"Wargames Factory WSS Infantry Review" Topic

I just bought 4 boxes of Wargames Factory WSS Infantry and posted a detailed review here: link

There are also detailed sprue shots and an expalantion of what you get on each sprue.

I concur with your review. I am in the process of putting together two boxes for my initial units for our next club's project. The options are excellent. I've not started painting them yet….so I cannot comment on that. As to the neck issue….that's what a file is for if it bothers someone. Great value….good quality to get into an new era

You got it right. Nice figs Great price!
I have some 5 boxes waiting my attention, did paint up a test unit first.

Very nicely painted figures!

Nice balanced review. I've always thought they looked pretty good. Certainly a great value.

D6 junkie

Very nicely done! I should only hope that my Brits turn out as good!

From WargamingAddict's welcome review:

I can see the eyes are a little bulging on these figures, and will require a little careful painting not to look like they are frogs.

This "eye" thing was hashed over, at great length, a couple of years ago at the WF WSS forums. Consensus was the eyes are sculpted to depict a partial "squint" and the lids are sculpted a bit too heavily. This gives the "frog" image when gamers paint the whole socket white which gives that common bug-eyed toy soldier look anyway.

Take a real close look at the photos on the box. Study closely "Austria: Jorger de Tller" painted by Andres Amian Fernandez, excellent. That was the sculptor's intent I feel certain. Study people's eyes, that (Fernandez' "squint") is what most of them look like from more than a few feet.

I give my 28mm a brown eyebrow and a slight shadow, that's the appearance from a distance. The whites and pupils are just extra work and usually look bad. The complaints about "frog (or Minoan) eyes is a result of painters misinterpreting the heavy lids as a huge round socket.

Cheers,

I agree with Cheriton – The Fernandez face was what I was going to emulate. Faces look absolutely fine when painted like that.

I am quite fond of them .I add a lot of extra hair on the officers

Love that officer diorama!

Hair extended with miliput/green stuff?

(NOTE – deleted duplicate post above)

Thank you for that excellent review. I have been looking at these for quite a while, and it might just be my next project. I have a hunkering to some Imagi-nation skirmish action, and a box of these would do it up nicely…

great review, i have a couple of boxes and still to paint them up but they look good, still not sure what to do with them, may well go down the imagi-nation road myself.

I can concur on these with all above, all said and done as a plastic product they are if not built with enthusiasm, you going to get a 3 out of 5 stars product .But if your willing to invest a bit of time very good value for money, am 1/2 way through about 12 units of infantry and 5 cavalry for the right flank of the French at Blendheim ( using Maurice rule stands as the base for the build up. These are actually one of the rare gems in the period if you want to get into this fairly cheaply , the bulging eye thing was easily fixed by me, I used a sharp tip blade and using the point dug into the eye bulge "ouch" and a slight leavening across to create eyelids,this makes a eye slit across like so , (|) < seen sideways when you paint and then wash the eyes the slit becomes the actual eye,this has worked out perfectly for me with no bulging egg eyes anywhere. (remember to do this before you take the heads off the spruce) the only main gripe I have with the range is the horses not having bases but is easily if laboriously fixed. These figures also paint pretty nicely for historical and as imagi-nation types too. Happy gaming all. Cheers

I too am painting loads of these guys, and love the variety of postures possible on some of the figures.
One downer is the figures are all with the side ammunition pouch which only suits the French till 1702 or soon thereafter, when they adopted the ventral cartridge box.

As for the cavalry…they forgot to provide a crossbelted body for British and Dutch cavalry!

Sigh! – still got loads of 'em though!

You guys paint eyes? I am impressed.

I don't paint eyes anymore .Hair is cut off bits of sprue , glued on and sculpted with a pyrograuve. I find the cords from the colours pole quite useful.
I didn't do anything about the eyes or the neck.

Cardinal Hawkwood still has one of those mystical tools called a pyrograuve. I envy him that luxury, because he gets amazing results.

I have had it for a while, I think I bought the last one in stock from Historex aganet back in the mid 90s.Damn useful for plastics when you have lots of bits of sprue.
They stille seem to be around in one form or anther for working in wood. mine looks like

if you could get one you could do this, which is sort of what I do
link

Cardinal Hawkwood, I think you got one of the last working ones that Historex sold. :^)!

The muskets look very thin. Do we see much breakage?

No, why? You might fault WGF's early CAD sculpting (cough – inverted swordbelts – cough), but they seem to have gotten their plastic mix just right. I've had more broken bayonets from leading metal manufacturers who shall remain nameless.

Sure – just give them the heads with the floppy hats rather than the tricornes. That is the main difference; depending on year and nationality, there may have been minor ones as well in the cut of the coat, the length of the sleeves or similar, but with floppy hats nobody is going to gainsay you if you field them for the Nine Years War. Uniform data are harder to come by the earlier the period though.

Note that the infantry hangers are cast the wrong way round (one of WGF's teething problems). My solution is to cut off the grip and guard, and fit the scabbard onto the figure so that it sticks out from under the left forearm.

In many ways the Wargames Factory WSS infantry kit is brilliant. Each sprue has only three bodies in march (or standing) pose. Two of the bodies only require a head. The third can be another musketeer, or a pikeman, drummer, officer or standard bearer. The sprue contains 15 head options. The box is an excellent option to use for WSS infantry. They paint up quickly, are easy to assemble, and require very little clean up. I am not sure I like the cavalry nearly as much, although to be fair I have not tried to assemble any.

With the recent closing of Wargames Factory webstore it appears in the future we will have to depend on these being re-released by Warlord Games.

By coincidence I just found this (old) blog yesterday while figure-surfing:
link

Including a WF WSS figure review:
link