerated somewhat to be more noticeable, as heroic scale so often does, but without sacrificing the aesthetic of the "regiment" in question, so no bikini armour at least. 

 

That being said, I do prefer back when cast in metal - resin is just such a miserable material to work with for assembly and durability reasons. I have a squad of metal tannenburgs, and they're objectively fantastic - a few small gaps easily fixed with GS or even a liberal use of glue. 

[Noserenda]

I have a whole load of her rough rider bits from an age ago and they are rather good, though i wish they were resin rather than metal! 

Ofc with all the FW ive bought over the years i am fairly adept at dealing with resin while metal is still awkward and heavy :/ 

[Major_Gilbear]

Thanks for the write up duz_. :)

 

One comment that might be a tad unfair is the mould release agent - this can vary from model to model and from cast to cast, and even on how well you cleaned them.

 

With respect to the scale, and to weapons, this is something that I have feared a little myself. I do have some FW Elysian weapons (a £12 pack back in the day I think), and they are smaller and lighter than the plastic GW counterparts - although it's more cost, I wonder if these could have helped in your case? I know plenty of eBayers buy weapon packs and unit kits and split them up for sale, so it might not even be that pricey to get three weapons on their own from such a pack. Even so, I do wish VM did some that were more obviously "40k compatible", even if a few details were changed for infringement reasons.

 

I also notice that you didn't assemble any of the loose arms holding the alternate lasrifles - how much harder or easier would these be over the "paired" arms holding the guns at the top of the photo do you think?

[duz_]

Thanks for the write up duz_.

One comment that might be a tad unfair is the mould release agent - this can vary from model to model and from cast to cast, and even on how well you cleaned them.

With respect to the scale, and to weapons, this is something that I have feared a little myself. I do have some FW Elysian weapons (a

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