Unboxing: Wargames Factory Samurai

The third installment of my "unboxing" series on Wargames Factory's "Rising Sun" range of 28mm 16th Century Japanese miniatures.

This time I'm looking at the "Samurai" boxed set.

Once again, we have in our hands a box containing 25 detailed miniatures on 5 neatly stacking sprues.

On the sprues themselves, we have a lot to choose from: there are 10 heads, for a start. The troops can be built in a number of different ways - either armed with Yari (spears), Katanas (swords) or Katana and Wakizashi (smaller swords as a second hand weapon). In addition, there are six body types on each sprue (though only five pairs of legs), one of which has a flowing cloak and could be used to denote a commander model.

There are a number of optional helmet-crests which can be added for decoration or left off, as well as the usual Sashimono (personal banners) which can be added or not.

I've not built any of these models yet, but it's clear that some great degree of thought has gone into the build process. Each arm ends with a sort of "Nail-head" shaped pin which gets enclosed by the body - this means it's going to be virtually impossible to have an arm that ever falls off (unless actually broken). It should also assist in posing the model when the glue is still wet meaning you don't need three hands with seven fingers each to hold everything together.

A note about scale: all of these Wargames Factory models will stand smaller than a Citadel model which purports to be the same scale, 28mm. Now that doesn't bother me (as far as I'm concerned base size is key, height is less important) but you may want to bear it in mind.

Again, at 25 models for around £16.00, these look like great value for money to me.