Review: Human Biker Gang by West Wind
We're the Hell's Satans out of Bakersfield...
Bikers are cool. From the very dawn of their history they’ve been viewed as outsiders, criminals, and dangerous rebels. This mixture of cool and danger has made them the subjects of countless movies and TV shows, sometimes as heroes, sometimes as villains. They’re just as popular in games of all kinds, but there have been precious few mounted biker minis available. Until now.
I first saw this West Wind set on Old Glory’s website. From the marketing copy everything sounded excellent. Ten metal bikers and their bikes, with a variety of separate heads, arms, and front bike forks to allow massive customization. The price tag was ridiculously low buying from Old Glory with my Old Glory Army discount, so I pulled the trigger since I wanted a biker gang as heavies for my upcoming zompocalypse game.
You'll never defeat the Cobras!
The trouble began when the box arrived tightly packed with what seemed to be individual biker molecules. I had utterly failed to do the math on just how many parts were involved with this kit. Each of the ten mounted bikers consisted of the rear of the bike, the bike’s front fork, the biker himself, a separate arm, and a separate head. That’s fifty pieces, not counting several spare arms and heads, and it made for a vastly bigger job of assembly then I had bargained for. This set is most definitely NOT for anyone without substantial experience assembling multipart metal minis.
After a longish time spent gluing bikes and their forks together, I discovered due to an error I had been given all the same kind of front fork part, when there should have been three different ones in the box. I was hoping that the lack of certain varieties of forks would account for why I had several bikers I could not seem to get seated properly on their metal steeds. A quick e-mail to Teresa at Old Glory got me a package of replacement parts in short order. Unfortunately, for whatever reason the package only held one of each of the missing forks rather than the three each I should have had. I decided to just make do with what I had.
It soon became apparent that the new forks would not solve my problem with ill-fitting bikers. The problem was that the arm that is meant to be gripping the handlebars was part of the main biker figure, and thus not able to be positioned separately unless I was willing to get out the jeweler’s saw and dismember every mini, which I wasn’t. Without such heroic measures, I had a devil of a time getting the bikers to sit on their rides while coming even close to grasping the throttles. I had assumed that several of the biker bodies had been sculpted with variant forks in mind that maybe were turned in some way so that the grips would match up with the riders. No such luck.
The situation was so bad that I had two bikers who were almost impossible to fit on at all. I finally had to settle for leaning them drunkenly off to one side of the saddle. The fit of every single biker was so poor that I had to use globs of green stuff to get them to stick properly to their bikes. More putty had to be used to smooth out the huge gaps where some of the weapon arms mated with the biker torsos, and I had to use even more to get the bikes to mate with their bases properly. Every single bike was miscast just enough to ensure a big destabilizing ridge along the bottom “foot” that was supposed to mate with the base.
I’ve inverted my usual practice and harped on the set’s faults first, but there is a lot to like here as well. The bikes especially are lovingly detailed, with great attention paid to the intricacies of the engines and wheels. They’re by far the best-looking motorcycles I’ve seen in 25mm, which is why it’s such a shame they’re so let down by issues with their riders
Closeup showing putty-filled arm hole
The bikers have an impressive array of customization options. There is a broad spectrum of weapon arms available, from traditional choices like chains or pistols up to serious ordinance like a drum-fed M-16. There’s even a chainsaw for the truly adventurous. The weapons are well-sculpted for the most part, and many are recognizable as real world guns. Weather you want a simple bunch of drunken rowdies or a posse of badasses packing serious heat there are plenty of good choices available.
The choices continue to the heads, which are mostly very well done, with expressive faces and great detail in their beards and hair. There are several spare heads, allowing the builder a decent spectrum of choices that run the gamut of classic biker tropes including Guy Wearing Nazi Helmet, several variations of Guy With ZZ Top Beard, and of course Guy With Giant Mohawk. I was initially a bit unsure about the heads featuring long hair streaming back in the wind, but they look just great when fully assembled and painted. There are a couple of heads with mold lines in unfortunate places, but nothing that requires too much cleanup.
Check out the detail on that bike.
It’s impossible to deny the great value this kit represents. At $35 for ten customizable bikers and their rides, the price per mini ends up being the same or less for these mounted figs than for normal footsloggers. Especially considering the sheer amount of metal in these minis, this box is an amazing deal.
I hate to give a less-than-average grade to a set that has so much going for it, but in the end the myriad part fitting problems are just too big to ignore. I doubt if somebody with less experience that I have with multi-part metal figs could have assembled these figs at all. While I’m sure that all their shortcomings could be addressed by a sufficiently skilled modeler, it’s very poor practice to require extensive skill with conversions to simply assemble a kit.
