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Other Stuff => General Wargames and Hobby Discussion => Topic started by: Mr. White on April 19, 2021, 03:00:24 PM
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Looking over at Plastic Soldier Review, Zvezda minis have great reviews. They don't seem to have tons of box sets out there with most seeming to be released in the 00's. As I'm just getting in 1/72 I was hoping to pick up some of their medievals for Lion Rampant, but almost half of what I'm looking at is out of print and going for crazy money.
Is this company no longer in business or am I just a victim of bad timing between products?
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About 10 years ago they cancelled all their big boxes and switched to producing 20mm figures for their household game. These were boxes with just a handful of figures, which about quadrupled the price.
Nowadays they are popular for collectors and diorama builders, but they are useless for wargamers. A great shame, as they make fabulous figures.
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The machinations of 1/72 manufacturers always seem mystifying to me. Why doesn't everyone use Emhar's plastic (or Caesar's)? Why has Caesar cancelled the sets that everyone wants to buy? Why doesn't Emhar do more, given how good its stuff is? And why do so many manufacturers produce each other's sets?
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About 10 years ago they cancelled all their big boxes and switched to producing 20mm figures for their household game. These were boxes with just a handful of figures, which about quadrupled the price.
Nowadays they are popular for collectors and diorama builders, but they are useless for wargamers. A great shame, as they make fabulous figures.
So these Zvezda boxes are done? A couple of them look great for Lion Rampart. The English, French, Russian, and Samurai each have an infantry box and a cavalry box that together make great retinues. I can only really find the two samurai, the two french and one of the russian boxes. the russian foot and both english 100 year war boxes are $$$$. It is a shame.
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Gone are the glory days of 1/72 plastics.
I remember being in school and saving pennies to buy a £3.50 box of Napoleonics or Punic Wars by Caesar from a local modelling shop five minutes walk from where I lived. Good old hard plastic kits that were just mind blowing at the time. Really got me into the hobby and military history in general. Then there was the Armour fast range which was just revolutionary.
Then one day they suddenly started making stuff in some god awful soft plastic that couldn't even glue properly.
Shame really. Was a very short lived revolution in 1/72 plastics.
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ha, ugh. looks like I missed the boat on this scale for historics. I think Dark Alliance/Redbox is doing fine on the fantasy side, so maybe I just use 1/72 for fantasy gaming, but will have to look to a larger scale for Lion Rampant?
big bummer. I was kinda hoping to do both at the same scale.
(I would like a few copies of the Ceasar Undead - the skeletons, not the zombies - also... out of print... ha! :( )
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ha, ugh. looks like I missed the boat on this scale for historics. I think Dark Alliance/Redbox is doing fine on the fantasy side, so maybe I just use 1/72 for fantasy gaming, but will have to look to a larger scale for Lion Rampant?
big bummer. I was kinda hoping to do both at the same scale.
I'm also getting confused, I meant HaT miniatures. Caesar came in a few years later but they're figures are superb as well albeit a tad soft.
Fantasy is that weird one as that cropped up near the end of the era. I remember getting the Orcs but sold them off soon after as my interests were more or less going towards metal stuff.
I think with Zvezda much of what they made in 1/72 was just reboxed plastics from Emhar and Italieri with only a few of their own genuine offerings. I imagine by now most of the molds on those are long dead as some of them were old even in the mid 2000s.
I also wouldn't be surprised that at some stage someone pointed out they were being awfully generous selling a box at £4 with 50-60 figures in it and could make a bit more £££ if they seriously reduced content but for the same costs and justified it by throwing in a board game.
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Maybe I'll get these two samurai boxes, maybe the two french boxes as well, to use as the core for some DR armies. Toss in a few thematic creatures to round 'em out.
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I'd get the Zvezda French knights, etc., if you can.
There are still loads of good 1/72 historicals out there: a lot of Caesar figures are great, and lots of manufacturers still seem to be producing new stuff.
If you want mounted knights, the Emhar "crested knights" are great - and they even take polystyrene cement! I bought them from a local shop in the UK within the past few months; the box cost me £7 or so.
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I also wouldn't be surprised that at some stage someone pointed out they were being awfully generous selling a box at £4 with 50-60 figures in it and could make a bit more £££ if they seriously reduced content but for the same costs and justified it by throwing in a board game.
‘Someone’ as in a publicly trading Nottingham-based company, or one inspired by its business model?
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It's odd - Zvezda still have lots of their great historicals on their website, but some of the kits (like most of the medievals) are gone. The French knights and medieval peasants are still in production, though, along with the superb ancients.
