V&V Miniatures Vikings Review

I have been keeping an eye on V&V Miniatures for the past year or so, as they released more and more vikings. Finally, with my birthday around the corner, I gave in to temptation and put in an order. I had read on facebook that they take a while to ship - it was about five weeks in my case, so bear this in mind if you are making an order.

The figures arrive in stout card boxes with the contents pictured on the cover. Each mini is contained in a sealed plastic bag. If you order any loose minis these are placed into one of the other boxes for protection. They did arrive in a soggy jiffy bag (rain is very common around here) - probably a fault of the postman as much as anything - but luckily there was no damage to the contents.

I am amazed at the quality of the castings. They are made from a nice hard resin, with very little mould lines to remove and virtually no flaws - I think I found two inconspicuous air bubbles on the whole lot of twenty figures. That's better than most resin figures I have worked on. You will have to remove the "tabs" from the feet and drill through the hand to receive the weapon on some models. This example also has a head to fit, though most of my models had an integrated head. Note also the lightly textured resin base. I am using two pence coins (UK) for my bases as they give a nice little extra weight for stability on the tabletop and are also handily magnetic. Coincidentally, the resin bases are exactly the same diameter as two pence coins.

The sculpts are wonderful - nice natural body poses, good proportions and an amazing level of detail - how many of your minis have designs on the belt buckles? Or sculpted teeth? It really is incredible how finely detailed they are, certainly the equal of the best fantasy sculpts I have seen and far, far more intricate than any of my metal historicals. Suffice to say, they are now the best in my historical collection, in terms of sculpt and cast.

All this quality comes at a cost of course. These figures are three euros apiece. For many players, this will be expensive, when metals can be had for about half this rate, and plastics can be had for much less. For me, they are worth every penny. If you want quality rather than quantity, these are definitely the minis for you.

Finally, some comparison shots so you can judge the proportions and scale against some other manufacturers. This is the extent of my historical collection, I do not own figures from other manufacturers, so apologies if your favourite brand is missing!

With Drabant Miniatures (metal)

With Foundy figures (metal)

With Gripping Beast (plastic on left, metal on right)

With Gripping Beast Saxon (plastic, left) and Saxon Miniatures (metal, right)