"Italeri 1/72 British Zulu Infantry - Not Impressed" Topic

This weekend, I bought a box of Italeri #6050 British Infantry for the Zulu Wars 1879. According to Plastic Soldier Review, these are the old Esci figures with a smaller sprue, giving us only 40 figures. You can read PSR's review of the original Esci set here.
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My advice is to avoid his set, unless you want to spend a lot of time cleaning up the abundant flash and mold lines. Even the sprues have flash all over them--never a good sign. Clearly, the molds have worn out. This is a shame because the figures look nice with good detail. Not all poses are useful for gaming, but at .28 a figure I'm not complaining because I can use them for little diorama scenes or something.

Right now, I'm not sure if I will continue with plastics. Cleaning mold lines and flash is a . (I tried the hot pin method but can't handle plastic fumes.) I love 1/72, finding it to be almost the perfect scale for gaming: small enough to paint easily with many figures on the table, cheap enough, and large enough for good detail. We'll see how it goes.

I'd suggest trying some other approaches first – HaT figures, getting the old Esci set (which did not suffer the problems you describe) – might be a bit more pricey. If you got the italeri figures in a store try seeing if they'll exchange – you may have just got a bad box. I've always found Italeri very good (but I haven't bought this particular set).

But, if it were your favourite figure size would you give up totally on 28mm if you spent £5.00 GBP on figures and they were no good ?

29thmaine, I understand your point exactly about the cost. After working with these figures all night, I'll go with 28mm. I figure I can use these figures as unpainted stand-ins while I paint the 25s. I might just buy the painted Zulus from Old Glory.

You do know that HAT will be releasing Zulu's. Also, There are two other 1/72 Zulu sets in plastic already.

Thanks,

John

As John has stated, HAT are producing their own British infantry set, along with other Zulu war sets.
You may have had a bum set, Italeri are not normally prone to flash.

Besides the coming HaT set, Call to Arms also produces a very nice set of plastic 1/72 Zulus.

Only this morning I was cleaning up some of Italeri's WW2 8th Army figures (likewise ex-Esci) and thinking how easy they were to clean compared to other plastics – almost no flash and what there was could be trimmed with sharp scalpel. Sounds like you are experiencing plastic pain. Remember it's a hobby and you should be enjoying it. If plastic figures are breaking your balls then buy lead – the old Ral Partha figures are pretty darn cheap and scale closely with plastics. Or 15mm figs are a similar price to 1/72.

I've purchased over 30 boxes of Italeri items and never had a problem with flash or mold lines, so I suspect you may have gotten a bad box.

I'd second the classic Ral Partha Colonials if you intend to give up on 1/72. They were some of my first colonial miniatures, after seeing them on the Major General's site.

Actually, the Partha Colonials are the exact same size as my Waterloo 1815 Sudan figs. they are even about the same heft. Partha should fit in with newer plastics.

Thanks,

John

Bob,

Have your tried the Wargames Factory (or Foundry or whatever their confusing name is) Zulu British? They're the plastic ones that come, say, 20 to a $15 USD box?

Daron

Daron, good point. For some reason, I forgot about them. Allen says he can assemble a couple boxes for me.

Maybe I got a dud box.

I would echo other comments about Italieri usually not having mold lines of significance.

That said, the figures from Zvezda and Caesar Miniatures are always first class! Sadly neither does the Zulu period but the ones they do do are great.

CPBelt, I feel your pain. I too had a box of the these with some bad flash. I got the "vintage" Esci box on E-bay as these were some of the first figures I picked up when junior war gamer and I was in the grip of nostalgia and in need of some figures on the cheep. The ones I had in long ago were and off tan "pith helmet" sort of color where the new box was done in an olive green plastic. As I recall the first box was quite clean. The ones I have just been working on had some epic flash in places along with a miscast bayonet.

Now then, that being said they paint up quite well. I spent the same time, or less, as I would have spent cleaning metal figures and far less than I would have spent building multi part plastics. I have had to learn how to work with the soft plastic, but I have found it worth while. The detail and proportions are just great. I may be a 20mm convert after all. I have just used base coat and dip and they really look great to my eyes.