As I said in the release article, you get a lovely little box containing your miniatures and a nice A5 art card.
Working from left to right on the artwork, lets start with Brig.
Brig is a very characterful and grumpy looking badger - if the hand gesture didn't give that away, maybe the axe blade almost the same size as him might.
One of the things that highlights the quality you get from Ax Faction can be seen in looking at the above picture. Look at that pipe - it's fricking tiny. That dainty little thing could easily be mistaken for flash from another company, and it's going to be a pain to get it safely away from the sprue, but it is a lovely touch.
Brig has a couple of bits of flash in places but nothing major. I was particularly drawn to the axe holster on his back, which stands out nicely against the fur texture.
The base inserts all have a tab across them to allow for easy gluing which is a nice touch, along with having footprints and holes to make attaching the miniatures almost idiot proof. I haven't cleaned down the base (or any of the components) yet so the tab doesn't quite fit but it looks a spot on size.
Next up is Skuld, or, the lady with the rather large sword. She comes in 4 parts plus a base insert.
The sword is ever so slightly bent, but not enough that it would be noticeable when stuck to the handy tab on her back. Also on the sword sprue are her hands, yet more dainty, tiny pieces!
Finally we have Ivy. It might be the addition of a cloak, but she feels a lot more solid than the other Ax Faction models I've handled. This isn't anything against the other minis - the delicate feel to them just makes me want to do a great job with them. On the other hand, Ivy doesn't feel like she'll snap should I accidentally drop her. I guess this is just me being used to chunky GW stuff and working with metal. I might have to get used to it, what with Infamy Kickstarter stuff on the horizon.
Again, lovely detail. For an instant I thought I had spotted the first mold line in the set, but it turns out it's actually crossed swords on the pauldron (which does have a little flash on it).
I'm in love with the crossbow. The only other crossbow I can remember seeing with anywhere near this level of detail is Bianca, Varric's crossbow from the Dragon Age franchise.
So, final thoughts. Lots of lovely detail and different textures across the trio. Very clean with only a few bits of flash. A couple of bits on the sprues look like they are going to be fun to take off, but gluing together shouldn't be a problem thanks to everything having tabs. They could easily be put to use in a skirmish or character driven game. I look forward to seeing the great paint jobs that people are bound to come up with for them.
Would I recommend people buy them? Absolutely. £26 and postage is well worth it - at roughly £10 a character (since Brig is a little shorter he can take a little less of the cost) there are miniatures from other companies that you can pay a lot more for and get a lot less detail.
