We couldn’t pass up on today’s Star Wars especial day and comment on the Knightmodels Star Wars miniature line.
The Spanish miniature company, Knightmodels, offered in its catalogue a very interesting range of miniatures to paint and collect, set up in the Star Wars universe. Some of the miniatures in this range are already legendary, but unfortunately the company stopped selling them, without much explanation. Right now the Star Wars miniatures from Knightmodels can only be found on second hand marketplaces, some at very high prices, or in stores that still have remaining stock available.
The set of miniatures was composed of two series, the 75mm range and the 30mm range, being these an attempt at creating a Star Wars wargame that never saw the light of day.
Let’s see some examples of miniatures both in the 75mm and the 30mm ranges.
HAN SOLO (75 MM)
All the Knightmodels miniatures in 75mm, on the Star Wars lines and all of the others, came in a high quality packaging. The presentation was very good indeed.
The box includes a card with the serial number of the miniature, because in the case of Star Wars 75mm miniatures, the seres was limited. This, and the fact that they stopped selling them make them now quite difficult to find.
This is what we can find under the first layer of foam.
The kit is a mix of resin and metal pieces, and the most delicate ones come inside a transparent plastic bag.
In the specific case of this Han Solo, we can appreciate that the quality of the copy is not very good. We can see the unsubtle remainings from the manufacturing process.
Some of the metal pieces would not have passed modern quality control. The mould line of the arm is bigger than what we would have liked to find in a high standard miniature such as this one.
The assembly is not explained anywhere, and for example we find these holes in the ground of the scenery, we are still asking ourselves what the purpose of these are.
ANAKIN VS OBI-WAN (75 MM)
This is the kit we discussed with Banshee in the interview we conducted with him: the duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan.
Indeed, the 75mm series came in a deluxe boxed set.
The back of the box shows us the artwork from Alfonso Giraldes “Banshee”.
The box includes the pieces to build the scene just as we see in the box-art. In the picture we can already see the pieces from the characters assembled, that is because this particular kit we show was already open and half way through assembling. The piece set is very complicated and the building process, as you may appreciate in the photos, is quite a challenge. The pose of the characters and the way they interact make things really difficult.
The pieces in this copy do not show many production flaws, and after the assembly, there are inevitably very big holes that we will have to cover up with putty. After building the piece we can see that even without paint, the dramatism of the scene is very strong.
One of the good things about Knightmodels Star Wars miniatures is the quality of the designs. In this case, the sculpture was done by Alfonso Gozalo, a true master of miniature portraits.
To be fair, this is not a kit for everyone. High price, complicated assembly, and a painting challenge even for the most seasoned painters. A true legendary piece.
OBI-WAN (30 MM)
The 30mm range was very interesting. Take a look at this blister of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Despite being a much more conventional gaming sized miniature, the quality of the sculpture is impecable. The design is flawless, this is a 30mm miniature for painting and collecting, not the usual tabletop. The design is proportionate and as loyal to the original as its bigger siblings in 75mm.
The resemblance between the miniatures and characters of the saga is amazing. Being so small and sculpted traditionally, they are exquisite. A great job of the creative team of the company.
STORMTROOPERS (30 MM)
It really seems like the company tried its way into creating a 30mm game. This is evident in products like this one, a kit of 5 multipose Stormtroopers.
The pieces are just enough to build up 5 soldiers, even so, the package is huge.
This is one of the first versions of this set offered by Knightmodels, in this case all of the pieces where metallic. After various problems with production, some pieces ended up being resin. The card in the box shows the grat work done by the creative team, in this case, the sculptures were made by Israel González.
Take a look at the quality of reproduction of these miniatures, they are very small but no details is missed. The quality is far more superior is we compare these to the miniatures we find now in Imperial Assault for example.
The design of the sprues is not very good considering the material used, we will probably have to damage the pieces when clipping them out. And again, we face the recurrent problem with this company, the quality of the copies. In this case, we see that some of the arms haven’t even been reproduced in its entirety after the manufactoring process. Nothing that a message to the company cannot solve, in fact the customer service in this case was impecable, but a stricter quality control would have prevented this nuisance.
CONCLUSIONS
These are just some representative examples of what the Star Wars Knightmodels range offered. We would have liked to see the line continued. These are now quite difficult to find, so if you have the chance, go for it, they are very rare!
