Wargames Factory Orcs: First Impressions

I got these guys yesterday. On sale over the Thanksgiving holiday, with shipping, it was 50% off for 24 build-it-yourself orcs. Not bad.





The pros:

- lots of heads! 7 different heads I can use, with different features, so I can make them all GW-y or LOTR-y or something different.

- arms to hold weapons, not arms holding weapons. This means I have two polearms, a flail, a bow, four swords, and two axes per sprue, x8, minus the ones I use. So I have a lot of weapons I could use for other minis or as battlefield litter.

- Only two shields, though, per sprue, and one is a moon-shaped one it would be suicide to carry. So I'll need to dig into my bits box for shields.

The cons:

- 8 sprues, all alike. Three legs, three torsos. The box says "reversible torsos" but I can't see what they mean - the "front" looks clear to me on them. Maybe that'll change as I assemble them.

- No bases. Okay, That's fine, I have a lot of GW bases I can use. But bases would have been nice. They have an integral base, much like old Airfix 1/72 scale soldiers do, but my experience is bases like that tip a lot in play.

- Very open hand grips on the hands, so the hands don't look like they'll close around weapons. A bit more "C" and less "U" would have been nice.


Overall, I feel like I got a good deal here, and I am happy to expand my orc collection by 24. That I can easily add, say, 8 archers or some more flail users or - combined with bits from my various GW sets - maces, hammers, etc. is a good thing. I think I can get these guys assembled pretty quickly, or at least most of them (I might leave a few in pieces in case I need a custom mini later). Then I'll quickly paint them up to my tabletop standard and deploy them.

I'm glad I got these, so far, and I'll post more pictures as they come together. It's not like there is any surprise value in my DF game to orcs, or that my players would be worried. They already know I've got piles of orcs. This just adds some variety to my orcs!