Benno's Figures Forum

Posted by **elendir** on 02 Sep 2009, 22:40

sorry to bother everyone with yet another review of a review, but i've got to pull this out of my chest.
First point: maths. 7 poses for 7 figures = 100%. Since when 100% in a scale from 1 to 10 = 8??
Second: sculpting. Ok it's personal, but how can you give this set less than 10 is a mystery. When i opened the box, after a good 10 sec of pure jaw dropping the first thought crossing my mind was how on earth am I going to paint it! The detail is absolutely stunning (alex, i've no idea how you can model those facial and hair details!)
Pose quality 9? What else can you expect from a set? You've got archers actually shooting properly, even behind! Yes there is lots of work in this set, but it's a collector set not one that you buy just to fill the back rows of your army.
This set is just a delight to look at.
By the way, i truly admire psr and i am very grateful for their fantastic efforts.

Posted by **Maurice** on 03 Sep 2009, 08:24

The separate weapons make this set quite hard work, which can spoil some otherwise great figures. Mounting the horses on the bases also adds to the amount of work that most will be faced with to make use of this set, which will limit its appeal, but if you are prepared to invest the time and patience then you will have some really nice and exotic models on your hands.

This is why I guess :roll:

Posted by **je_touche** on 03 Sep 2009, 12:06

I suggest not to read PSR as the gospel. His (!, this is one single man actually, forgot the name) reviews are more often than not rather erratic, to say the least.

I agree as to pose numbers. This should be a clear 10. Re sculpting, every single sculpt of Alex's would deserve a ten as compared to the produce of most manufacturers. But the amount of detail is not the only criterion for sculpting. What lets this set a bit down in my opinion are the horse sculptures and poses. But that's me, and I won't enter into a discussion about horse anatomy again, I did it when Alex first posted his masters.

Re the necessity to fix and glue seperate parts, that is completely hilarious. In order to achieve natural poses you very often have to have seperate parts, that should present no problem at all and should not be a reason for giving a lower rating.

Posted by **Paul** on 03 Sep 2009, 16:20

je_touche wrote:I suggest not to read PSR as the gospel. His (!, this is one single man actually, forgot the name) reviews are more often than not rather erratic, to say the least.

I agree as to pose numbers. This should be a clear 10. Re sculpting, every single sculpt of Alex's would deserve a ten as compared to the produce of most manufacturers. But the amount of detail is not the only criterion for sculpting. What lets this set a bit down in my opinion are the horse sculptures and poses. But that's me, and I won't enter into a discussion about horse anatomy again, I did it when Alex first posted his masters.

Re the necessity to fix and glue seperate parts, that is completely hilarious. In order to achieve natural poses you very often have to have seperate parts, that should present no problem at all and should not be a reason for giving a lower rating.

Posted by **Benno** on 03 Sep 2009, 21:11

"they're more like guidelines" :pirat:

Posted by **Peter** on 03 Sep 2009, 21:22

Don't look at those ratings. Like Benno said use them as a guideline and not as the gospel (like je_touche said).
I usely use PSR to have a good look at the figures. It mostly helps when you want to buy a certain set yes or no, to have a view over there.

Oh and elendir put those figures up when you've painted them. You make me curious ;-)

Greetings Peter

Posted by **Susofrick** on 04 Sep 2009, 07:29

I look (and drool) at the pics and read the comments, but I make up my own mind if I want to buy the figures (pretty easy, not many available in my town and I don't buy much on the net). :-D

He (Dave something I think) makes a tremendous job only buy showing all those sets. :thumbup:

Posted by **je_touche** on 04 Sep 2009, 09:06

Susofrick wrote:He (Dave something I think) makes a tremendous job only buy showing all those sets.

I fully agree, and that cannot be too much appriciated. I would not have the guts to comment on military history from 5,000 B.C. to our day, noone can cover that sort of subject matter single-handedly, so I still wonder how Mr. PSR is able to collect all that information, but I don't wonder his elucidations are somewhat shaky occasionally. :roll:

Posted by **Susofrick** on 04 Sep 2009, 09:59

Dave Keen is the name and here's his site: http://davekeen.com/

Posted by **miniaturezone** on 04 Sep 2009, 12:10

PSR is a tremendous (and free) resource and the guy's put a lot huge amount of effort and time into the website, and at the end of the day the reviews are one man's opinion.

I often agree and also often don't with the reviews I've seen, but just the fact that you get pictures of new sets, and information on the number of poses etc., is of great benefit.

Posted by **Wheeling Turn** on 04 Sep 2009, 12:42

PSR is one of my favourite sites.
I buy the models mostly because of the pictures they post.
The review is sometimes my opinion sometimes not, mostly i lie between.
I think why they give an 8 in poses is because of the horses (only 3 poses).
cheers markus

Posted by **elendir** on 04 Sep 2009, 13:31

I feel I owe PSR an apology. I've written my post straight after reading the review, without much of a reflection.
As other members have pointed out, there are actually reasons that can lead to PSR conclusions (i.e. I haven't included the horses count

).
I still would give a 10++ for sculpting :thumbup:

@ Peter
I hope patience is one of your virtues. Based on my painting speed and the long queue of unpainted figures I positively predict my first cuman appearing by 2012... ;-)

Thanks everyone for the comments

Posted by **Paul** on 04 Sep 2009, 13:40

Benno wrote:
"they're more like guidelines"

Posted by **Valdemar** on 04 Sep 2009, 15:20

Well I think that PSR does a great job. They are generally giving us straight tens and naturally we are happy for this, but it is their critic which makes us better ;0)

Best regards
Valdemar

Posted by **holger** on 04 Sep 2009, 16:35

Hi Valdemar,

you better don't read the childish discussion on the strelets forum about your cuman set...

Posted by **Alex** on 04 Sep 2009, 22:00

Yes, the small stone can cause an avalanche!
Thanks you, colleagues who tried to raise our rating.
But I too wish to tell that is grateful to mister Dave Keen
For huge and very qualitative work and that it forces us to be even better. :cheers:

Posted by **Valdemar** on 05 Sep 2009, 11:21

Well saw the discussion at Strelets-R and no probelms there. Their customers likes large set in blue, red or yellow plastic and the sculpturing is rather bad or at least lacks details...

In mind mind no match to what Alex and I do...

Best regards
Valdemar

Posted by **Paul** on 05 Sep 2009, 11:38

Valdemar wrote:
In mind mind no match to what Alex and I do...

Best regards
Valdemar

agreed, the mass produced can never keep up (in standard) with works of art like yours (in my opinion):thumbup: The discussion (I just looked) has the usual contributors putting in their "two pence worth". If they could produce figures themselves up to your standard (doubtfull) then they would have some room to moan, and also if they ran a comparable site to that of PSR, the same argument would apply.