Heroics and Ros WW2 6mm Miniatures Images

Why 

Miniatures from Heroics and Ros (H&R) were the first 6mm miniatures I bought (I think I started with 20 miniatures) after some weeks of watching them on the site. I remember how incredible detailed they appeared to me. And they were so small! I was literally shocked. I put them in a transparent box, opened the lid daily for about 2 weeks to take a closer look at them, because I did not have paints or other relevant tools and basically, did not know what else to do with them. In order to learn how to paint, I started watching you tube videos and read many articles, but this is generally, another topic, for another day. To be close to cut it short (!), I put some paint right from the pot, and of course it did not apply correctly (the paint in the bottle was not shaken, so you can figure out what happened) and the miniatures were left in a box for some days, when I started to simply learn by doing it, step by step. So then I bought more and more, as I caught the pleasure of painting and collecting. But a serious problem was right from the start: most of the miniatures on the H&R’s site did not have photos, and mostly still do not. How can you buy something like this? Well, many of us did and still do. Not anymore… 

 

I assembled, after some years of hard work, this image gallery of WW2 miniatures from H&R, no, not all of them (doh!), but enough for myself to be amazed because I did not plan it to be so complex (and actually did not know what it meant to be able to do it). The pleasure came naturally as I learned. There are some miniatures that I may be misidentified, some I have not really succeeded in identifying at all (you know, you can help, by leaving me a comment to correct me, or point me to your collection so I can watch and learn). Know I can choose the miniatures knowing how they really look, by just looking at a picture of them in my gallery and also having a paint example, which is even better. This is a two steps improvement in collecting miniatures from H&R. Maybe in the future all of the miniatures on their site will have photos, maybe other hobbyist will do something similar or even better, but until then we now have something to aid us. So let us proceed!

How 

The miniatures are from metal (white lead), they are 1:300 in scale, so smaller than 1:285, but they are both approx. 6mm in height. Therefore, 6mm miniatures also called micro miniatures, and I assure not in vain (but have you painted 3mm? you will certainly go back to 6mm miniatures and start them painting easily, from poignée). The miniatures were cleaned, washed with liquid soap, primed with Black Vallejo Primer and painted. One coat of paint was applied on the top and sides of the miniature, one coat on the bottom of miniature, and another on the top and sides of the miniature again. Then the tracks were painted or wheels, if it was the case, and details were painted, drybrushing, washing, highlighting, correcting mistakes, mix and match, or skip some, depending on each and everyone's tastes. 

 

Glue, super glue, was required for some of the miniatures, but generally, just to glue a turret to a hull of a tank and so on, not too complicated, but other times it can be a little tricky like in the case of SdKfz Command miniatures from German army. It is not much unwanted material to clean, but when doing it you have to be especially careful at what you do. I was not, in some of the cases. Also, because the miniatures are small, a difference being noticeable even by comparison with 1:285 miniatures, be careful at how you paint them. I practically learned how to paint (in general, not micro miniatures) with H&R miniatures so you will see some mistakes like applying a thick paint. It is best not to repeat them. Apply multiple thin layers of paint. I will not do a repaint of the miniatures, maybe just here and there some corrections, but not tabula rasa, especially since they are testimony and a memory since I first started painting with them, maybe something like old parts from a CV or resumé. 

 

Rarely, some of the miniatures had some casting problems or they arrived with the barrel of the gun from a tank broken (to arrive with a bent gun is something, in general, understandable, at least at this scale). How can you fix this? There are many methods presented on different sites. I simply use a part of the brush to elevate the gun, and carefully, with another one, point it in the desired/right direction, and this done after the painting was finished, at least before some last minute highlights, to avoid to repeat the procedure and eventually broke it.

Results 

So, as we have seen, with good and bad parts, but with many fond memories and a tremendous work, many-many miniatures were painted. Then they were cataloged. There may be some wrong identification of the miniatures, because of the H&R site not showing pictures of all the miniatures. Sometimes, in the research done to identify some of them, not too many information and images were found. Other times, because of the amount of time needed to collect the miniatures, things started to blur, no matter how effort was put into organizing the collection. 

 

Accidents happened, and with missed information you can place your bets on what happened in some of the cases. Okay, now the good thing is that most of the miniatures are good and well (for example, a Tiger Tank is a Tiger Tank, not a Sherman Tank, though problems may appear at its different variants). After the miniatures were cataloged (step by step, after adding them to the collection), photos were taken, in general, from 9 angles/positions to better catch the splendor or not of the miniature, a 1:300 representation of a real World War II equipment or soldier that fought in those terrible and turbulent years. And then put them on the blog. It took a while. Again, a work to digitally catalog them was done again, to process photos and other bits of information and to post and post again. Finally a gallery of images and series of texts and a web of links was assembled. And then, this review came. Hope you like it, as my next thoughts, the actual review, comes in the next paragraphs.

Review 

This is a long review? How else can it be, for this important 6mm WW2 miniature collection from H&R?! Around 450 (type of) miniatures were painted: all sort of tanks (light, medium, heavy), self-propelled guns, tankette, armored cars, anti-aircraft equipment, artillery, soft skins (all kind of vehicles, from motorcycles to trucks and cars), engineering and support vehicles (reconnaissance, command), half tracks, trains, infantry (light, heavy, artillery crew, airborne, engineers, ski, desert, mountain and so on), cavalry, buildings and accessories (stowage, oil barrels). The H&R range includes numerous miniatures, also aircraft and ships (landing crafts). I also have some of these, other will be added later, as such a collection is in continuous development (does it ever end? – I do not think this is the idea, it is a hobby, and a continuous learning process of painting, of understanding more from the history of WW2 and so on - the road to it, not achieving the goal is sometimes more important), and what it is important, is that I have a series of findings based on my experience with collecting and painting H&R miniatures.