At the end of the day this set produced a decent-looking gang that I’ll be happy to put on my tabletop, but I had to put an absurd amount of work in to achieve that result thanks to several egregious design blunders by the makers. I’ve really liked just about everything else I’ve seen from West Wind, but I have a hard time recommending this set to any but the most experienced builders willing to take on a major project.
Pros: Very customizable, Good value, Impressive detail on bikes and on some bikers, One of few sets of biker minis available
Cons: Assembly is a big job, Terrible parts fit problems, Poorly designed bike/man interface
Final Verdict: 2/5
MSRP: $35
Source: Old Glory Miniatures
Popularity: 38% [?]
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Thanks for the useful review. I’ve been considering buying this set for a few years now and have wondered about the low price. With your report on the assembly difficulties, I think I have enough on unpainted lead to last me a while. Maybe it would be possible to just order the bikes and get the riders from another manufacturer, who knows.
Glad you liked it, Mikko. Whether or not you should order this kit is really a function of a) how much work you’re willing to put into it, and b) how much you want a biker gang. This is really the only bike gang on the market that I know of, so it’s kinda the only game in town. They can turn out really nice, but there is a substantial price tag labor and sanity attached.
It’s always good to read an honest review that’s not afraid to criticise. Not one of your more complimentary reviews, John, but I understand your reasoning. I don’t own this set but it is on my “to buy” list along with West Wind’s biker vampires and biker werewolves. Just last week I bought Black Scorpion’s biker and chick on bike and what a great mini it is. It comes in 8 parts and I had no problem in putting it together. I’ll be very interested in seeing how I fare with the West Wind bikers as I consider myself an experienced modeller.
Thanks, Vamp. I struggle to be as objective as possible when writing these reviews. I feel it does the readers a disservice if a critic either whitewashes all the flaws or harps on them endlessly. I REALLY wanted to give these guys a higher score, as there is a lot to like about the set, but I just couldn’t honestly do it.
If you’ve got some experience with multipart metals I predict you’ll do fine with these. My advice is to carefully test fit the parts together before gluing, as some arms don’t go with some torsos. Part of my problem was that I didn’t realize this until too late.
If you REALLY want to see me beat up on a product, check out my review of the abominable Master’s Touch Brushes. http://thescreamingalpha.com/2009/01/06/review-masters-touch-brushes/ It’s still the only 1/5 I’ve given, because it’s the worst product of its kind I have encountered to date.
John,
I’ve been looking for “true” 28mm bikes or true 25mm bikes. Sadly, most companies make their minis in “heroic” 28mm scale. How close do the bikes come to being true 25mm scaled bikes? Can you give dimensions of the bikes?
Keith
Glad to help if I can. The bikes are roughly 50mm long (from the front of the front wheel to the back of the back wheel) by 25mm high (measured from the base to the top of the handlebars) or 32 mm from the base to top pf the driver’s head. I think they fit pretty well with 28mm minis, but are a wee bit large for “true” 25mm. Hope that helps. Thanks for reading.
Darn… sounds like they are closer to “Heroic” 28mm scale then.
Close to 1/48 rather than the 1/64 – 1/72 range I’m looking for.
I bet they do look good with “heroic” 28mm minis though. I use 1/48 scale diecast cars in my modern roleplaying games as they look better than accurately scaled cars for gaming purposes.
Unfortunately, I’m looking for bikes to put next to 1/64 scale cars… so these won’t work for that. But maybe I’ll pick them up for one of my other games!
Thanks for the reply and keep up the good work doing the reviews!
Wait a minute… these are “choppers” aren’t they.
I’m looking for something that is closer to 30-35mm in length when measuring for something like a Yamaha, Suzuki, etc type of Japanese speed bike. (Like their Brotherhood and Sisterhood biker gang minis)
I don’t have a good grasp on how much the “chopper” aspect changes things…
Hmm…
If you need to, in order to get this off of your website, you can email me directly at k_unger at hotmail.com (and I hope the spam bots don’t visit your website!)
I’ll drop you a line. I edited the e-mail address in your last post, because I actually have a lot of spambots besieging the site. In just over eight months I’ve had over a thousand comment spams, so you definitely don’t want to put a live e-mail addy out there!
About the bikes, there are three different front forks, though I ended up with mostly chopper forks due to bad packing (I guess). I measured one of the non-chopper bikes (grabbed at random) to get the figures I cited earlier.
I’ll keep an eye out for your email.