1/72 moulds seem to last for a very long time, judging by the amount of Italeri, etc., stuff that's been on the go for decades. So I wonder if some of those kits might come back into production.
The Caesar 15th century knights are very nice - and while they can be a bit bendy, they're easy to convert. So you could replace a spear or polearm with a wire or plastic one easily enough; the figures take superglue well (like Reaper Bones). The earlier knights look very good too. I'd say that the Caesar and Emhar figures are generally much better in the "flesh" than they appear on Plastic Soldier Review (where they get very high ratings).
For fantasy, the second set of Caesar orcs is absolutely brilliant - brimming with character. The first set was OK, but looks outdated next to the new ones.
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Well Italeri released a 100 years war battle set in 1/72 the past year, got a castle and a bout a 100+ figures of French and English.
That would do LR ok I think if you check it over:
https://www.italeri.com/en/product/2867/61/0
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The Caesar 15th century knights are very nice - and while they can be a bit bendy, they're easy to convert. So you could replace a spear or polearm with a wire or plastic one easily enough; the figures take superglue well (like Reaper Bones). The earlier knights look very good too. I'd say that the Caesar and Emhar figures are generally much better in the "flesh" than they appear on Plastic Soldier Review (where they get very high ratings).
Yeah, tbh from what I can tell, just from that site, there's a fairly large difference in quality in the minis between the Zvezda and the Caesar. Take just even the bowmen of these two:
Zvezda: http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=1245 (http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=1245)
Caesar: http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=2300 (http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=2300)
Besides the Zvedza bowmen having more varied, and dynamic sculpts, the heads and weapons just appear cast better as well. Now, I haven't seen either in person, so maybe the Zvezda are also all bent and the reviewer straightened the minis out for the review? I don't know, but the Zvezda look exciting to paint, whereas the Caesar feel like I'm just settling for what's available.
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Hey Jack - Zvezda is one of my favorite manufacturers but unfortunately they have moved away from producing figure sets. It wasn't a random thing - the founder of the company Konstantin Krivenko passed away suddenly in 2014. After that the company made a lot of changes. They have a Russian language official message board and from second hand translations what was reported on the message board was that the figure sets were not profitable so they decided to limit production to vehicle/aircraft model kits, toys and the small WW2 board game sets (1/72 figures and 1/100 vehicles). I think the latter had more to do with Flames of War being very popular at the time and the Zvezda 1/100 vehicles were a source of cheap alternatives to the Battlefront models.
The 2000s are often referred to as the "golden age" for 1/72 collectors like myself but the recession really hurt the hobby and many of the manufacturers like Caesar (aka MiniKnight) and Hat have either stopped making figures or only occasionally release new figures. Italeri just does re-releases now. The exception has been some of the East European manufacturers like Strelets, Red Box, Linear A and Orion. Unfortunately the quality of their figures is sometimes very low, but they cover periods not available from other 1/72 plastic manufacturers.
I don't know if you're already familiar with Benno's Figures Forum but if not you should check it out. I love LAF but 1/72 doesn't show up often here, Benno's forum is almost entirely dedicated to 1/72.
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i'm sorry to hear of the passing of Zvezda's owner. It does sound like the 1/72 historical medieval options are going to be dwindling from here on out. I guess i should grab would I can. Too bad I'll be missing some great figs.
Even the Fantasy options don't seem very robust. As we mentioned Dark Alliance/Redbox but then a lot of things that "can sorta fit" with 1/72
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I do find it odd that companies stop producing plastic kits. The common view is that the mould is the hugely expensive bit, so once you have paid for that, why would you stop producing kits?
You only have to look at Airfix who are still producing the same kits they were 50 years ago to show the longevity of the moulds.
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I think 1:72 is in a weird place when it comes to providing big boxes of figures - the price and market dominance of 28mm plastics has probably made them reconsider their commitments to producing kits to a smaller number of hobbyists when they could focus on board games or larger vehicle kits that have an appeal to model makers.
it's a shame as 20mm is a wonderful scale and the price point of plastic 1:72 figs should, in my opinion, make them a baselines for most gamers.
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Yeah, it's a bummer this scale isn't more widely adopted. I love the speed of painting and easy storage.
I'll not get discouraged though. I'm currently working on a 1/72 (well, 20mm - same thing?) Post Apoc project and having the time of my life. And far fewer 1/72 Post Apoc figs have been produced than historical or fantasy. And for DR I only need _one_ orc army. One undead army. One samurai army. Etc
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On a more positive note, there are huge amounts of 1/72 figures out there, both new and second hand. There are plenty of shops that are stuffed with them, and some manufacturers are still bringing out great new stuff. The newest figures from Dark Alliance are the equal of Zvezda, I'd say - the Arab-type troops are just fantastic, for example.
