Disclaimer: This set of miniatures was sent for review by Wargames Atlantic.
Marcher is a game by Golden Dragon Games. It’s set in an alternate past where dieselpunk meets apocalypse. It’s a unique aesthetic and Wargames Atlantic teamed up to make their Badger Hard suits, giant power armor piloted by a single driver. These dudes are big, powerful and a lot more customizable than they seem on the surface. It’s not often that dieselpunk gets attention, often outshined by its more drab brother- steampunk, so these miniatures give some much loved attention to the genre and make an excellent addition to your ever growing pile of miniatures.
Material Quality: Excellent. Wargames Atlantic uses durable plastic that holds detail very well, is forgiving when cleaning up and has just a little bit of flexibility to account for accidentally putting a bit too much pressure on thin parts. They bounce when dropped, if you’re curious… Don’t ask me how I know.
Assembly Complexity: These guys are a bit complicated to assemble. Expect to take about 60-90 minutes per model. Each suit is made up of approximately 38-46 individual pieces that must all be put together into different chunks, then all assembled in the bigger chunks into the final model. We don’t like to rate things in terms of numbers, because there are far too many variables to give things a generic number, but these require familiarity with the hobby. While a beginner can assemble them, there is plenty of room to make mistakes if you’re new to the hobby. So, we’d say these are somewhere in between intermediate and advanced assembly.
Cleaning/Prep: The Badgers take some time to clean up each piece. The hip joint is particularly troublesome as it contains a straight mold line going across multiple ridges, forcing you to do very fine cleanup across very tiny details. Besides the hip joint, if you plan on exposing the soles of the feet, you’ll need to do the same sort of cleanup. If you’re not detail oriented or you don’t subassemble, then cleanup won’t be that difficult as the hip joint will be mostly covered up and the feet will most likely also be covered up. A bit of mud texture on the bottoms of the feet and you don’t even have to worry about cleanup. Cleaning up takes approximately 20 minutes per model for basic scraping/sanding. If you need things to be pristine then expect to take longer. Gap lines are minimal to non-existent provided you clean up the edges where glue is needed well. If you leave nubs from clipping off from the sprue, then there will be noticeable gaps. Make sure to dry fit everything before adding any glue.
Instructions: There are 2 pictures that are lore accurate and show you assembly instructions. We always appreciate when the instructions are written/presented in a way that gives you a feel of the universe. The instructions are a bit difficult to read in terms of the arms and legs. The reason being that these models are highly customizable so the pieces will move around in pretty much all directions so you must dry fit multiple mobile parts to get them to lock in just the way you want it. Unlike Games Workshop, Wargames Atlantic parts tend to be highly customizable and these bad boys are no exception. Just take a bit of time to decide on what your model will be doing (standing, running, walking, lifting arms, etc) before you commit to glue. This is also a model that I highly recommend using plastic glue (Tamiya Super thin is what I use most of the time). Super glue (cyanoacrylate glues/CA) will lock in place before you get a chance to position correctly. If you don’t like plastic glue or want to use super glue (or need to), then absolutely avoid using accelerants. Unless you’re willing to break your model to retry.
Sculpt Detail: Excellent. The model benefits from being “clunky” as the panels fit together and leave small gaps in the panels, but it goes with the design very well. There are rivets along the entire body and putting the whole thing together leaves internal components exposed, giving the model more depth. I should clarify that when I say “gaps” what I mean is the gaps that remain are intentionally there as the edges lay flush with one another but leave a seam, giving the model the appearance of having been riveted together from pieces of sheet metal. These gaps should not require filler of any kind to fill.
Scale Compatibility: 28-32mm scale. Most of the heroic style/non-historical wargames fall into this category.
Pose Variety: For being such a big model, you would think that these Badgers would be one pose per mini/weapon, but they’re extremely mobile. The shoulders can be placed and rotated about 180° below the joint (more if you forgo the shoulder pads), the elbows can bend 180°/rotate 360° and the knees and ankles move in the same way. So you can have these guys standing, walking, sprinting, dancing, swinging axes and pretty much anything you can do with a quality action figure. You can pose arms in pretty much any position you can bend your own arms if you were wearing this armor. It’s honestly an impressive feat.
Paint Accessibility: Depending on what poses you decide upon, it may be best to subassemble these guys. If you want a pretty standard pose that’s not very dynamic then you can easily reach all areas, but other positions like crouching or putting the provided cage around the head will make other areas hard or impossible to get to with a brush if not painted before you glue the model in its final pose.
Customization: These guys have a few weapon options and 6 different heads (5 human heads and 1 giant domed helmet). The customization here comes more from the poses you can strike rather than the variety of parts.
Durability: Each Badger Hardsuit is made up of approximately 40ish pieces, so each piece needs to be glued on correctly. So provided they are glued on correctly, the models are pretty sturdy. They can handle being dropped and squeezed firmly once plastic glue has fully cured.
Readability: Excellent. The model shows off all its details and no one will be questioning what each part is or what is on the table.
Basing: The box comes with 6 bases for 4 minis so you’ll actually have some extras. The boxed set comes with 4 suits, so to assemble these guys you’re looking at about 4-6 hours. Since there will be some leftover bases and parts, you can make some neat kitbashed bases with Badger Hardsuit parts.
Price Per Mini: The boxed set comes with 4 Badgers and is $45. So you’re looking at $11.25 per model, which is about the same cost of an elite Space Marine from Games Workshop. As always, Wargames Atlantic delivers an extremely great value for an excellent product that is more customizable and offers more variety in poses.
Genre Hopping: We’re planning on using them for a game of Marcher using our Ooh Rah’s and Les Grognards OR as some One Page Rules Human Defense Force battle suits! So they can be used for a pretty wide variety of games. Anything that needs a big chunky mech/power suit. You can also use these as some power suits for a game of the Fallout Roleplaying Game.
Time to Table: The boxed set comes with 4 suits, so you’re looking at about 4-6 hours for assembly. Once you assemble the first one, the rest are a bit easier and faster to assemble, but it’ll still take a bit of time to get them locked into the positions you want.
Sushiball Games 