Disclaimer: This set of miniatures was sent for review by Wargames Atlantic.
Hailing from the 33rd Marine Expeditionary Unit, these soldiers are fashioned in modern tactical gear and futuristic weapons. They sport chest armor, pistols, snipers, high tech visors and giant lasers. They can cut through anything from alien hiveminds to orcs and other humanoid forces. They can also go up against other teams in the Death Fields Arena, including the Les Grognards which you can check out here. The also make great proxies for 40K Imperial Guards or One Page Rules Human Defense Force. These guys fit in with any game that needs some human soldiers with some sci-fi weapons.
Material Quality: Excellent. These bad boys are made of high quality hard plastic and will last forever (provided you prep them correctly). The plastic is the tiniest bit bendy while still providing rigidity for strength.
Assembly Complexity: Moderate. Sprues come with enough parts to make six Marines per sprue. There are 4 sprues included in the box, so you have enough to make a total of 24 soldiers. There are no instructions for the Ooh Rah set. This set is a little finicky with which weapons look “good” with certain bodies. The bodies for these guys come as legs/torso, a head and two arms, so each model is completed with 4 pieces each. This sounds excellent, but certain arms look awkward with certain bodies. We attempted to use all pieces for each body and we ended up with some models that look a little funny. It’s not necessarily a bad thing because these models still look great, though some just look like zombies or like they are asking for someone to wait. Some of the arms only fit specific two handles weapon arrangements and don’t make full contact. It could be user error too, after all we are humans and make mistakes.
Cleaning/Prep: Moderate. These models take a bit of clean up. The bodies come off the sprues at awkward angles for some pieces, so when you cut them, you cannot align the piece flush, which requires you to nip the same connection twice. Mold lines are a bit more noticeable and are not as well hidden as the Les Grognard set. If you want to have these be pristine for painting, you’ll need to take some time to clean up the mold lines alone the legs, torsos, arms, and heads. The sprue connections are also in places that are not hidden easily and you may need to use a bit of gap filler (sprue goo, epoxies, milliput etc.) to get them to be crisp and clean.
Sculpt Detail: Excellent. These little guys still have excellent detail. Shotguns have multiple textures, faces have very detailed eyes/mouths/noses, and accoutrements have buttons, knobs, and textures throughout.
Scale Compatibility: These guys look excellent and are scaled for 28-32mm games. They make excellent proxies on anything from Warhammer 40K to One Page Rules, and if you pick only regular/non-sci-fi weaponry you can play historical games with them (provided it’s a bit of a more modern look you want).
Pose Variety: Light. Since bodies are one single piece, your variety comes from only hands and heads. These still lock you into only certain alignments if you want your model to look like it’s “good.” Certain bodies, like the running body look a little strange when holding the large laser and make it seem as though the model is looking upwards while running. Not necessarily a bad thing if that’s what you are going for but without proper planning, it may look a bit different.
Paint Accessibility: Moderate. Double handed weapons/larger weapons will require subassembly painting in order to completely cover the model accurately. If you’re looking to get the pieces table ready and don’t care about “behind the scenes” areas, the areas can be accessed with a patient hand and a small brush. You can get a single color or two between arms and chest, but don’t expect to put on stamps, decals, or any details once it’s fully assembled and cured.
Customization: This set provides the illusion of customization. The truth is that only certain weapons are meant to be used with certain bodies. There’s a little bit of wiggle room but if you want your models to look kick ass on the table, you’ll want to see which arms fit nearly and don’t be upset if you can’t get the alignment quite right on a certain model. The accoutrements need a bit of prep as well as the backpacks have a small nub that needs to be shaved down or clipped off to fit on the backs of the soldiers. The backpacks will not fit any of the models without being trimmed back.
Durability: These models will last a long time but make sure they glue them properly onto the bases. Some of the models have very small contact points for the feet and if the glue you’re using doesn’t make enough contact, the model will pop off.
Readability: Excellent. You can easily tell what these models are supposed to be. You can tell they’re modern/futuristic sci-fi soldiers. They look like colonial space Marines from the Alien Franchise or soldiers from Starship Troopers. They can easily be in the UNSC from Halo, Imperial Guards from 40K or the Human Defense Force from OPR. Again, any human military force with futuristic/post apocalypse vibes, the Ooh Rah’s got your six.
Basing: Bases are not provided but are easy to come by. You can base them with practically anything from a simple black, to desert, forest, asphalt, etc.
Price Per Mini: The set comes with 24 soldiers for approximately $40 USD at the time of this post. Which clocks these Marines in at $1.67 USD each. When compared to Games Workshop, the Ooh Rah set is a steal. Imperial Guards range anywhere from $5-30 per model so if you’re looking to get some excellent proxies, these are amazing.
Genre Hopping: Light hopping. These guys are really just one type of unit- a sci-fi themed soldier. Anything where you need a marine with a couple of sci-fi elements, these guys can get you right where you need. Outside of that however, they’re not as versatile. They can be used as historical games under certain situations, like if you stick to rifles and handguns but even then they look more modern than WWII games.
Time to Table: The whole set took approximately 3 hours to assemble and another 3 hours or so to paint. That’s not including time for fixing things that accidentally got bumped or knocked out of place. They’re a bit of work to clean up and get at just the right angle. If you make your models identical to one another and use only certain weapons on certain body types, you will get done a lot faster. We wanted to experiment a little and see what could be done, so some of our models turned out a little strange but still workable.
Sushiball Games 