We drink to our youth, to the days come and gone. For the age of aggression is just about done...
This set is a great start for an Imperial army in the elder scrolls: call to arms game, included is 1 x Hadvar, Hero of Helgen, 1 x Imperial Mage, Spellsword, 3 x Imperial Soldiers with Sword and Shield. All expertly recreated from their models from the escape from Helgen in the opening of elder scrolls v: Skyrim. The models come on sprue containing the models, with 5 bases and an instruction sheet for building. This set will take you back to your first moments, into incredible Region of Skyrim.
Assembly:
The sprue is nicely labelled, each model part has a unique letter and number assigned to it, E.g. A4. That links back to the instruction sheet for easy refence of where each part goes, like most miniature games. It is recommended to use hobby/model cutters to remove these parts from the sprue, then use a hobby knife to clean the excess of the models and remove Mold lines. These models have been well designed with lots of details so extra care is recommend whilst doing this to avoid damaging the detail. Before you start gluing, I recommend laying out each part next to the instructions as they are 3 very similar imperial soldiers and it’s easy to get parts mixed up. go. Now the glue I recommend for the kit depends on the version. If you get the plastic kit as include in the combined starter set; I recommend plastic glue since this kit is made of plastic miniatures and plastic glue creates a better bond than superglue as it melts the two plastic parts together creating a vastly stronger model. If you get the resin version, then super glue is required as plastic glues don’t work well with resin. You may also like to keep the shields unglued for now for easier painting, but it’s not essential for this kit as the backs of the shields are easily reachable.
Painting:
Start with a basecoat spray to cover the whole miniatures, this will help attach a layer of paint to the plastic that we will allow paint to stick to the miniature, without a basecoat it is a lot harder to get paint to stick and can result in a loss of details. When spraying be careful not to over spray as these models have lots of detailed parts that can be lost by too much paint, especially with the fine details like woodgrain in the shields. Models in this kit have many crisp lines and are mostly fabric textures making them full of brilliant highlight opportunities. Ideal for speed/contrast paints. A brown/leather colour speed/contrast paint can do most of the fur and leather in one go, followed by a tan for the skin, most of the model is done. Then a metallic paint for the metallic bits and these miniatures would be ready to a nice standard for use. Other techniques like non-metallic-metals style of painting: especially for Hadvars heavy armour and gradient style of wet blending are also brilliant for these models. Even slap chop will work excellently for these models due to the fabric look of the armour. Whatever way you want to paint, these models have been expertly sculpted making painting a true pleasure.
Gameplay:
The rules and game cards for these miniatures can be found in Elder Scrolls Call to Arms: Core Rules Box Set. There you will find the adversary cards: 1 x Hadvar, Hero of Helgen, 1 x Imperial Mage, Spellsword, 3 x Imperial Soldiers with Sword and Shield, and the hero cards 1 x Hadvar, Hero of Helgen, 1 x Imperial Mage, Spellsword. The adversary’s when not in a player's party act on their own and act depending on a dice role or set response listed in the rule books. The have 5 main responses each with represented with its own letter AMOFD. A-attack, M-move, O-objective, F-fall back, D-defend. This means they can act differently every time they activate dictated by their unique imperial action card and can provide a unique challenge for the player if they are using them as npc characters.
The main use of this starter set is using the imperials as a player-controlled faction with either hero, this means they are controlled by a player and can be used in the player’s party. They have the main faction of Imperial so can be used as a champion (party leader) in that faction or as a regular party member of the imperials. This makes for great re-playability as you can switch between the two easily and with their well-mixed stats allow them to be useful additions in any imperial party you might want to use. The mage is particularly interesting as they are a spellcaster and use the spell casting mechanics based around a very in-depth magic system. It makes this faction slightly harder to learn at first but offers more unique mechanics in return.
The Difference between the Resin/plastic kits:
Which material is better I will leave up to you decide. However, they are notable differences with the kit depending on which version you are getting. If you are getting the plastic kit, at the time of writing is available cheaper and is the version included in the starter box. The resin kit however has slightly finer details and comes with 5 scenic bases instead of the plain versions in the plastic kit. Which version I recommend depends heavily on if you want the scenic bases or not. And advise you to purchase accordingly.
