OK. I got 40 Warriors of Apoc delivered in the mail; 20 with shields and 20 with halberds. It just so happens that they were delivered on my birthday!

Unlike HaWior, I decided to build now & paint later. If I painted them before building them, they'd probably sit on my desk for a year or two. I have a lot of projects going right now, including law school.

I started in on the shields today, and I decided to take a break to talk about it on the forums.

Positives:

THEY. LOOK. AWESOME.
There's a huge variety of different pieces.
Warcast is an easy material to work with.
20 per box!

I'm stunned. I remember when I first saw the minis and I was completely blown away by how incredible they looked. Well, they look even better in person. And they look better still once they're put together.

It took me about 5 minutes to get used to working with Warcast. It's great. It's somewhat softer than ordinary resin, but it isn't as soft as the infamous finecast. It is somewhat flexible, but it's nowhere near as flexible as the infamous finecast; nor is it fragile. Cutting into it feels a little different from cutting into other plastics. Due to it's being softer than resin, you won't have nearly as much trouble getting rid of mold lines etc as you would on resin minis. But you can feel a little resistance; you'll need to be deliberate if you want to change the shape of the mini. You won't cut straight through it and slice into some detail on the main body by mistake!

Negatives:

Takes a while to glue.
Not all torsos are sculpted in a way that cleanly fits with all legs.
Only 20 per box!
EDIT: The shield box comes with 20 left arms with shields, but no left arms without. This makes it impossible to build the standard bearer or to use the commander's pointing left hand!

As with all models, some cleaning and prep work is necessary. This is hardly a downside, but with the incredible level of detail, fixing miscast issues is a serious pain. Mold lines, while faint, can disrupt a lot of different surfaces and flashing (which is more resilient than on softer plastics) can be difficult to reach.

It takes much longer than polystyrene plastic for your super glue to set, but less time than metal. You may need to hold it for a moment longer than you initially expect; or use an accelerator.

The shoulder sockets are misleading at first. It appears that the roundness of the socket gives you freedom to pose the mini, but the shoulder pads actually prevent a lot of motion in the arm and force the mini to look forwards.

Initially I thought this was the most problematic part of the whole box: a certain style of legs (the one with the spike in the center of the waist) comes matched with a torso that doesn't really fit with it. (The torso has a belt wrapping around the whole waist, and so do the legs. There's some overlap, including places where buckles need to be shaved down to get a good fit.) This isn't really a huge issue, but having to think about which torsos can match which legs without compromising detail is an unusual problem. I'm used to model kits where I can select a set of legs, and then choose freely from a variety of torsos, rather than having to dry-fit them first. It's especially strange when the two non-fitting pieces are cast together in a pair.

Now I've decided that the most frustrating part of the box (for the shields only, I think) is that there aren't enough pieces to build the standard bearer or to use the commander's pointing left hand. I could build all 20 with shields, but then I'd have command bits left over that I want to use, such as a battle standard. Interestingly, the musician is holding his horn in the right hand, so there's no problem there. He will just have a shield instead of a weapon.

Once built, the models look incredible. I'm honestly disappointed in myself for not ordering more.

Avatars of War has almost single handedly propelled my interest in fantasy wargaming. This kit makes me want an entire army of at least 80 Warriors of Apoc (WoA) minis + characters.

Here's hoping for some artillery and mounted minis!

Also, I'm really excited for Dwarf Warbears, but that's another topic altogether.

Thomas, thank you very much for your nice words, I am really happy you like the minis

Smylodon
Ignasi

Still waiting on mine.

Should I expect an email saying my order shipped or do I just have to hope and pray?

Its been a while since I paid on Feb 1st!

A week ago, I e-mailed Johanna at info@avatars-of-war.com and she gave me a tracking number! I ordered mine on February 8, but my post office was pretty darn quick.

Hope that helps.

P.S. @ Felix/Ignasi

Once you've created some back-stock, you should consider offering a bitz-order service.

I paid mine on January 30 and received them last Monday, so yours should definitely be on their way.

