"Ring of Rule miniatures" Topic

Greetinga and salutations to all
Browsing on TMP I followed some linx to Zveda's Ring of Rule minis site

I assume these are 1/72

Has anyone bought/seen/painted these?

Are they any good?

I'd be keen to grab a bunch, but wondered if anyone had ventured to buy some previously…if so..any comments?

Cheers!
Stevo

I've picked up some of them (specifically, the Undead Legion, Royal Infantry and Cavalry, Undead Cavalry, Orcs, Necromancers and Troll). They are 25/28mm and fit well with GW figures. Nice figures but lots of detail (and work) to put together.

The Ring of Rule figures are 28mm figures.

They do make 1/72 historical figures for the Age of Battles game.

The castles that come with the Ring of Rule figures are the same castles they sell as 1/72 scale.

I have bought some of the Ring of Rule figures. I like them mostly. The ork cavalry ride Aurochs, which are huge. (I never did like the boars as mounts in Warhammer.. ) I have 2 sets of ork cavalry, infantry and trolls, and one chieftan and shaman. (I don't think they will be assembled anytime soon, but the recent sale at squadron was quite good.) I also have the Siege of the Royal Fortress set and some undead Romans..

One thing that is very different from other gaming miniatures is the number of pieces each figure comes in. The cursed legion (Skeletal Romans) have seperate feet, legs, hands, arms, heads, very small details to be added.

I don't have any pictures of painted or assembled figures, as I have not assembled any yet. If you want pictures of the sprues I can try to take some later tonight and post them.

Pendekar

Stevo, they are NOT 1/72nd. They are 28 to 30 mm figs just like Warhammer. That said, the Orcs are huge. They are more the size of Ogres. I love the kits. The Skeletons are very fiddy. lots of parts to a single figure I think the skeletons average about 12 or more pieces each. They are very small parts too. However it alows for a great deal of customization. The Orcs are not as fiddly to assemble as the Skellies, but again lots of options. Since they are so large, I am mounting mine on 40mm bases and using them as an ogre army. The Dragons are nice enough kits but I dont care for them as much. they look a little too "toylike" to me. I am happy with the ones I have, but I wont buy anymore Zvezda Dragons. I have seen scans of the Elves and flying Elf cavalry and would love to get my paws on some, but I have to wait till I get some more cash. I should also mention that these kits are hard styrene plastic like most GW figs and plastic models, not the soft stuff.

Anyway I hope that answered some of your questions. let me know if you have any others.

Cheers
GeorgeD

Well if you are interested I have taken a picture of Zvezda Troll, Orc and Auroch alongside a GW Ork, Brettonian Bowman, Boar, and Horse.

The picture is not good, and the shelf is not straight due to the heavy books. Also the troll and auroch are not completed, but at least you can tell the size.

picture

I do not have any of thehuman figures put together, but they are closer to GW figure size than the orcs are.

Hope this helps.

Pendekar

So.. would the castle that are listed with these work with the GW Lord of the Rings figures?

..and Pendekar… is the GW horse pink and carosel like? or is my monitor acting funky?

lol @ GW Pony

I don't like the Zvezda elves; they're ugly and in silly poses. The zombies are also disapointing and not as large as the GW ones. The Roman skellies are fiddly as previously said and are a bit shorter than the GW Tomb Kings but are fantastic when glued up and painted. On the whole I'm a big fan of the Zvezda 28mm stuff as you get more for much less than GW charge. Even if the sculpts are a bit rough sometimes they should be supported and encouraged; GW need the competition.

The Squadron shop is always having HUGE discounts on these figures.

Yes; I ordered a bunch of orcs for a song recently.

I am still snarked about the Imperial infantry dudes' swords though – it is almost impossible to line up the hilt of the sword and glue it in place with the hand/hilt piece – and when you do, it falls off shortly anyway.

The sculpting on the Orcs is sort of mushy and crude (I think they were the first to come out). The humans are nice useful medieval-looking fantasy types. The zombies are not great, but okay for a shambling horde.

The Elf spearmen are decent, but the Elf archers are extremely fiddly to get together— the main problem is that the hair comes in two tiny pieces, right and left, which you need to clamp onto the head— it's very difficult to get it to look good. I gave up in frustration in the end.

Here are some of my painted examples:
link

I started to paint some Cursed Legion undead romans, just as a 'divertimento' -with no real intention to play them. They're certainly not the easiest kit to build, due to a excessive number of small parts for each legionary, but once the job is finished the look pretty good. I'm still in the job of painting them since a lot of time ago -I'm not in any hurry to finish them. But I'm really enjoying it.

