Sunday, January 12, 2014

MichaelF: 28mm Winter War Finnish (108 points)


MichaelF sends his first mainstream entry with these two fine squads of 'Winter War' Fins. 

From Michael:
Winter War Finnish.
For this years challenge I took the opportunity to get some unfinished work done. Inspired by the fun we have playing Chain of Command I started with these Finnish rifleman from the Baker Company Kickstarter.
I did about half a platoon a few years back using Brigade games and  Battle Honors figures so I was overly excited when this Baker Kickstarter arrived on the scene. Eager to get my platoon to strength I backed for a finnish platoon deal and hoped for the best. Especially when Baker company announced it would catch up to modern standards since their current range was outdated and not compatible to the current standard of miniatures. Unfortunately it didn't turn out exactly how I wished for.
Now while I'm typing this Samuli just posted his Finnish Rifleman and I fully agree with his opinion on the figures. Baker has been a victim of success and he started sculpting, producing and shipping thousands and thousands of figures like a madman. And yes, I do appreciate the energy and enthusiasm he puts into it but I feel he just forgot his first goal as I have understood it: Get Baker Company on the map again with fine quality modern figures.
So it became a rush job and you notice it immediately.  Flash everywhere, some weird faces and a couple of odd figures. A detailed inspection does not make you much happier. 
But…
I decided to paint up a few and see how they turned out. I took them to my friends here for a final test (they are waiting for their Russians now) if I would continue with them. Well, obviously we found them good enough to give them a paint and have a few games. I was lucky I painted the other half of the platoon in a heavy mud look so I could throw all sorts of brown on those as well which helps camouflaging things.
In the end I'm happy how they turned out and I look forward receiving the extras for this kickstarter because for 60£ you get a lot, and I mean a lot, of extras. Only that, and all the hardware you will get makes the Kickstarter worthwhile to me. I just hope Baker learned from this journey and sorts thing out when he starts his next Kickstarter. We know he can sculpt well because there are good quality figures with these as well.

Great work Michael. Like Samuli I think you've done a wonderful job on these figures. As you say it's too bad that the success of the Kickstarter may have inadvertently affected the quality of the final product (at least for the 'stretch-goal' figures). I think many Kickstarter developers need to build-in realistic timelines to take into account the potential escalation of their the projects otherwise they risk having to deliver products that do not meet their original quality standards.

These Finnish riflemen will give Michael 108 points. Great work Michael and make sure to tell Jake and Rob that they're dropping in your rear view mirror.

13 comments:

  1. Those figures look excellent Michael.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great stuff! A pity about the figure quality but your paintjob and colour scheme clever hides such flaws and they look great as a force

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thats some absolutely great painting! I'd still not pay a single cent for those figures even if they're cheap like dust and they'd give me a shipload of additional stuff. But as I said you did an amazing job on them. Looks like I've to stick with Warlord Games and go for the Continuation War.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yours look good as well, that's at least three of us who bought into the kickstarter out of the 61 of us, so at least 5% of the in crowd LOL

    Ian

    ReplyDelete
  5. Another great amount....and again your are lucky git getting yours....

    ReplyDelete
  6. Is anybody getting cold here? Darn nice work on these Michael!

    Christopher

    ReplyDelete
  7. You did a cracking job with these and the basing is most excellent!

    ReplyDelete
  8. These are every bit as good as Samuli's ones. They give me the chills!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Darn you are putting mine to shame! Amazing job! The dirt does make them look a lot better and adds nice contrast to the whites. Must tweak mine...

    ReplyDelete
  10. Always difficult to paint white on white but you nailed these!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Very nice job on the sculpts.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Great work Michael - I can feel the chill.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for your comment! As long as you're not a spam droid I'll have it up on the blog soon. :)