In the UK, it's certainly easy enough to get figures for pretty much whatever period you want to cover. There are 19 different boxes of knights (https://www.hannants.co.uk/search/?scale_id=956&search_direction=asc&search=knights&product_type_id=1878) available from Hannants, for example.
I do find it odd that companies stop producing plastic kits. The common view is that the mould is the hugely expensive bit, so once you have paid for that, why would you stop producing kits?
You only have to look at Airfix who are still producing the same kits they were 50 years ago to show the longevity of the moulds.
Yes, I'm baffled by the same point.
Even the Fantasy options don't seem very robust. As we mentioned Dark Alliance/Redbox but then a lot of things that "can sorta fit" with 1/72.
Certain of the Caesar ranges still seem to be going strong: elves, orcs (2), lizardmen, ratmen and zombies, for example.
And if you're in the US, then you've got the greatest resource available to the 1/72 fantasy gamer in Ral Partha legacy/Ironwind. You get perfectly sized gnolls, lizardmen, goblins and much, much more.
On Zvezda, this is interesting (https://www.drumandflag.co.uk/collections/medieval/products/zvezda-2021-expected-re-releases-1-72-scale-not-yet-available?variant=39384336859302). No medievals yet, but it does seem that they're re-releasing out-of-production sets. You'd expect the English knights to come back sooner or later, given how good they are (and the high prices on eBay).
All in all, I'd say we're still in a bit of a golden age - and unarguably so for fantasy.
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it's a shame as 20mm is a wonderful scale and the price point of plastic 1:72 figs should, in my opinion, make them a baselines for most gamers.
Yes, exactly this. For someone who wants to use miniatures in RPGs, you could get a colossal amount of options for around £50 (six boxes). Two boxes of (say) rangers and knights to cover adventurers, brigands and guards; a box of lizardmen; two boxes of humanoids (orcs, goblins, half-orcs, whatever); and a box of ancient or medieval civilians to cover female adventurers and NPCs of all descriptions.
The beauty is that you can 'convert' at this scale very easily with paint - and you get huge numbers. So you could take a box of Caesar orcs, paint a third red to be D&D hobgoblins, a third brownish-green to be D&D orcs and a third in human flesh tones to be half-orcs. Then you could get four tribes of different goblin-type things by painting each sprue of a Dark Alliance pack of goblins differently.Some lizardmen could be lizardmen and others could be troglodytes. And so on. So your £50 gets you perhaps 240 figures, with a huge range of adventurers, NPCs and basic monster types.
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In the UK, it's certainly easy enough to get figures for pretty much whatever period you want to cover. There are 19 different boxes of knights (https://www.hannants.co.uk/search/?scale_id=956&search_direction=asc&search=knights&product_type_id=1878) available from Hannants, for example.
Yes, I'm baffled by the same point.
I believe 172 figs are made using a different process. Whilst Zvezdas hard plastic figs are steel moulds most liekly, the soft vinyl minis of other companies are possibly made using cheaper aluminium moulds or even hard rubber moulds with a pourable vinyl. Either case would mean a high initial yield until the mould degraded and that's your lot.
1:72 production is odd in that way too, you have companies like airfix using moulds from 50 years ago that are basically scrap, you have companies retrofitting rotocast systems into liquid plastic systems , and you have a few higher end companies doing proper hard polystyrene.
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Ah, that's interesting. I've always presumed that the 1/72 process must be much cheaper than hard polystyrene, given the wealth of manufacturers.
One thing: the Zvezda 1/72 aren't hard plastic; in fact, their only de-merit is that their soft plastic is one of the more resistant to undercoating - especially compared with Caesar. I think Zvezda did make hard-plastic figures in 28mm at one point, but not for a while now.
Could you elaborate on how some of those very old ranges manage to still be in production? I gather that 1/72 are made from bigger masters (which is how you get the same ranges in 1/72 and 1/32 - e.g. Emhar Vikings). Is it possible that some companies keep the masters and just periodically create new moulds from them?
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One thing: the Zvezda 1/72 aren't hard plastic; in fact, their only de-merit is that their soft plastic is one of the more resistant to undercoating - especially compared with Caesar. I think Zvezda did make hard-plastic figures in 28mm at one point, but not for a while now.
This is good to know. I use a grey spray primer designed for automobiles that I pick up from the hardware stores. it works fine on hard plastics like citadel as well as metals. Would I need to do something special to Zvezda? Is this another case of needing warm soapy water to get off some release agent?