Here you are some painted examples (sorry, my camera did its best):

picture

picture

Warmly recommended if you are fond of model assembling.

Cheers,

Lluís (Catalonia, Spain)

"..and Pendekar… is the GW horse pink and carosel like? or is my monitor acting funky?"

"lol @ GW Pony"

Yes it is pink and flowery.

My wife painted it. Isn't that how horses are supposed to look?

:)

Pendekar

Just curious. Who belongs on that GE horse and how do they look?

Hi Guys,

I have recently purchased some of these figures.

Here are my takes on them:

ALL Zvezda RING OF RULE figures:
- Come in umpty zillion pieces and are very FIDDLY to build.
- Average GW figure: 5 pieces (head, 2 arms, upper torso, lower torso with legs & feet)
- Average Zvezda figure: 10+ pieces (head, upper torso, lower torso, 2 feer, 2 arms, 2 hands, separate weapons that must be glued onto hands, sometimes seprate clothing or armor items to glue onto model body).
- Zvezda only gives just enough heads and bodies unlike GW which always gives you extra variant heads.
- Zvezda kits do give lots of extra arms though, even if those arms are much slighter in size than GW Popeye arms.

ROYAL ARMY (Humans):
- Cavalry horses are much smaller than GW Empire = probably true 25mm as opposed to the super-ginormous 28mm that GW uses.
- The 25mm infantryman have a serious problem: They have no belly or midriff! It's like their upper torsos were cut off ibetween the belt and the rib cage. No bellies! I'm going to cut some 1/8" dowel to fit inbetween and quickly putty it.
- While the Royal infantrymen have comparable lower bodies that swap out with GW pieces easily, the arms and upper body are scaled smaller and more petite… at true 25mm.

CURSED LEGIONS (Skeletal Romans):
- Very need kits.
- Look better than other kits since body parts are scaled similarly (Don't suffer from the missing midrif problem of the Royal Infantry).
- The skeletal horses are simlpy regualr horses with scary amor. They're not zombified or skeletal.
- The figures are smaller than the last editionof WHFB's skeletal warriros and are very similarly scaled to the latest GW undead releases. The new GW plastic undead kits mix well with the Zvezda skelly kits. The older GW skellies don't mix as well.

ZOMBIES:
- Haven't seen these.

ELVES:
- Haven't seen these.
- The Elf warriors ride pegasusi model and have a sorceress leader who rides an aerial swan boat.

ORCS:
- Bigger than GW Orcs.
- They don't ride boars, they ride giant "Auroch" bulls, that are way too large to crowd onto a standard 25mmx50mm cavalry rectangle base.
- Neat kits although their weapons are less massive than their GW WHFB brethren.
- I've found that the Zvezda orc parts swap out pretty well with GW orc parts.

ARTILLERY:
- All of the fantasy artillery kits come with standard infantry sprues that need heavy customization to become artillery crew. You have to actually glue rocks into their hands for the catapults or javelins into their hands for their ballista. VERY FIDDLY!

TROLL:
- Good tough kit. Probably works better as a giant for WHFB.

DRAGON:
- Great tough kit. Like other Zvezda kits, requires a bit of modeling skill to fill in seam lines and properly assemble. I use poster tack to keep pieces together while glueing. It helps.

=======

OVERALL PROGNOSIS:
I like the Zvezda kits, but GW plastic kits still have much better quality. Zvezda's parts are also much more FIDDLY and less uited to ham-fisted gamers who drop and break everything given the opportunity.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
6mm-minis.blogspot.com

The Pelennor fields' battle report I posted here last April has a link to my Microsoft "Spaces" page. Here it is again:

shawnzeppis.spaces.live.com

The pictures I uploaded there show what the contents of 3 sets of the Ring of Rule Fantasy Fortress will get you (for the fortress parts only) assembled and painted. You can also see some good pics of the catapults and the dragon (used as a Nazgul mount).

I did not bother with the assembly of the human or skeleton figures, but bought the sets for the castle and the siege pieces.

The catapults, dragons, and fortress walls and towers were fun and easy to assemble, they were by no means "fiddly", but GW products are of a higher quality and fit up better. Also, they are thicker, which allows for more surface contouring. This extra thickness controls the molds better, which I think accounts for the easier fit up, e.g. the molded pieces dont warp as much.

I agree that the skeletons and humans (but especially the "cursed legion") would be very difficulty to assemble (maybe not worth it). There was a post here several months back on this topic, and someone recommended using the skeletons as casualties, which I think is an excellent use for them.

I find that the fortress is a lot closer to 25 mm than 28 mm. All my figures are of the older 25 mm (or 1:72) scale.