The Wait is over - New Perry plastics for Salute

[carlos marighela]

Guys are a bit hard on Warlord. I prefer the Perry stuff too but Warlord has a certain stylized charm and they have been very good to us as 28mm WW2 collectors. I never would have dreamed 15 years ago when I was playing Battleground WW2 that we would ever have the kind of choices for 28mm we have today. I think Warlord  is going for something more like the Sgt. Rock comics. The notion that if a figure's goal isn't to match a standard of photographic realism and proportion they are "shit" is a bit prosaic if you ask me. Sculpting is indeed an art and therefore there will be different styles. I can't stand a lot of the figures "sculpted" in CAD because they often completely lack this very sort of stylization that gives them character. I like the new Warlord Winter Germans and Soviets and will likely use them for Stalingrad gaming...

The chunkiness isn’t my main beef. I have Artizan and Crusader figures, with which I am quite happy, they are after all a dream to paint. What irritates me about Walord is the variable, almost random, quality of what they produce. Inaccuracies abound, the right amount of kit is not provided and the variation in figure size and sculpting quality is all over the place. Some of their figures are quite useable. Somecof their older, now being replaced ranges were, in fact, quite nice.

OK, they aren’t a single sculptor manufacturer but there isn’t much of a ‘house style’, save for the increasingly comic faces. Their research is bad at least compared to other manufacturers. Really basic errors that seem to betray a get it out quickly at all costs approach. I could add the fact that they retail their pkastic vehicles at about about a 30% mark up over the identical Italaeri co-productions.

It’s true that they have produced a breadth of product unimaginable a few years ago and they are to be congratulated for that. I just wish they woukd make some effort towards quality control.

[Volleyfire!]

I would have much preferred Warlord to release plastic italians to replace the existing metal ones instead of the brits and afrika korps which many would still not buy because they would choose the Perry ones. For that matter, I would have also preferred the Perry twins to do plastic italians instead of the GIs. Obviously I understand that from a marketing point of view italians won't sell as much as us, brits and germans but it seems they don't get fair attention.

I have to agree with you, although I fear I would have to think long and hard about buying any plastic figures from Warlord, even if they were Italians with options for Bersaglieri, Alpini and MVSN heads to boot, simply because I don't like their figures facial expressions or their 'heft' when compared to the Perry Desert Rats and DAK. Now if the Perrys had brought out a box of Italians with separate head options I'd be doing cartwheels. Some marines and Folgore wouldn't have gone amiss either.