Review: Sewer Scavengers by Copplestone

[Curryman]

I don't know why it's taken this long, but this week I review my very first pack of Future Wars minis from Copplestone Castings. The Sewer Scavengers are five heavily-armed scavvies ready to prowl any post-apocalyptic wilderness, whether it has sewers or not. These five impressively detailed minis are some of the best "survivor" types I've ever seen. They're well worth a look for anybody in the market for warriors of the wasteland. Follow the link for the lavishly-illustrated review.

http://thescreamingalpha.com/2009/05/29/review-sewer-scavengers-by-copplestone-castings/

[Faust23]

Those look sweet man!

[Curryman]

Thanks, Faust. They took a relatively long time to paint because of all the detail, but I'm really happy with how they turned out. Copplestone definitely has a new fan here.

[Bako]

Aye, you should get the scavvies Copplestone did for EM-4, excellent ones they are too.

[Curryman]

I've had the em-r scavvies on my list for a while, but I looked again after you mentioned them. The pics on em4s site are not very good, but a number of those scavenger figs look almost exactly like the guys in the pack I just painted, bit with minor changes like a different gun. I wonder if he just used some of his previous sculpts for inspiration or if he still had the greens or something.

I still want some of the em4 scavs, but especially their funky road-warrior style savages. Some of those guys are just crazy-looking, but in a good way...

[Captain Blood]

I wonder if he just used some of his previous sculpts for inspiration

Yes he did.

Most (though not all) of the Copplestone FW range have a clear 'progenitor' figure in the range he sculpted for Grenadier, now carried by EM4. In one or two cases the figures are almost identical. In most cases, you can see how he evolved the figure to its mark II state.

For the most part, as you'd expect, the later 'own brand' figures are a slight improvement over the Grenadier / EM4 originals. Not quite as willowy. Obviously the artist has honed his technique in the intervening years, and has taken his second chance to achieve exactly the look he wanted first time round.

That said, there are a few of the original range that I prefer to the later FW versions (like the female cop with the SMG), and there are a few types in the original range (like the security guards for instance) which he never remade for his own FW range. Which is odd, because those are the EM4 figures I see used most often.

He never remade savages for FW either. Maybe he knew from Grenadier that these didn't sell very well. Or maybe he's still getting round to it!

The big problem, of course, with the original Grenadier / EM4 range is that they have crappy horrible tacky slotta bases. Ugh!   

[Bako]

Personally, I prefer the slottas. They're easier to remove than cast bases .

[Curryman]

The slotta/integral base issue seems to be a divisive one in the hobby. Obviously if you've read my work you know that I'm a devotee of the slotta camp since I find them much easier to work with. To each his own I suppose. At least CC's cast bases aren't as ludicrously tiny as the Foundry's. They have some kind of chance to stand up on their own, even if you sometimes need to putty the bottoms of the bases to get them flat enough.