11-19-2002, 08:12 PM
I knew something about the mold being damaged, yes, but I lack the insight you have on seemly all matters concerning anything Roman. (grin) I knew that some of the last production runs were issued with a partial sprue, that was about all I knew.<br>
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It does seem ashame that the figures are based more on Trajan's column than archeology, but its not as bad as it could be. One of my required texts for Latin class is a coffee table book on all things Roman. The 5 pages devoted to the military are full of inaccuracies, right down to a photograph of a full sized mockup of a legionary from some British museum (photo circa 1970 as I recall.)<br>
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That picture follows the column almost exclusively, right down to odd shoulder laminations and undersized (and not rectangular, but rather Augustian) <em>scutum</em>. Oddly enough, the figure wears an accurate Coolus helmet...it looks out of place (and certianly from the wrong time.)<br>
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Looking at my ESCI Romans, I'm actually pretty satisfied with their detail. Yes, it could be better but all things considered they are very good. With some anal painting details, you can make the lorica look fairly close to a Corbridge model. The cheakpieces are small on the helmets, but they're still pretty close to Imperial Gallic. Scutum need an umbo, which is a pain too, but they are the right size and look snazzy painted.<br>
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To me, a big pain was painting one of the laminations gold (or "brass" to be more accurate, but I used gold paint...) to represent the belt. Another pain is the lack of a soldier thrusting with the sword, they are all downward slashing, and I can see no effective way of working with the post.<br>
<br>
Also annoying are the small crests on the two centurion figures. Still, a bit of crest shaped paper fixes this. I also have found it possible to rotate one of these figure's crests to produce an Optio.<br>
<br>
All and all, I'm pretty satisfied with the ESCI figures. We'll have to see how good HaT's Romans actually are when they come out. <p></p><i></i>
<br>
It does seem ashame that the figures are based more on Trajan's column than archeology, but its not as bad as it could be. One of my required texts for Latin class is a coffee table book on all things Roman. The 5 pages devoted to the military are full of inaccuracies, right down to a photograph of a full sized mockup of a legionary from some British museum (photo circa 1970 as I recall.)<br>
<br>
That picture follows the column almost exclusively, right down to odd shoulder laminations and undersized (and not rectangular, but rather Augustian) <em>scutum</em>. Oddly enough, the figure wears an accurate Coolus helmet...it looks out of place (and certianly from the wrong time.)<br>
<br>
Looking at my ESCI Romans, I'm actually pretty satisfied with their detail. Yes, it could be better but all things considered they are very good. With some anal painting details, you can make the lorica look fairly close to a Corbridge model. The cheakpieces are small on the helmets, but they're still pretty close to Imperial Gallic. Scutum need an umbo, which is a pain too, but they are the right size and look snazzy painted.<br>
<br>
To me, a big pain was painting one of the laminations gold (or "brass" to be more accurate, but I used gold paint...) to represent the belt. Another pain is the lack of a soldier thrusting with the sword, they are all downward slashing, and I can see no effective way of working with the post.<br>
<br>
Also annoying are the small crests on the two centurion figures. Still, a bit of crest shaped paper fixes this. I also have found it possible to rotate one of these figure's crests to produce an Optio.<br>
<br>
All and all, I'm pretty satisfied with the ESCI figures. We'll have to see how good HaT's Romans actually are when they come out. <p></p><i></i>
