We were sent two sets from Wargames Atlantic for their game This Quar’s War: Clash of Rhyfles. Specifically the Coftyran Specialists and Crusader Specialists. In case you are not familiar with the game, abbreviated commonly to just Quar, the game consists of two competing armies that are made of adorable anteater-like creatures. They have been at war with one another for essentially the entirety of their existence and are locked in WWI style trench warfare with their enemies. Each player takes control of their respective army and fights for control of the battlefield. In this world, you simply win the battle, not the war.
This review specifically focuses on the miniatures themselves and not the game, as that deserves a review of its own. Wargames Atlantic also makes system agnostic miniatures so we felt these sets deserved to be talked about in case you want to use them for other miniature games. We were extremely excited to assemble and paint these strange little miniatures. Each set has enough parts and pieces to assemble a team of 12, with the Coftyran Specialists also containing three tiny tank-like cannons called RCO m60 Cannons. Each set contains three identical sprues plus a sprue with 12, 28mm bases.
We first started with the Crusader Specialists, who are the rebels fighting for their causes and attempting to win the war with their weapons that look like they belong to civilians and explosives that look devastating yet adorable in their hands. They carry small short range rifles that look vaguely like blunderbusses with more finesse and bayonets that can skewer their enemies in short range. The crusaders also come with many options for their general accessories. You can fit a unit with extra weapons, backpacks, canteens, tackle boxes and sleeping rolls. This makes the team look like they’re not extremely uniform and organized which normally sounds like it would be a bad thing. Your Crusaders will look like a ragtag group that is together out of necessity, rushing to get their soldiers out on the front lines without the need for standardization, lending a touch of lore just based on how they look. It truly feels like you are putting together a rebel force that uses everything they can get ahold of to fight.
The Crusaders are very easy to put together. The actual body has 5 parts total: a body with legs, a chest piece, a left and right arm, and a head. Only the body and chest piece fit together in a specific orientation, while all the other pieces are freely mobile and let you truly customize your minis. You can freely rotate each arm and head to your liking. There are a few weapon options that require a specific orientation, such as the Splagen torpedo, their rocket propelled grenades. These work by having an entire arm attached on one end and the opposite hand, requiring you to attach the other arm to both the body and hand in a specific orientation. Seeing as we aren’t the best at miniature assembly, this was a bit tricky at first but as we progressed it became easier. There are a total of 4 head options as well, a WWI style helmet, an army cap, no helmet/hat at all and a gas mask style mask/helmet combo.
We used Tamiya Extra Thin Cement for our assembly and it works wonderfully for it. The body is especially easy to assemble by simply squeezing the two pieces (legs/torso and chest) and tapping the brush tip to the seams, using the capillary action to get the glue where it needs to go. If you manage to get just the right amount, the cement melts it just enough so that an extra squeeze fills out the gaps about 90% of the way. If you are seeking perfection and want to have absolutely smooth models with no gaps/seams then a bit of putty or sprue goo may be necessary but if you’re like us and just want to get your models to look tabletop ready, then these are fantastic as the mold lines are minimal and the gaps are not extremely noticeable.
The other set we reviewed was the Coftyran Specialists. It too is a set of 12 units but with a set of three cannons added. This set includes a variety of weapon options and four different heads including a knight-like helmet, a camouflaged two part head/helmet combo, a cowboy flat top hat, and a mask reminiscent of a plague mask. Each unit is composed of five parts as well, though the camouflaged helmet is a two part head, bringing the total to five or six pieces. The arms are freely mobile when assembling, allowing you to get the exact look you want. There was a single until we assembled that we believed had an error. This particular arm has an extra nub that connects the arm and the butt of the rifle into a L-shaped block. We built a unit using this defect part just to prove that you can still use the piece but it was a little tricky to add as the nub does not sit flush with the body as it is intended to. The other Sprues did not contain the error and we attribute it to a small error on manufacturing.
Overall, this is a quality set that has still salvageable pieces. If you are more skilled than we are, you may be able to use a craft knife to shave down that piece, or nip the piece off and sand it down, but we decided to add it as is just to show that it isn’t really a big problem.
The Coftyran have less weapon options but this makes the team seem more cohesive and well put together compared to the Crusaders. The most difficult part of the assembly process is finding which chest piece goes with the body piece. You really need to look at the Wargames Atlantic website for more information on assembly. There are no obvious indications as to which body goes where and it took a bit of trial and error to finally get the correct pieces together. When you look closely there are tiny contours that make it easier to discern the pieces but it takes a keen eye if you aren’t used to paying attention to such tiny details. The pieces are easy to put together once you have them in place but it’s not impossible to put the wrong pieces together and make a big mistake and ruin a model.
Coftyran Specialists also have swords that look both adorable and intimidating on the little Quar. A neat feature is the scabbard you can attach to a model to make a specific unit feel special. Though, we do wish there were more scabbards because they look pretty cool on anything.
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Painting the units is as complicated as you want it to be. This part is up to you but after priming, the little guys are fun to paint. The best part is picking the colors for the skin. In the lore each Quar develops spots on its body as it ages so the more spots a unit has, the older it is. We decided to paint the units using SpeedPaint 2.0 without a zenithal highlight. We wanted the full vibrant pop of the colors and a bright prime is the best way to do that. We used Citadel White Scar to prime. The SpeedPaint does a good job of emulating shade but these models do not have a lot of extreme detail, so they look cartoonesque, which is exactly the look we wanted. Full disclosure, we are not professional painters nor are we sponsored by any of these products. The models themselves are fun to assemble and they have a lot of small items that are fun to paint, especially the Crusader Specialists.
If you are looking for a team that is both affordable and gives you high quality and a fun time, check out the Quar miniatures for Clash of Rhyfles. We had a great time putting together the team and the look of the units is more interesting than a lot of the miniatures on the market. Quar are cute little creatures at war and they aren’t generic super soldiers clad in armor, they aren’t based off an existing IP, nor are they historically accurate humans. They are their own darkly cute idea that will live on in your thoughts for a long while. We personally enjoyed assembling the Crusader Specialists a bit more than the Coftyran Specialists so if you are limited to one team, go for the Crusaders but there are several other teams available for Clash of Rhyfles that we hope to play with in the future. Please stay tuned for our upcoming review of the actual gameplay of This Quar’s War: Clash of Rhyfles
Sushiball Games 