Sunday, 2 September 2012

Castles of tin blog

Was looking for well painted examples of the new SYW Hat 1/32 plastics (see pic) and came across Steve Cady's blog. You have probably already visited it but if you haven't you're in for a treat.There's a lot of excellent stuff - new Prince August Karoliners and much more.While on the subject of SYW what about the Prince August molds (54mm) and the AIP French infantry (SYW).
at

3 comments:

  1. Sir William the Aged2 September 2012 at 15:27

    Ralphus;

    You are correct, the figures are very good and Steve has done an excellent job of painting them! I have these same figures, with Command, but have not gotten to them in the queue yet. Mine will serve as Hessians, Brunswickers, etc. in the AWI, opposite Ken Cliffe's excellent All The King's men French.

    I do have experience with both the Prince August Prussians and the AIP French.

    The Prussians require very careful venting and proper metal composition to get quality castings, and do require assembly, but are very nice figures. I just couldn't justify the labor or expense compared to these new HäT figures.

    The AIP French are a bit of a mixed bag. They are advertised for both the FIW and the AWI, which is not correct, they are definitely more SYW/FIW. By now most buyer's of plastics will be aware that certain sacrifices in detail, particularly in undercuts, have to be made for injection molding. However, in my opinion only, AIP has made too many sacrifices. Several of the available figures have large masses of plastic where one might expect an undercut, and the detail on some parts is a bit "dodgy". They are certainly serviceable, but I returned all of mine and replaced them with Ken's previously mentioned ATKM French. I would say this about the AIP casting quality; similar figures from Accurate, Italeri, A Call To Arms and others have had much better detail and have allowed for some undercutting and dimension. So, perhaps the problem is with whomever is cutting AIP's molds? Or it's that they're being sold primarily to the toy market and "playset" collectors, both of whom seem more forgiving of such things?

    Bill

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ralphus3 September 2012 at 02:36

    thanks for that Bill. Interesting insight

    ReplyDelete
  3. Corporal_Trim5 September 2012 at 16:16

    Thanks, Ralphus and Bill.

    Regards,
    Steve

    ReplyDelete