There are new Germans on the block. Victrix, a company known for insane numbers of minis in their sets as well as questionable packaging, have finally entered the realm of 28mm World War Two miniatures with a big bang. Their new set of late war German infantry and heavy weapons not only features a much more realistic style and scale than most other plastic WW2 sets, but also does what Warlord Games has been slowly trying to go for with their newest plastic sets. This kit has everything you need for an entire platoon! No extra weapon teams or officer kits necessary!
Contents
This bag of minis comes with 44 miniatures, with all kinds of weapon options to be expected in a modular infantry platoon. This includes medium machine guns, medium mortars, Panzerschrecks, Panzerfäuste, Radios, medical equipment and AT rifles. To avoid the duplicate look, every sculpts has one or more alternate build options. There is some inconsistency between certain sculpts, with the majority having a plastic putty base and some having none. In particular, the crew of the Machine gun and all of the prone bodies do not have a putty bases. As with every Victrix set, this box does not come with bases, so you will have to source your own, I bought two bags of the renedra cobblestone bases for this set specifically. Now as I mentioned before this set doesn’t only have your typical squad weapons like LMGs, Panzerfäuste and the occasional officer head, on an extra sprue you have all the extra pieces to make this an effective fighting force out of the box(or well bag). There are the crew and parts for the two medium weapon teams, a Panzerschreck, a radio for forward observers and AT rifles.
Assembly
These minis come out of the sprue with okay mold lines, not super bad like some kits on the market, but most definitely the level of quality that some of Warlord Games or Games Workshop’s newer stuff. Every body comes with a gaping hole at their lower back for a corresponding assortment of canisters, bread bags and shovels. All of the sculpts wearing camo smocks have freely posable arms, while the bodies wearing Zeltbahn have their upper arms already sculpted on, so you only get to slightly articulate their forearms. assembly goes over pretty smoothly, not much to complain about. However you should know that the heads use a system similar to that of most Wargames Atlantic kits where the neck is slightly protruding forwards straight ahead. It’s not as noticeable or limiting as it used to be with some of the very early Wargames Atlantic kits like the WW1 Germans, but it can lead to some odd angles if you want your Germans to look strongly to the left or right.
In terms of size, they will not look super well when compared to any of the other brands currently offering 28mm Germans (STLs not withstanding). They straddle the line between realistic scale and slight comical exaggeration much more finely than any other kits I’ve seen thus far. They certainly look a bit too goofy to be actually realistic, but then when put next to say a Warlord Games German they make that one look like a clunky toy in comparison.
Painting
Before I talk about my experience painting these I want to preface this section with one factor that most definitely tainted my perception of the painting process: These were painted during a massive heatwave here in Germany. Not only did all of the usual issues of painting in high temperatures apply, but since we do not have ACs, I had to rawdog the painting sessions. Make of this fact what you will, just keep it in mind when reading this part.
These guys have a good amount of details, but I do feel they have a bit too much in some places; the fabric especially feels overly textured, and there are a LOT of folds. Obviously clothes fold and crumple and are not smooth and flat, but some of these minis feel like overkill. I can see what the sculptor was going for and I am certain this would look great on a much larger scale model. However on such a small scale, all the bunched up texture comes off as more noisy since it is all so compressed. I have a similar critique aimed at the Zeltbahn ponchos, they too feel much more suited for a larger scale of model rather than what you get with 28mm. The last point goes somewhat in the opposite direction — most of the heads have an undercut at the back of their head; this is represented by a smooth raised surface which just looks… odd? It is obviously meant to represent short shorn hair, but at this scale that is a difficult detail to represent and so it is just flat.
Negativity out of the way, I really enjoyed the faces. While still somewhat cartoonish, the facial sculpts are a real stand out, some having smooth cheeks and others having gaunt faces with quite a variation in looks across the board. The rifles are excellently detailed as well; one thing you sadly do not see all to often is the metal plate at the butt of the gun. These are small details, but in totality they add to a much more realistic feel. This is what I mentioned above about the discrepancy between scale and details, but in reverse. These are levels of detail that are more commonplace in small statues applied perfectly to a 28mm scale.
One last thing to appreciate is the small amount of areas where the detail gets ‘smushed’ into the mold lines, you can often see this with shoes on miniatures and I mentioned it in my review for the epic scale Hail Caesar miniatures. Obviously there is still some oddly stretched detail here and there, but it is a lot less than what I am used to.
Final Thoughts
This set could be a real game changer. It attempts to massively improve on things that the rest of the industry is starting to address very slowly. Does it succeed on all accounts? No. Does it choke on its own ambitions in places? Yes. Does it meaningfully raise the standards of what can be achieved? Absolutely!
It attempts to improve upon Warlord Games’ concept of making a box of minis a small army in of itself, it does so by increasing the amount of miniatures for a negligible price increase and by expanding the scope of what can be included. Warlord Games has slowly been adapting a broader range of options, starting 2018 with their North Africa plastic kits that included light mortars in plastic and more recently in their German Veteran kit they have even included options for MMG teams and flamethrowers. While there are no flamethrowers in this kit, Victrix nonetheless took these advancements in content and ran with it; they added both common medium weapon teams as well as all common weapon configurations. Going beyond the layout of the box contents, there is also the design of the miniatures themselves to consider. To me it seems obvious, that these are an attempt to compress the quality of a small statue into the 28mm format with as little compromise as possible, while staying true to some of the baseline design structures of 28mm miniatures. A tough task if you ask me, one that these miniatures partially succeed at mind you. I mentioned how a lot of the cloth detail just feels too much for this scale and could have done with some streamlining, but I still see the potential in details such as the guns, the faces and shoes.
Now all that sounds amazing on paper, but one glaring issue that comes from this attempt to adapt very statuesque look is a lack of customizability. While they offer plenty variation for most sculpts that do not wear Zeltbahn, all who do have most of their body pre-sculpted, with only the forearms being separate pieces. This severely limits the articulation of arms and locks you into poses more so than the bodies that don’t wear the ponchos. While not a death sentence, the historical wargaming hobby lives from kitbashing. Nothing in history was ever truly as uniform as some fascists would like you to believe. The lack of customizability is palpable and I think if you plan to build bigger platoons, you might get a little sick of how few choices beyond a head swap you have with these. Obviously people who have a lot of metal miniatures will not bat an eye since repeated poses are just a given, but this kit is plastic, a medium that allows for options and customization. Speaking of plastic miniatures; Another issue is the insistence on putty bases. I understand why they are convenient on metal miniatures; they create a bigger contact point for gluing (which is especially useful on running poses) and are useful for the casting process. But what purpose do they function on a plastic model? I know its not super hard to remove them, but I wonder why they were left out on the prone models and the MMG team? It just feels weirdly inconsistent and they could have just done away with them entirely in my opinion.
Where does that leave us? Are these bad? Would I recommend them? It depends. The amount of criticism I levied against this kit might make you think I dislike them, but that is not true. I think they are fine. They are certainly unique in their approach as I laid out before, but that brings with it unique problems as well. On top of all of that I also find myself realizing that these may just not be for me. Not for any rational reason other than personal taste. I think speaking just on the facts, these are fine, a good addition to the pre-existing selection of plastic German kits and will most definitely drive creativity and innovation across the board.
Would I recommend you buy them? Sure! I mean if you think they look neat and if you are willing to put up with their quirks as I laid them out, then you cannot go wrong with this kit; I would especially recommend this set to anyone seeking to start a German army for WW2 as it is just a perfect set of miniatures to build a small army.
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