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Ah, that's interesting. I've always presumed that the 1/72 process must be much cheaper than hard polystyrene, given the wealth of manufacturers.
One thing: the Zvezda 1/72 aren't hard plastic; in fact, their only de-merit is that their soft plastic is one of the more resistant to undercoating - especially compared with Caesar. I think Zvezda did make hard-plastic figures in 28mm at one point, but not for a while now.
Could you elaborate on how some of those very old ranges manage to still be in production? I gather that 1/72 are made from bigger masters (which is how you get the same ranges in 1/72 and 1/32 - e.g. Emhar Vikings). Is it possible that some companies keep the masters and just periodically create new moulds from them?
a large part of it is about mould ware - 1:72 manufactures use softer plastics that can be pulled from a mould in the same manner as a green resin cast - so the pull and wear on the mould face is lessened.plus the pieces are smaller so the moulds, whilst finer, have less spiky or delicate parts and so require less work than say, a new GW mould. I imagine many of them simply run moulds to absolute destruction and then just sit on the stock for long periods of time - which would explain why some kits can be in stock for years and then disappear overnight.
Ceaser confuses me the most - those fantasy boxes are wonderful, they made such an extensive range, then POOF, gone.Surely worth a new set of moulds if ever anything was.
Were the zvezda samurai battles kits not hard plastic? i know some of their board games use hard polystyrene sprues.
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I think 1:72 is in a weird place when it comes to providing big boxes of figures - the price and market dominance of 28mm plastics has probably made them reconsider their commitments to producing kits to a smaller number of hobbyists when they could focus on board games or larger vehicle kits that have an appeal to model makers.
I think this is a great point. 15 - 20 years ago (the 1/72 "golden age") 1/72 plastics were the cheapest option for playing historical wargames, GW was the only company making plastic wargame figures in 28mm-ish. About 10 years ago Warlord Games comes along with plastic 28mm WW2 figures and the Bolt Action rules (around the same time that GW started really alienating customers) and the market shifted.
Zvezda figures are made in steel moulds - there was a video out there a few years ago of a tour of their factory and they showed the steel mould for one of the small figures sets. The difference is the plastic, its polyethylene ("soft plastic") not polystyrene ("hard plastic"). Polyethylene doesn't work with plastic cement which bonds polystyrene.
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Swiftnick had success undercoating the Zvezda Greeks with plastikote (https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=129060.0). I just use black gesso, which seems to rub off more easily on Zvezda than the others, despite washing in soapy water. It's fine when all the painting and varnishing is done, though.
a large part of it is about mould ware - 1:72 manufactures use softer plastics that can be pulled from a mould in the same manner as a green resin cast - so the pull and wear on the mould face is lessened.plus the pieces are smaller so the moulds, whilst finer, have less spiky or delicate parts and so require less work than say, a new GW mould. I imagine many of them simply run moulds to absolute destruction and then just sit on the stock for long periods of time - which would explain why some kits can be in stock for years and then disappear overnight.
That's illuminating - many thanks!
Ceaser confuses me the most - those fantasy boxes are wonderful, they made such an extensive range, then POOF, gone.Surely worth a new set of moulds if ever anything was.
Yes - and, confusingly, some still seem to be in production but not others.
Were the zvezda samurai battles kits not hard plastic? i know some of their board games use hard polystyrene sprues.
Yes, I think you're right. The traditional boxes are soft plastic of an opaque sort that seems to show detail better than it holds paint (though well worth persevering until the varnish is on).
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I have some Zvezda ninjas, that came in a box of like five models you attach to a dedicated single stand. They look like maybe they were a release for some tactics game? Definitely not the 20-40 minis in the box type release. Anyway, they are hard plastic on a sprue that need assembly.
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On the last point, I remember a game of samurai battles in the Commands and Colors series for which Zvezda provided the miniatures. I never actually saw it but was just reminded of it. Some small sets of hard plastic samurai and ashigaru were also released, presumably containing the same sculpts.
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Looks like there may be a bunch of wargame sets with their minis?
https://shop.1-72depot.com/miniatures/1-72/playsets/zvezda-playsets/
These are the minis I have.
https://www.pippd.com/products/zvezda-6406-1-72-scale-unpainted-snap-fit-miniature-figure-ninja
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We also need to remember that zvezda are a Russian company, and Russian companies seem to export far less than others. Zvezda had a hard plastic 28mm fantasy range before many current manufacturers, but it largely didn't make it out of Russia. The same happened with their Sci fi kits which only took off in the UK after airfix licensed them.
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The Zvezda "big box" sets are sets 8001-8083.
