Review: Artizan Designs WW2 Germans

Today I give you a quick review of a few of Artizan Designs' WW2 miniatures I got, SWW029 - Late War German Infantry A.T. Weapons.

Artizan have a very good reputation for their WW2 miniatures with gamers so along with ordering some other models I took the chance and got a blister of their miniatures as well.

Upon ordering you get a nice, professional looking blister, four models in it. They are all single piece casts, the casting is good overall but there are some undercut problems with the model with the MP40. There are no bases included in the box, the models are cast onto a little "foot" so there is no problem gluing them to a base. Mould lines are present but minimal. The only problem I found with them was that three out of the four models had mould lines running along their faces. Impossible to do without if you want to make these models all in one piece but still a little annoying.

In the blister you get two models with Panzerfausts (60 or 100 or something) and two models with Panzerschrecks. There are no loaders with the Panzerschrecks and no ammunition. This I find rather distracting. I mean it's not a big thing converting a rifleman to have some Panzerschreck ammunition with him but having a loader instead of one of the Panzerfausts or one of the Panzerschrecks would have been a welcome addition. The poses are nice and varied. Two of them (wearing camo jackets, possibly for cold weather) are upright and moving, the other two (wearing makeshift smocks) are crouching on the ground.

The models measure about 30mm from the bottom of the feet to the top of their heads. The measurements of the weapons look alright in proportion. The Panzerschrecks are about 4mm shorter than they should be but with metal model that's normal and it all fits together visually. Panzerschrecks are HUGE things in real life and might have looked a little weird on the models. Apart of course from the fact that casting would have been much more complicated. Muzzles have to be drilled out by the way. One thing that surprised me was the size of the other weapons. The guys with Panzerfausts carry firearms with them, a Kar98k and a MP40. Those are very chunky. The rest of the equipment looks nice and well detailled. I'm not sure - did Panzerschreck gunners have special tools with them like MG gunners? At least there are none present on the models here.

Here they are fully painted. The models were very straightforward to paint. For the camouflage jackets and smocks I went for the rather common Sumpfmuster 43 pattern.

All in all I am rather happy with the figures. They are rather chunky and even I find the dimensions of the rifle and MP a bit large. That being said, the details are very nice, but the larger parts that are there are indeed rather large. Funnily enough the feet are comparatively small for 28mm figures. There is a little roughness in the casts around finer details of the Panzerschrecks but that is the worst I can say about the casts. They are fine. The price of the models is a-okay. For the blister of 4 figures you pay £5.60 at Artizan's online store. It's not very cheap but alright for the models you get.

To sum it all up - Artizan Designs have a comprehensive range of figures and they seem to be of nice quality. I am not completely convinced that those are the best sculpts you can get but this also is a matter of tastes of course. The faces look a little cartoonish but of course that also is a matter whose sculpts you prefer. I think that they go together with similarly sized models rather well. Only the oversized guns might be a little problematic in that. Overall I would say that these models are perfectly feasible for your WW2 gaming needs. Very solid one-piece sculpts. And these days personally I think I prefer those over multi-part plastics. The poses just look more proper and let's be honest - it's not like there is a shortage of WW2 infantry sculpts out there so having too many models with the same pose in your squad/platoon/company barely is a problem.

I hope that you enjoyed this review, found it interesting, entertaining and so on. If you have any questions, comments or indeed commission enquiries, feel free to let me know via the comments section, the Battle Brush Studios Facebook page or via e-mail.