Pythorex Assault Infantry
/Here’s the last of my big order from Trench Coast Miniatures’ Trilaterum range of 15mm scifi: Pythorex Assault Infantry.
Cracking figures that paint up really easily. Undercoat with Grey Seer, then paint the belly with Contrast Skeleton Horde. Main skin is Contrast Creed Camo, with the mouth, tongue and eyes then picked out. Exoskeleton is a metallic acrylic picked up from a hobby shop.
As I said, I like these, but I do have a couple of points to make.
Firstly, why do half of them come with two blades i.e. no distance weapons or hands. Are we really saying that there is a need for melee specialists on the sci-fi battlefield of the future. Even today the saying goes that it’s pointless officers practising with a handgun as if the enemy are that close you’ve lost the battle already! I’m not saying don’t have one blade, but put a decent distance weapon in the other please…or, and here’s an idea, why don’t the guns come with bayonets?
Secondly, it’s the old story of scale creep. It’s not a very good photo, but here’s a quick size comparison:
Pythorex Assault, Pythorex Reaver, Astagar Trooper, Norman Infantryman
The original Astagar from Critical Mass were tall (just under 7ft when sat up on their tails) but they were slim, and didn’t look that disproportionate when compared to a 15mm human. The Reavers were taller, and much chunkier, but the Pythorex Assault Infantry are even larger. Does this once again prove that humans are the smallest race in the galaxy, or do I need to start playing in 28mm? Perhaps I could play 40k…but no, using non-GW figures would probably get me executed, and I really am too young and pretty to die.
So lovely figures, but big, very big…possibly the biggest!
Thirdly, there were again a few breakages in transit. About five of thirty-two arms had snapped off: that’s a 15% casualty rate. In the past, I haven’t really had a problem with the supposed brittleness of 3D printed miniatures…but all six of the army boxes I bought from Trilaterum had significant damage done to the figures inside in transit…but they did do a lot of travelling (across the States, then across the Pond) so perhaps they would have survived a shorter, less arduous journey more intact.
To finish, a quick note on costs. I bought Pythorex two army boxes for $30 each (we’ll ignore P&P) so a total of about £44, and received a total of six walkers and sixteen infantry. I’ll call that as fair value: if you say each infantryman cost £1, then the walkers each cost £4.50 or so.
So that’s the end of my sci-fi painting for the moment: no new armies created, but significant reinforcements for the Astagar, Chuhuac, Aphids and Avians. I’ll update the sample army lists sometime soon so that you can field these fun units as well.
Postscript
I posted shots of my Trilaterum figures on the Lead Adventure Forum, making the same points about size and breakages as above. Tim, from Trench Coat Miniatures, answered as follows:
Trialterum was designed as a heroic 15mm closer to 18 or 20mm so you might find some of the minis on the larger size, though some of our regular humans are much closer to what you would expect from 15mm.
On the breakage front, we are sorry to hear that. We typically do not ship overseas at all due to the shipping costs, tariffs, duties etc. . I believe you had me ship them to someone here in the States, and they shipped them off for you. We have switched to a new resin that is helping with breakage issues, so hoping that helps in the future. Reach out to me directly and we will do our best to make it right for the unusable figures.
So that’s some good news about the new resin.
