Wargames Factory Saxon Thegns- unboxing, review and sprue inspection

This review is for the Wargames Factory Saxon Thegns set

You get 32 multipart, highly detailed figures for your money. And tbh these aren't ever very expensive. I got mine through Famous Gaming , they may still have some in stock I'm not sure.

They glue together easily and look great. The scale is just right & mixes well with other ranges. The detailing is spot on and easy to paint even for someone with two left hands, like me.

I've used this kit before and found it to be great so I got another, lets look inside.

You get 8 of the body sprues and 4 of the characteristics sprues, and they all stack neatly, hurrah!

The torsos and legs come joined in 4 different poses. That doesn't sound a lot seeing as there's 32 of them but with a bit of ingenuity you can arrange them in a rank and you'll never even notice. The torsos come in chainmail with great detailing. The heads go on into sockets in the traditional way, allowing for a great range of movement, although a few do require a bit of trimming along the neck to sit well.

There are a tonne of arms to allow you to pose your men however you want, some are even included to be used as archers in action poses. Nice to have that for a change. The arms are chainmail to the bicep and then cloth the rest of the way. Great detailing.

The body+legs and arm sprues are the same between this box and the viking huscarls box. 

Wargames factory have made it so there are 2 pairs of body/leg/arm sprues- one for armoured (the one above) and one for unarmoured (not in this post).

 The way you distinguish between the armies is by use of their special army sprues, as shown below!

saxon sprue from both sides
left hand sprue                right hand sprue 

So on this sprue you get all the heads, shields, weapons and special bits you need to make your miniatures into Saxons.  NB: This same sprue comes with armoured and unarmoured Saxons!

Theres a mixture of armoured and unarmoured heads- most are unarmoured. There are slouch caps to give that authentic continental warrior look- I found they look great on skirmishers.

You also get a mixture of three types of shield- there is the flat round shield, the domed round shield and the kite shield. The kite shield is a nice touch and could allow you to create a few Norman looking foot soldiers if you needed.

In the bottom right of the left hand sprue, just below the shield is a pair of arms to be used to hold either a dragon banner or a two handed axe. This great feature saves you from so much fiddly glueing, lifesaver. You also get a pair of bows, spears, a horn, dragon banner, some quivers and a selection of weapons.

They don't come with bases but for their price it's no biggie to go and buy bases separately. If buying online I recommend Famous Gaming for cheap renedra bases.

Detailing & sculpting: 8/10- barely any mould lines, good detailing, poses are ok but could be more dynamic and hair could have more texture to it.

Scaling: 9/10- scale well with most other 28mm ranges, could be slighty chunkier but overall good.

Amount of bits: 9/10- loads of bits, spare heads and BOWS which are really appreciated. 28mm plastic bows are golddust.

Ease of construction: 10/10- incredibly easy to build. Having joined legs and torsos was handy.

Value for money: 9/10- the boxes dont cost the earth and for your money you get enough to start a saga warband or have a chunky regiment for wab/ fog

Over all: 45/50 - a mighty fine score!

All in all a nice kit packed with great miniatures and that will give you a few spare parts to add to a bits box when you're done.

To see how they scale up with other manufactures of 28mm dark ages check my other posts!