From Russia with a choppa'.

  I picked up a set of Zvezda's Orcs a while back and thought I'd post a few quick thoughts on the models.

  This set is by no means new, I'd guess they've been on the market since early 2000's. Around these parts they aren't normally seen on the shelves of gaming stores. Zvezda is more of a model company, producing some excellent WWII kits etc and as far as I can tell has inherited a lot of the Italeri lines and maintains some sort of distribution partnership between the two companies. So I normally see/saw them in model shops and frequently in discount bins. Of course by the time I decided I needed a box they had pretty much disappeared.

  I was really hoping the set would come with lots of extra bits, heads and arms and that sort of stuff.  Sadly I was a little disappointed.  There's just enough heads and arms to make 21 orcs, one of which is a lady orc which is a nice touch. It does have plenty of weapons and shields and a few pouches and trophy heads which is also nice.
  The models are made from hard plastic which is to be expected from a model company. That doesn't bother me any but I read some complaints about that. The models have plenty of detail but the detail is soft and fades out which makes painting a bare.
 

  I've had these four knocked out for a while and although I like the models they were not very fun to paint.  The lack of defined details is a drag and had me painting in imaginary details to make up for the lack of it, if that makes sense.  The results are nice but I'm not particularly looking forward to finishing the rest any time soon.

 I'd read these guys are large and some even claim they are ogre sized.  There is certainly truth to that. They tower over the old 80's orcs and are a bit taller then Olley's black orcs. Aesthetically they are different then most of Citadels stuff but that's what attracted me to them as I'm hoping to use them as Big Uns in a non-Citadel orc army I'm working on.

  They are definitely as tall as the old ogres but are no substitute in my opinion. They just wouldn't fill out a 40mm base very well.  Which reminds me, these guys come with 20mm bases which is a bit absurd. Mine are on proper 25mm bases and should rank up fine, 20mm would be impossible.

So that's it.  I think they are nice models but not as exciting as I was hoping they would be. If you can pick them up at a discount price say 20 dollars or so I think they're worth it but I wouldn't pay much more then that.


Time to get back to my Orcs of the ash wastes project.
Orcyboy (Tartar Sauce)-