The wargame small sets (some of which are for their "Art of Tactic" [sic] wargame) are sets 6103-7416
http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/ManufacturerList.aspx?id=26 (http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/ManufacturerList.aspx?id=26)
I prime all of my 1/72 figures with automotive primer and have no problem with adhesion. I give them a quick bath in warm soapy water the night before I prime them.
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I like Zvezda - but mainly their 15mm or 1/100 ranges. They're not growing particularly fast - they seem to have moved away from them a bit, but they're superb for Battlegroup if you can find a suitable Russian eBayer.
In the U.S. people tend to charge a bit too much, but if you're willing to wait 30-60 days (:D!) you can get a load of 15mm kits for cheap. Their newer stuff is much better than the old stuff, but $3-4 for a Tiger tank or Elefant, or an IS-2, etc. is excellent. Also, being able to buy kits individually is excellent. In a time when Flames of War/Battlefront want $50 for four Tigers...getting the same for $12 is tough to pass up.
I see a lot of reviews and built videos of their larger 1/35th proper models on YouTube - that seems to be the direction they're heading.
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One of the problems with plastic 1/72 scale figures is that they are only economic if you do large runs of sets in one go. So an initial release might be 5,000 sets.
Having sold all these - the chances of quickly selling 5,000 more sets is quite small and you will be stuck with a warehouse full of boxes.
This is why plastics go OOP so often and why it is best to buy what you need while they are around...
Mike
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Thanks for the advisory Mike, I'll certainly bear that in mind.
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From a kid I always loved the 1/72 figure and over the years bought many a box. I remember wet days on holiday in the caravan playing with 2 boxes of Airfix I'd bought with my pocket money
over the years the number grew and grew and I still have them. but now my wife has said they must go so currently sorting them into bags to sell off :( Took a few bags down the car boot sale the weekend (mostly 1980's moderns and Vietnam war) but no interest - (I though £2 bag wasn't bad as pretty close to a full box in each) - maybe the days of people playing wit little soldiers ahs come to an end.
Still to find my box of Napoleonic and bag of WW2 which will be a lot to go through. The Medievals bag I have to sort is quite large as I bought few boxes of French and English 100 years war (I think they are down as accurate miniatures on the review website but I'm sure I bought them under a different name)
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There is an interesting page on mold wear here (https://www.myplasticmold.com/causes-of-wear-and-damage-of-plastic-mold.html)
Basically:
- Foreign objects in the mold
- Damage due to releasing stuck castings
- Water / acid
- Accidents
- Wear from fatigue
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From a kid I always loved the 1/72 figure and over the years bought many a box. I remember wet days on holiday in the caravan playing with 2 boxes of Airfix I'd bought with my pocket money
over the years the number grew and grew and I still have them. but now my wife has said they must go so currently sorting them into bags to sell off :( Took a few bags down the car boot sale the weekend (mostly 1980's moderns and Vietnam war) but no interest - (I though £2 bag wasn't bad as pretty close to a full box in each) - maybe the days of people playing wit little soldiers ahs come to an end.
Still to find my box of Napoleonic and bag of WW2 which will be a lot to go through. The Medievals bag I have to sort is quite large as I bought few boxes of French and English 100 years war (I think they are down as accurate miniatures on the review website but I'm sure I bought them under a different name)
I don't know if you do Facebook but this Facebook page might yield a better response.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2085411251703167 (https://www.facebook.com/groups/2085411251703167)
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Took a few bags down the car boot sale the weekend (mostly 1980's moderns and Vietnam war) but no interest - (I though £2 bag wasn't bad as pretty close to a full box in each) - maybe the days of people playing wit little soldiers ahs come to an end.
My impression from eBay is that there's quite a brisk trade in second-hand 1/72s. I've occasionally placed a lowish bid on some medieval lots but have only rarely ended up with a bargain. There's certainly plenty of turnover there.
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The machinations of 1/72 manufacturers always seem mystifying to me. Why doesn't everyone use Emhar's plastic (or Caesar's)? Why has Caesar cancelled the sets that everyone wants to buy? Why doesn't Emhar do more, given how good its stuff is? And why do so many manufacturers produce each other's sets?
Emhar are owned in a roundabout way by Bachmann, the model railway manufacturer, when they bought Pocketbond. It's unlikely that anything new will come from them until it changes hands again...
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Emhar are owned in a roundabout way by Bachmann, the model railway manufacturer, when they bought Pocketbond. It's unlikely that anything new will come from them until it changes hands again...
I see - thanks for the info! That's a shame - the plastic they use is by far the best.