A post on the Lead Adventure Forum reminded me that although I’d read about the March to Hell 3D printed miniatures from 3D Breed, I hadn’t actually seen any in the flesh and, as I needed an extra command figure for my Marian Romans, I thought I’d take a look and see what all the fuss was about.

You can get them in the UK from the Geek Villain website, which is well presented and easy to navigate. There are a lot of 15mm 3D prints available: the main WW2 forces, medieval Spanish and Moors, and then the usual suspects ancients-wise: Republican and Early Imperial Romans, Germans, Celts, Persians, Greeks, Macedonians and Carthaginians.

I decided to stay focussed (for once) and headed for the Roman section in search of enough figures for a command stand, and almost immediately came across a special model representing Scipio Africanus: both mounted and dismounted. Looked great in the pics, so I ordered them, and then browsed through and, as I still have plenty of Baueda legionaries in the lead mountain, a couple of the other specials: a medicus set, with a standing and kneeling doctor; and a legionary accompanied by a couple of wardogs!

Scipio and the wardogs were £3, the medicus set was £2.50.

A few days later, a box arrived from the Post Office. The box was about 10cm square and seemed to weigh almost nothing. Opening up, there was a vast amount of bubblewrap folded around the loose miniatures.

Okay, I can live with that - saves on the packaging, the environment and all that (and I’m sure the dustmen/neighbours etc think I’m a drug dealer with all the little plastic ziplock bags I throw away) - but how would that work for a larger order, or did they just loose pack them for this order because it was small and easy to work out which model was which?

The models themselves were beautifully crisp: little works of art. Every last bit of detail was present, with no mould lines, build lines or flash. Lovely.

One thing, though, as represented in the pictures above, they had no bases. They were literally just the same as the images. I’m not sure why I expected them to have bases, after all there are no bases in the pictures, but this did come as a bit of a surprise.

This also wasn’t a problem for the specials: rather than my usual lolly stick mounting for painting, I could glue them straight onto the bases I would be using as mini vignettes…but that did raise the question of what I would do if I was going to buy whole units to be mounted multiple figures per base. I would definitely have to think about that one.

Also, although the lack of bases wasn’t a problem for the infantry (they stood up on their own) it was a bit more a problem for the horse that one of the Scipios sits on. Yes, I did get three horses in my order (not sure why, as only one horse had Roman tack: one even had heads hanging from the breast strap) but none of them had all four feet on the ground. In the end, I mixed a little superglue and PVA together and glued the whole of two hooves to the base…but the horse still sways freely if you knock it. We will have to see how that stands up to battlefield usage.

So how do they paint up?

The quick answer is “beautifully”. I painted them with a black undercoat then with base-wash-highlight, and am very pleased with the results:

Apologies for my crude painting and even cruder photography. Ignore the signifier with the Scipios: he’s from another manufacturer.

So, you can see what they look like, but how do they compare with other figures size-wise.

Here’s a couple of group shots with a base of Baueda Marian Roman legionaries:

No problem with sizing: they match very well indeed.

In conclusion, I liked these and am very pleased with what I’ve got.

Plus points are size, beauty, price and, for the models I ordered, uniqueness and quirkiness.

The big minus point, however, is the lack of bases: I’m not sure how I would mount an infantry unit for painting, and the cavalry without bases is just plain difficult to deal with.

I will be scouring the other listings for more specials like the above and, as I sit here, am severely tempted to see how I get on with a unit of legionary cavalry…