Darklord Dave
Super Freak
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2005
- Messages
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- Reaction score
- 80
THE DOCTORE IS IN!
I didn't see another thread about this guy, so here's my in hand review.
There are at least 3 companies doing Romans and Gladiators and they may be confusing in all are quite different, despite offering almost the same characters. Kaustic Plastik, ACI and CMToys all tread in this arena, all with various success rates.
This is about the CMToys Roman Gladiator Coach which is obviously based on Peter Mensah as Oenomaus the Doctore of Batiatus' Ludus. (Which means he coached/trained the gladiators.)
Hence the title Gladiator Coach on the box.
I have a lot of problems with this figure, but first the good -
The headsculpt is superb. It's on the level of a Hot Toys sculpt - there's no mistaking who this is supposed to be.
The sculpting on the accessories is also top notch. The sword is a little rough looking, but a gladiator's sword wouldn't be perfect and fancy like a Roman officers'.
Some companies go with all metal accessories but CMToys has opted for plastic, and I'm fine with that. They are lighter and allow for better posing (usually) and the details of the sculpt are more defined. He has a battle sword, a practice sword, a wooden shield, his whip, greaves and a total of 3 sets of hands.
The costume is also very accurate to the show - he has chest armor (which I didn't try to remove), pants, sandals, 2 belts over a wrapped cloth. All the clothing is great, although the belts are a tad loose. I don't see any more holes for the buckles, so I don't think they'd be tightened easily.
He complements other CMToys gladiators very well, here he is with their version of Crixus.
And with ACI's version of the same character:
Now for the bad.
The body is completely rubber, even the legs although they are covered for the most part. The rubber is very soft and feels like it might tear easily. It is also a little grayish so the plastic hands don't match the color very well. CMToys includes 2 pages of photos that I think are supposed to show what NOT to do with the body. And that includes most poses that you would want to put a gladiator in. Obviously they've had some complaints before.
Another problem is the hands. There is only a single set of wrist connectors included and when I tried to change them for another hand set, I broke a wrist peg. A very common occurrence, but the plastic on the hands and pegs feels very brittle and is much harder than hands from HT or other companies. I broke the whip handle (it's leather around a plastic rod) when trying to get it in the hand as the hand was so stiff. Luckily I had a bunch of extra HT wrist connectors lying around and was able to use a set of those for the other hands. This time I warmed up the hands under hot water to get the peg in and to put accessories in their hands. I only had Caucasian connectors, but he's wearing wrist bands, so the color change doesn't show.
This speaks to the overall feel of the product - the box is thinner cardboard, the plastic tray is thin and easily torn and the rubber body feels cheaper and doesn't pose as well as bodies from other companies. This character hardly needs the rubber body too, although the shoulders and arms do look good without exposed joints.
He won't stand on his own either and doesn't come with a stand - I used HT style stands for all these figures.
CMToys is coming up in a lot of ways - the overall look of this figure is excellent, but they have a long way to go too in order to play in the big leagues.
I didn't see another thread about this guy, so here's my in hand review.
There are at least 3 companies doing Romans and Gladiators and they may be confusing in all are quite different, despite offering almost the same characters. Kaustic Plastik, ACI and CMToys all tread in this arena, all with various success rates.
This is about the CMToys Roman Gladiator Coach which is obviously based on Peter Mensah as Oenomaus the Doctore of Batiatus' Ludus. (Which means he coached/trained the gladiators.)
Hence the title Gladiator Coach on the box.
I have a lot of problems with this figure, but first the good -
The headsculpt is superb. It's on the level of a Hot Toys sculpt - there's no mistaking who this is supposed to be.
The sculpting on the accessories is also top notch. The sword is a little rough looking, but a gladiator's sword wouldn't be perfect and fancy like a Roman officers'.
Some companies go with all metal accessories but CMToys has opted for plastic, and I'm fine with that. They are lighter and allow for better posing (usually) and the details of the sculpt are more defined. He has a battle sword, a practice sword, a wooden shield, his whip, greaves and a total of 3 sets of hands.
The costume is also very accurate to the show - he has chest armor (which I didn't try to remove), pants, sandals, 2 belts over a wrapped cloth. All the clothing is great, although the belts are a tad loose. I don't see any more holes for the buckles, so I don't think they'd be tightened easily.
He complements other CMToys gladiators very well, here he is with their version of Crixus.
And with ACI's version of the same character:
Now for the bad.
The body is completely rubber, even the legs although they are covered for the most part. The rubber is very soft and feels like it might tear easily. It is also a little grayish so the plastic hands don't match the color very well. CMToys includes 2 pages of photos that I think are supposed to show what NOT to do with the body. And that includes most poses that you would want to put a gladiator in. Obviously they've had some complaints before.
Another problem is the hands. There is only a single set of wrist connectors included and when I tried to change them for another hand set, I broke a wrist peg. A very common occurrence, but the plastic on the hands and pegs feels very brittle and is much harder than hands from HT or other companies. I broke the whip handle (it's leather around a plastic rod) when trying to get it in the hand as the hand was so stiff. Luckily I had a bunch of extra HT wrist connectors lying around and was able to use a set of those for the other hands. This time I warmed up the hands under hot water to get the peg in and to put accessories in their hands. I only had Caucasian connectors, but he's wearing wrist bands, so the color change doesn't show.
This speaks to the overall feel of the product - the box is thinner cardboard, the plastic tray is thin and easily torn and the rubber body feels cheaper and doesn't pose as well as bodies from other companies. This character hardly needs the rubber body too, although the shoulders and arms do look good without exposed joints.
He won't stand on his own either and doesn't come with a stand - I used HT style stands for all these figures.
CMToys is coming up in a lot of ways - the overall look of this figure is excellent, but they have a long way to go too in order to play in the big leagues.
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