The final Nation I will be looking at this week is the Federated States of America (FSA).
The new release wave for Dystopian Legions from Spartan Games gives them a tactical Wilderness Section and a dangerous looking Heavy Machine Gun
Wilderness Veteran Section
Dangerous and versatile, the Scouts and
Buffalo Hunters are masters of battlefield control. Each of these
stunning models is entirely unique and loaded with personality. The
cautious tracker, the wild warrior and the two experienced hunters are
almost character pieces in their own right. Not forgetting of course the
brand new Hunting Wolves, complete with ammo drums and snarling fangs
and the intricately detail Bear Trap Markers
The packaging for the FSA Wilderness Section keeps to Spartans high standards. Appealing looking boxes that show you and tell you everything you need to know.
The front tells you exactly what you get and shows full colour renders of a Buffalo Hunter and a Timber Wolf. The back has some detail about the section and renders taken directly from all of the models so you can see every little bit of detail.
The Wilderness Section consists of 2 sniper Buffalo Hunters, 2 trapper Scouts and 2 dangerous Timber Wolves. It also includes 4 Bear Trap markers.
They are fairly fast and mobile with the ability to adapt to many different roles on the battlefield.
The full rules can be found in the Downloads area of the
Spartan Games site
In the box you will find 6 metal minis with bases (2 of each type), 4 resin trap markers, 2 blank Activation Cards, 1 Game Card and a DL Collectors card.
Lets take a look at the 4 different types of model separately.
First up are the Bear Traps. These are single piece resin bases with a HUGE amount of detail on.
You can see in the pictures above that every single part of the workings have sharp and clean detailing.
The edges of the bases do have a little extra resin in places which can be removed easily with a file or hobby knife.
The Buffalo Hunters come with 2 very different sculpts. Both are single piece models that stand out from your basic Sections but still keep the same feel.
Loads of detail on them. The clothes, weapons and fur give you lots of different textures to play about with when painting. The casts are quite clean as well. There are some small vents where the air escapes the mould that need to be clipped off but the edges of the models barely have any mould lines at all.
A nice couple of minis in my opinion.
The Timber Wolves are the new additions to the Section they were not in the FSA Starter.
I will admit I got the legs the wrong way around in these pictures, didn't notice until I went to glue them together.
The fur and the ammo canisters together give a very individual look to these models compared to others on the market while tying them into the Section at the same time.
The poses are nice but the casts on these 2 were not the best. The legs have tabs over a bit of the fur that need removing very carefully or it leaves a flat area and the wolf on the left has a thick mould line all the way around that looks like the mould was out of line ever so slightly. I hope this was just bad luck on my part though and others are much cleaner.
The 2 Scouts are the same as the models in the Starter. Very impressive minis though. The poses are dynamic and the sense of movement in the left Scout is just wonderful while the right Scout looks like he is doing exactly that, scouting. I think these are my favourite model in the box.
They have separate arms and a gun that need a little cleaning up with vents and tabs but the main bodies are very clean casts packed full of detail.
Lets put these together.....
The Buffalo Hunters and Traps were simple being single pieces. The Wolves legs fit nicely (when you have them on the correct models) giving them good poses that are easy to base. The front leg on one has a small gap around the edge that will need filling before you paint them.
Although the Scouts look nice, they were not easy to build. The poses mean they really need pinning to the bases and the arms attach at very small points. Pin them or they WILL get knocked off. I am already speaking from experience.
Price - The Wilderness Section can be bought from the
Spartan Games store or local and online retailers like Wayland Games and Troll Trader (links to the right>)
From TT the box costs £17.10. I would work that out to around £2.50 a model plus the resin markers. Good price in my opinion.
Overall - The Wilderness Section looks nice, very nice in fact. The building issues have put me off of them a little bit though. Pinning arms that small is not easy and having to sculpt fur is something many people cant do.
Taking everything into account I will give this box
6 out of 10 Badger Points
The Infantry get some very shooty support in this wave in the form of the
Heavy Machine Gun Team
In a military filled with crank drive
machine guns of all shapes and sizes, perhaps the most widespread, and
widely feared are the .50 Gatling Guns used by the Federal Infantry's
Heavy Machine Gun Teams. This impressively elaborate model perfectly
suits the look and feel of the Federal Infantry. On the battlefield
these .50 Gatling Guns are a deadly supplement to a force. Able to
provide punishing covering fire whilst the F.I.s bring their carbines to
bear, FSA commanders will find this support invaluable
Just because this is a small box does not mean Spartan drop the packaging standards at all.
The front tells you what is inside without having to guess and has a colour render of the HMG while the back tells you a little about the weapon with renders directly from the models to show all of the detail.
The box does say Section AND Section Upgrade. This is because the HMG team can be used in 2 different way.
The first way gives you the option of adding 1 team to an Infantry Section by upgrading 2 troops instead of having a Light Machine Gun. Perfect for a Section that wants to hang back in a defensive position.
If you want your troops storming ahead I would suggest going for option 2.
You can instead take 1-3 HMG teams as a Battalion Support Section and have them on their own. With a good range and lots of attack dice vs Infantry they can cover the rest of your army and thin out the enemy.
The full rules can be found in the Downloads area of the
Spartan Games site
In the box you get 2 crew members and a multi part HMG all in metal. You also have 2 bases, a blank Activation Card and a nice resin ammo box.
I will cover the models for the crew and the weapon separately before building.
The Gunner on the left comes with separate hands. One holding a handle and the other holding a crank.
The Loader on the right is a single piece model ready to insert more ammo clips. Both are carrying more ammo clips on their backs. Nice models with a lot of detail and good poses.The casts are very clean with hardly any vents or mould lines.
The HMG comes in a lot of bits! 2 parts for the tripod, 2 tubes, a generator?, the main gun and 2 ammo clips.
These parts do have a few vents and tabs on them and a couple of little mould lines but they are easy and quick to remove. The details are really nice and the sculpt is impressive. Not easy to see until it is all together though.
Glue time......
The Loader was fairly easy to base. Needed to lean on something while it dried though. The HMG was a different matter.
Sorry Spartan but this thing was an absolute pain in the *** to build! The tripod needed to be bent a little ad the feet didn't all sit flat. The ammo feeds are as straight as I could get them after several tries but have a quite small contact point. If I built another one I would pin them.
The gunner had to be moved a little so his hands lined up straight with the gun. Then there was the tubes! Grr!
I spent ages trying to bend the tubes in the right way to meet the angled joined under the gun barrels and still line up with the 2 holes on the generator piece. In the end they got extra glue and just lined up 'roughly' where they should be instead of in all the correct holes like it is on the back of the box.
I did notice something interesting afterwards though. In the official Spartan picture, they didn't have the tubes in the right places either! They just stick out to the side!
Price - You can get the HMG team from the
Spartan Games store or from local and online retailers like Troll Trader and Wayland Games.
From TT the team costs £8.10. Not a bad price for a big metal weapon and 2 models.
Overall - The HMG team looks nice but was so much trouble to put together I ended up getting annoyed and not liking it at all.
Sorry again Spartan but this model gets a total of
4 out of 10 Badger Points!
What are your thoughts on the FSA releases?
Tomorrow we leave the Nations and take a look at the Battlefield Objectives
Hendybadger awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