Not wanting to hijack Toxicmushroom's thread, I'd just like to briefly chip in with a couple of short reflections of my own:

I am truly allergic to mold lines, so I was very happy to see that while there are such on most pieces, these are about the thinnest I've seen; these are the miniatures with which I've spent the least amount of time on removing mold lines. A big thumbs up for this

I suspect the halberds are the same as the great weapons I ordered in that the posing should be simpler than with most two-handed weapon wielding multipart kits, because of the lower hand being socketed. This will let you rotate the shaft of the business end of the weapon, which should enable a more varied set of possible poses compared to kits where the entire weapon shaft (with sculpted hands) is in one piece.

The banner wielding hand, unfortunately, isn't socketed. I have yet to reach that point of my assembly, but I dread having to figure out how to complete the banner bearer without the banner pole coming loose from the hand all the time. Hopefully, these concerns are unfounded though

I'm happy to have you add to the discussion. After all, what are forums for?

Also, I'm sorry for your allergies.

Just received mines, and like you said, they are awesome ! Totally worth waiting !
There are no bubbles, no mouldlines and and no "damage mould .. things".

Just one thing i dont like: the weapons are imho waaaaay to thick ... just like the dwarves's... i guess that is the AoW style...

And i totally agree on Bitz, the bare head really are something !

I have started painting and converting, i will post pictures if i can manage to take some decent ones..

I've encountered an interesting problem and I've updated the "negatives" list in my OP to account for it.

Felix, how are you planning on handling this issue?

TM

I ordered mine on Feb 2...and my regiment was sent to me only 2 days ago -_- I am VERY angry, AoW. Now i have to wait about a month (yeah, there are only slowpokes in russian post office).

Wow,

Just checked, and you are totally right about this problem with the shields box, we should be packing three extra left arms into shields box!

One for the banner, one for the pointing hand and one for the musician.

We will ship three loose arms to all those who have already received shields box, and of course we'll pack upcoming ones with three extra left arms.

Thanks so much for pointing that problem out!

About the instrument, if you look closely you'll see it is a left hand, he's just holding it with the palm of the left hand facing upwards.

Thats a very fine thing.

Cool, thanks for the review guys!

Mine got sent about a week and a bit ago I think, I got a tracking email. Very keen for them to arrive, and I agree that I am disappoited I didn't order more.

I received my 20 with halberds, and when people say they look much better in person than in the photos... Wow! They really mean it! Very Very impressive amount of detail! So sad I didn't buy a bunch more.
The box they came in was torn open and inspected by Australian Quarantine, you must send suspicious looking packages Felix! Glad everything was in little bags to keep it all safe. I also quite like the way the two handed weapons will fit together, should definitely be better than when both hands are attached to the weapon already.

Only problem is I seem to only have 16 halberds in my kit instead of 20. 3 models will be command so they're ok, but that will leave one poor warrior without a weapon.

Edit: Ok I have just checked and there is another problem. The lower hands holding the bottom part of the halberd, I do have 20 of them but 13 are left handed and only 7 are right handed, compared to 8 and 8 for the main part of the halberds. So I can only assemble 7 with right hand at the bottom of the weapon, and 8 with left hand at the bottom when there should be 10 of each...

Just for reference, strewart:

I have 8 halberds with the left hand forward (2 different styles) and 12 halberds with the right hand forward (3 styles). I assume this 12/8 ratio is correct. Where you have a 13/7 ratio of left/right for the lower hands, I have a 12/8 ratio, which will work perfectly for my kit. A picture for you:


IMG088 by scaryscarymushroom, on Flickr

I apologize for the shadow. My painting desk isn't well set up for photos.

Also, @ Felix: I have 25 shield arms in my box instead of 20. I just thought you should know.

And finally, some interesting pictures of a part in the command section part of my halberds box.


IMG086 by scaryscarymushroom, on Flickr


IMG085 by scaryscarymushroom, on Flickr


IMG084 by scaryscarymushroom, on Flickr


IMG083 by scaryscarymushroom, on Flickr

They don't bother me. Skins sometimes have tears in them anyway, and the fur on the other side masks the holes really well. I imagine other people might want to fill in the holes though. (Some might even ask for a replacement bit.)

Ok thanks for that, so maybe there shouldn't be 10 and 10. However, I am still missing a few halberds and the ratio won't work for the pieces I have. I'll get in contact with Felix.

What are you planning to do with that command piece by the way? I thought it would make a very impressive cloak, however, not sure if it will fit on a model. Banner piece maybe? It looks so cool I definitely want to use it for something!