REVIEW: Soda Pop’s Relic Knights Unboxed
Back in 2009 Soda Pop Miniatures emerged on the scene with just the single offering you see above. Something about Candy and Cola made her successful enough to help launch an entire line.
Maybe it was the Manga style, maybe it was the squee factor, or maybe it was… something else entirely. Whatever it was, it worked, and Soda Pop’s Relic Knights line has grown enough that they will soon be releasing a set of rules to accompany their growing catalog of minis. But that’s another story. For now I’m just going to do a simple un-boxing. This will give anyone who may have been curious about the range a chance to get a closer look, and introduce the rest of you to something you might find really cool.
We’re going to be looking at the products above: One Shot and Fritz, Sebastian Cross and Rook, the Noh Berserker, and Hasami.
As you can see, One Shot definitely brings along some of the same sex appeal as Candy and Cola. The mecha she’s piloting and the cipher (Fritz) accompanying her mark her as one of the Relic Knights the game is named for. The little blurb on the side of her packaging reveals that she is a mercenary fighting for fame and fortune with the Black Diamond Corps.
Moving aside the packing peanuts we find our components in the bottom.
Here’s a look at the resin parts on the sprue.
A close up of the pieces reveals they’ve got a lot of cool detail. As far as quality goes, I’d say this kit is pretty much on par with what I’ve come to expect from resin minis in general. Great detail, but the pieces will require a bit of cleaning. Such is the way of the modern era of minis gaming it seems.
And then there are all these metal components too. As you can see this is a pretty complicated kit. And there aren’t any instructions. Hopefully it won’t be too tricky to put together with the picture from the site as reference. While the number of pieces is a little daunting, I don’t think it’s in any way superfluous. I’m betting if you asked the people at Soda Pop they would tell you this is the minimum number of parts required to achieve their desired level of quality. It looks like they would would rather add 5 pieces to a kit than compromise it’s three dimensionality or cast something that might be undercut. Hopefully people will like the minis enough for the assembly to be worth it. And then of course there are people like me who actually enjoy putting kits like this together.
Finally, at $49.95, One Shot and Fritz don’t exactly fall into the bargain category. But I really don’t think it’s an unfair price, especially when you take into account the fact that you are getting two miniatures in this kit. Models of similar size to Fritz tend to retail for around $7.00 – sometimes a bit more. That puts One Shot about on par for similar sized resin kits other companies are manufacturing.
Sebastian Cross is the head of the Paladins of the Order of the Shattered Sword. This organization is one of the last bastions of good in an imperfect galaxy. Sebastian might be my favorite Relic Knight. I think the holy meets sci-fi feel is captured really well with him.
The pieces are all bagged up this time.
This is another pretty complicated kit, but everything looks really cool.
Little CAD generated details like this filigree are all over this piece.
And then you’ve got things like these cool wires beneath the shoulderpads.
And just like One Shot, he’s got a ton of metal pieces too.
Sebastian Cross and Rook are currently the priciest of the Relic Knights at $59.95. Given Sebastian’s imposing size, I think this price is about what you should expect.
Let’s move on to the blisters now. We’ll start with the Berserker.
What’s not to like about an intergalactic Japanese-themed Ogre warrior? Once again they’ve chosen to make it a really parts intensive kit. As you can see just this one guy is comprised of 9 pieces. For the sake of scale you should know that base in the picture above, the one that he was packaged with, is 50mm.
This is one of the highest quality resin casts I’ve seen. It has a high level incredibly crisp detail. It’s also very clean with few visible mold lines.
The intertwining plates on his pants are another great way to show off the quality of this cast.
He is priced at $23.95, which seems fair for a mini of this size.
Finally we’ve got Hasami.
She’s the only one I’ve shown so far that’s all metal. She’s also the simplest kit with just two pieces
Here’s a close-up of her face so you can kind of get a feel for the manga style on these minis.
Hasami is priced at $12.95; about what you would expect for a white metal character model.
~ Well I’ve got to admit I’ve grown really fond of Soda Pop lately. Their unique look and inspired designs have really won me over. I’ve already painted up a Relic Knight and two of the smaller characters from the range. Hopefully I’ll post them up at a later date. But we all know the anime thing isn’t for everybody. And there are bound to be some who are put off a little by those revealing outfits. So I want to know what all your thoughts are on Relic Knights!
