Italeri 54mm Gladiators By Ernest Thomas

Introduction

I guess the best thing I can say about this figure set is that it s a really good bargain.

The Kit

Italeri provides 12 Gladiator figures, (2 each of 6 different characters), along with 2 bears and 2 lions, all for a retail price of around $20.00. That's a whole lot of hours of figure painting enjoyment for very little money. While the molding isn't quite up to par with the higher end white metal figure makers, the sculpting is certainly comparable with those expensive figures. The shortcoming with the molding is simply a limitation of the plastic injection molding process. There's a mold seam that completely wraps around each figure that will have to be removed, with the potential loss of detail that comes with it.

The 12 human figures provided come in 6 different poses, including 3 in combat action poses, 2 standing at rest, and one victorious with his sword down and his shield help high. While any of these figures would look great standing alone, the potential for multiple vignettes or even a full blown 'Gladiator Games' diorama is great, especially for those with the skills to do some conversions. The bear and lion are very well sculpted and detailed and posed in acts of aggression. I'm sure these animal figures will be a treasured prize for people who are really into 54mm Ancients.

The Gladiators' armor and clothing looks pretty authentic. Their weapons are nicely sculpted. The spear shafts, sword blades, and axe handles look to be in scale and not thick and clunky like you normally see with less expensive figures. However, the guys holding shields will need hand straps added.

The plastic is that soft, waxy plastic and the full color painting guide emphasizes the importance of giving these figures a real good cleaning to ensure paint adhesion, as well as using acrylic paints.

Conclusion

All in all, this is a nice set of figures. In addition to the previously mentioned potential for action packed vignettes or dioramas, they would be well suited for gaming, although I'm not a gamer and am not aware of any games that use these larger scale figures. They would also be perfect for people who might want to try their hand at figure painting, or painters who are looking for some well sculpted but inexpensive subjects to practice painting flesh tones with.

Thanks to Testors and the DLV Company, Matt Bittner, and Internet Modeler for the review samples.