"1/72 Italeri Early Imperial Roman Infantry" Topic

So, I'm currently a part of The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge this year. As my first entry I painted a whole bunch of EIR Romans from Italeri. The sculpts are great. Why don't more people use 1/72 plastics for Ancients gaming?

Bendy plastic means paint flakes off. Some of the plastics are getting better. I believe Italeri invested in a harder bendy plsatic. But the legacy is deeply entrenched. Veteran gamers are already heavily invested in metals, so switching to an entirely new scale, when no one else is, can be tough.

Damon.

I do use 1/72 plastics. As Garand said, Italeri and other brands like Zvezda or Emhar are releasing fairly hard plastic figures (still soft plastic but harder).
I think plastics have many advantages. This forum is great for 1/72: bennosfiguresforum.com

And here you have some of my 1/72 soft plastics and they never flake off if you know how to paint and seal them:

And here in action:

Cheers,

On the other hand….

I have plenty of 1/72nd scale figures, if you undercoat with varnish or diluted PVA and then paint in acrylics and then varnish at the end then they will, with normal handling, retain paint as well as any figures. For years.

Years ago there was an article in MWAN where the author tried various techniques for plastic figures and then tested retention at the end by dropping painted figures from the table and (IIRC) throwing them against the wall. The Paint stayed on! Try doing that with metal figures

As a "veteran gamer" I wish I'd been able to do everything in plastic from the start, but the range of figures available was much more limited back then. These days – great figures from Fantasy to any historical period you can think of. Also some terrible figures, but Plastic Soldier Review can help you avoid those.

And blacksmith beat me to it with the photographic evidence!

Also check here (for example)

link

[Great Figures BTW blacksmith!]

Back in the day I would say that most of us did not know how to prep figures in order for the paint to stay on. Bad experiences get passed on, and nobody wants to paint an army that is not going to stay painted. 1/72 can also offer limited choices (or takes too long to expandlines), so it is easier to go with metal figures in other scales. If I was getting into the hobby today, I would seriously look at the 1/72 option.

Metal is considered more 'collectible' and, as noted above, early figures were of poor quality. Also, in 15mm you can make any army. There still are some gaps in 1/72 Ancients (Spartans anybody) and Napoleonics (early Russian Cavalry).

I have both metals and plastic. Currently painting masses of ACW. They are fine and garnish complements. I have no problem with flaking. I wash, undercoat, paint, and seal with acrylic floor finish.

I like 1/72. I stick with metals mainly because no one in my group paints them for opposing armies. If I want to dispose of an army I can sell painted metal much easier than plastic. A shame really.

Zvezda and 1/72 scale is great to paint but absolutely useless (for me). However, before moving on to smaller scales and sizes, it is possible to get good painting skills by practicing on these cheap 1/72 plastic giants. And washing with Fairy is all you need before painting.
Actually I just want to keep only Zvezda and sell all the other 1/72 unpainted kits in my collection.

Spartans: link

Thanks 20th Maine, but wrong period. Too early. Want the pilos helmet and lighter armor. Available from several 15mm manufacturers.

HAT developed a set but never got to market with it.

Shame about the HaT figures – they got pretty close to release link

Oh well – there are around 2,400 different sets in production at the moment, with about 50-80 new sets a year at the moment link so hopefully someone will do them….eventually

I stopped collecting/painting 1/72s when there were only 300 sets around, so now I'm only 2,100 sets behind now… :-(

It's worse than that – there are some not currently in production but can be bought 2nd hand or may come back around in a year or two. Add another few hundred boxes to that list!