EotD Gentlemen & Nosferatu boxed sets review

Received a couple of new sets for Empire of the Dead from West Wind. In this post I will review two of the faction boxes, the Gentlemen's Club and the Nosferatu clan.

These are all new 28mm models, sculpted for Empire of the Dead. I was always a fan of the Gothic Horror/Vampire wars range, to be honest it always felt as if Andy Cooper had much more fun sculpting those miniatures than anything else in the West Wind range as the miniatures are full of character. Especially the numerous civilian blisters.

With the new release Andy Cooper has not only stepped up his sculpting skills, but West Wind has thankfully waited with the release of the game until ALL factions are sculpted and ready. This means no more waiting around for gaps to be filled like with Secrets of the Third Reich.

The new boxed sets are actually complete factions. You can (and probably will) expand upon them, but the contents of each box is a lot more complete than starter sets for other games. With this in mind, and with the quality of the sculpts I think the price tag is alright.

Many of these miniatures will also be useful for other games that you might own, and if you already own stuff from the Gothic Horror/Vampire wars range you will be able to blend both the new and the old miniatures without problem in your gangs as they are the same height and size. The main difference is that these new sculpts are sculpted with slot bases in mind, whereas the old miniatures came with a cast metal base.

The Gentlemen's club include 8 very nice Victorian Sci-Fi/Gothic Horror characters armed with pistols, swords and rifles. It includes sculpts for a President, Vice President and the Secretary heroes, and remaining miniatures work perfectly well for the Membership. The only thing that could have been a cool addition is a miniature armed with a scattergun or any of the more rare items - though taking into account that most factions will start out with normal gear and default characters you can understand that the sculpted gear leans towards a "starting faction" look.

The Nosferatu box is just awesome, mainly because of the great looking Guardian and Thralls that really drive home the evil henchmen look. The Graf is armed with a sword, and the Consort with a nasty looking dagger. You also get two bat swarms, that although similar looking are sculpted slightly differently and the tombstone from which the bat swarm extents is also different. This box too, just like the Gentlemen's Club, cover all the heroes you can include in your faction Graf/Consort/Guardian and the minions Thralls/Bat Swarms. Just like with the Gentlemen's Club the Nosferatu are pretty much sculpted to give you a diverse and well rounded starting faction.

The metal quality is very good, no flash and very little mould lines on the miniatures. They also come with 30mm round edge bases. I was asked if there are some basing restrictions/guidelines for the game - but there really aren't. So if you fancy basing your miniatures on washers or square bases that won't pose a problem.