My Tips for Warlord Games Celtic Warriors

Warlord Games Celtic Warrior build

The holidays did a whammy on my posting, but I managed to make some progress on a few of my game projects. I finally got a chance to build the plastic Warlord Games' Celtic Warriors.  I thought I'd pass on a few things I figured out while building them.

COMPONENTS
The box comes with three sprues: two warrior sprues with bodies, legs and heads, and a command sprue with the same components but swapping the heads for a standard and carnyx. There are also a few severed heads, 15 shields, assorted spears, swords and knives and a sheet of 15 shield stickers.  It's a good set of components, the sculpting is dynamic and sharp but there are very few "extras". With only 15 shields, but 30 figures, I opted to order an extra set of Celtic Shields from WG and some Little Big Man Studios decals as well. The colorful shields of the Celts is one of their biggest draws, so skimping on the shields is a little disappointing but overall this is a quality set.

Tip 1) Order extra shields.  

More tips after the jump.



CONSTRUCTION
I started by cutting and separating all of the bodies and legs. I noticed each body only paired with a few of the leg designs based on how the torso clothing was carried over to the waist area of the leg. Check it out:

Warlord Games leg designs

Tip 2) Match the leg designs to the appropriate torsos.

My original plan was to customize the bulk of the warriors by chopping and swapping arms and legs. I had seen the constructed models in photos on various sites, and always found the "arms thrown wide" pose used in several of the torsos a bit TOO animated for my tastes. It always looked like the Celt was giving a primal scream, but I think it makes them look like their primed to take a pilum in the solar plexus. As I was building them though, I found the torsos could be rotated so the warrior appeared to be preparing to deliver a swing of the sword, or holding it forward in a run. Overall the poses have a lot more flexibility than I expected, so I didn't need to do as much modding as I had anticipated.  I did make a few changes to one of the "arms thrown wide poses":

Customizing Warlord Games Celt Warriors

Tip 3) Rotate torsos for more dynamic poses, or freely chop and reglue limbs to eliminate odd poses.

Clipping and cleaning the torsos and legs took about two hours. Construction and preparing heads and weapons took another hour or two. That seems like a long time, but the quality of the casts, the dynamic poses, the ability to customize them and the low price of the entire box evens everything out in the long run. Honestly, I've spent the same amount of time cleaning flash from crummy metal one piece figures in the past. I'm really pleased with the Warlord Games Celtic Warriors, and will likely pick up another box in the future.