Earlier this year I bought into the Miska Miniatures' Kickstarter to produce African militiamen and assorted vehicles. It was my first time joining a Kickstarter (I've always been a bit hesitant after hearing about some of their fiascos), but I felt sponsoring designs for 3D printing was fairly low risk. I don't have a 3D printer myself, so purchased the physical copies. They arrived this summer in some of the most robust packaging I have ever seen used; not a single item broke coming over the Atlantic. The sculpting quality was quite good, and the printing quality was overall acceptable. I had two infantry figures with some printing defects (I think they shifted slightly during the print) and the two technicals had some warping and cracking (they are still to be painted), but nothing that couldn't be fixed with some sanding and filling.
So first off the table were the militiamen. I was really excited to get these, as there were so few figures actually designed specifically for the Sahel region.
The commander with a Dragunov SVD sniper, AK-47 gunman, and RPK light machinegun operator. For the commander, I felt some flashy Elvis-style sunglasses were in order. The Miska gun barrels were rather thin, and I managed to break off the end of the RPK during painting. It was rebuilt using brass rod, so hopefully will last a little longer.
RPG, AK-47s, and PKM. Again I had issues with the thin gun parts, and managed to break the ammo belt hanging from the LMG. It took a bit of effort to glue back into place, and sadly some of the detailing was lost during the process. The clothing on some of these figures were a bit more garish than my previous figures, but were all based on actual fighters in Mali.
RPG, PKM, RPK with drum magazine, and AK-47. These were painted to match my Quartermaster 3D martyr squad and bring some heavier weapons to that team.
Overall, I was happy with these figures and they will bring some more regional character to my insurgent force. The only thing that concerned me was the rather thin gun barrels and how they were going to hold up during transport and gameplay. I think they tried to go with realistic proportions, but only time will tell if that was a good call.
I now have figures from six different manufactures in my insurgent collection, so I thought it was worthwhile to generate a new set of comparison pics so people could see how the figures and their weapons compare to one another. Grids were 1 inch, or 25mm.
AK-47 Fighters:
PKM (and one RP-46) Fighters:
RPG Fighters:
Dragunov SVD Snipers:
Across the lines, the figures scaled up reasonably well with one another (though the Empress ones needed modifications to bring their height down). The most notable difference were with the weapons. The Miska miniatures really stood out for their thinner weapons, particularly the RPG and SVD. The Quartermaster 3D RPGs were also a fair amount thicker than the other lines. While I wouldn't have a problem putting them all out on the table together, I think I'll be a bit selective in how I combine the lines for the squads.