Bare in mind that I only express general characteristics with only some of the special cases as examples to sustain my findings and it is not a review miniature by miniature (with hundreds cataloged you can understand why and also by the already lengthy review).

The variety of H&R 6mm miniatures is really impressive: many types of miniatures, many variants of the same miniature corresponding to the real vehicles (for example, Panzer IV tank or Sherman tank variants), but also some of the imagined (only projects or part-completed vehicles). There are also many miniatures from many nations that fought in WW2: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Poland, Romania, Russia, United Kingdom and United States. These are those nations with extensive lines of miniatures – some of them only have around 5 miniatures, some like Germany or United Kingdom are well 100+ miniatures. The most developed range of miniatures is that for Germany, somehow predictable, based on history, but also on demand from hobbyists. There are other nations represented only by aircraft miniatures like Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Dutch, Sweden and Yugoslavia. Of course, I have collected miniatures from only some of these nations.

The miniatures are detailed, but with imbalances: some are more than others, sometimes miniatures are a little bit off the real vehicle trying to represent, other times a good job was done especially for this scale/measure. 1:300, the scale of H&R miniatures, is smaller than 1:285, and mostly, the miniatures are respecting this scale. They are around 6mm in height, the convention measure for both these scales. An often question is if the H&R miniatures can be mixed with other miniatures. The 6mm ranges of miniatures are quite developed - GHQ, CinC, Butler’s Printed Models, Irregular Miniatures, Baccus, Scotia Grendel to name a few. I have collected miniatures from some of these ranges too (GHQ, CinC), but only from Scotia Grendel to truly compare (see a review of the miniatures from Scotia Grendel here). The conclusion: it depends... Most of the time, H&R mixed with them looks a little bit out of scale (smaller), sometimes is the other way around. Some of the designs may be better from the other companies and so on. You have to be aware of these, and also of the personal preferences, that you have to set on your own (you may actually like a miniature that may not be very well proportioned with the real thing - an image gallery helps here). Mixing the miniatures no matter if the same Panzer IV F, for example, may look different in H&R design than Scotia Grendel (in size and details) you may very well play wargames or collect them no matter, thinking that a same type of vehicle could have been assembled at different factories of the same nation or different nations (especially for Allies). Also, they were made by humans: the real vehicles, like the miniatures. There may be differences from the standard design when a real vehicle or miniature is manufactured (cast errors, mechanical failures, not to name the wastes/rejects that do not leave more than the court of the factory). Like in statistics, the average is important, but it is not showing you all the sides of a story. I prefer to mix them, and I refrain myself from being to critical, in general, though I have my own preferences, but you have to the a comparison, miniature by miniature. The variety of miniatures for H&R is a big plus, but this does not mean that other manufacturers do not have their own unique miniatures or a good overall range of miniatures (GHQ is best, but even if money would not be a problem, I would still collect from other manufacturers, not because of a hobby frenzy or something, but because of unique miniatures others have, or other variants - trucks with an interesting load, combat vehicles with different details and so on). This is all based on WW2, deal with it! And your own preferences are important, find your own way of enjoying the hobby.

At 6mm measure your are more than right to ask yourself if these miniatures are solid or fragile. In general, they are solid, but there are some miniatures or parts of miniatures with which you have to be more careful – the mentioned barrels of the guns from tanks the frame from G021D - Hanomag Sdkfz 251/3 command (also hard to glue) are some of the examples that came in to my mind now. There are not too many parts that need to be glued and a good range of miniatures come in one part, so no need to assemble. They can be painted very fast, and although quite small, you can do a good job with more experience, and also the details of the miniatures (most of the times not like GHQ, but sometimes H&R is better!) really helps here. When you try it, you will be also convinced. There are miniatures that need an improvement or even more, or a complete redesign – some of the design may be old and less detailed, but this is normal with such a range of miniatures and which such a history behind it. Also, the miniatures are in metal, but now, the plastic/resin miniatures, even in 6mm, is doing huge steps in terms of prices and details that can be cast with it, or better said the nowadays technology and manufacturers are making huge improvements. So the competition starts to be harsh, and I think that in some limits is good for all of us, manufacturers, sellers or simple collectors or wargamers.

And because we have attained this subject of competition, let us write now about prices. The value of a thing is a subjective aspect, but the prices of miniatures are important. They were the best at H&R – 0.40 pounds per miniature in general (other miniatures can cost more), but now this average is 0.65 pounds, similar to other manufacturers (Scotia Grendel, Butler’s Printed Models), but not like CinC and definitely not like GHQ, the most expensive miniatures (in general, 5 in a pack 11.95 pounds so 2.39 pounds per miniature) – the amount of details invested in the miniatures from GHQ is impressive, but it comes with a cost. Sometimes you may not like the GHQ way of selling the miniatures, 5 per pack (in general), so you can prefer buying just one from H&R and other manufacturers. The infantry in general comes in packs of three of more soldiers (even 50+), depending on the types represented. So collecting WW2 miniatures in 6mm is affordable with H&R and from some of the other manufacturers and it all depends on what you want to do and how do you position yourself as hobbyist: as there is no complete range of WW2 miniatures, you have to add miniatures from different manufacturers, no matter if you collect miniatures from only one nation or year of production or trying to represent just a battle of WW2. For example, in a wargame you may opt for representing Italian army: most of the components of a tank battalion could come fromh H&R and some of the command vehicles from GHQ. If you are a collector, you may want to have each and every SdKfz 251 vehicles with miniatures from all manufacturers, even kitbashing, because this is a possibility that you can turn to in order to diversify the miniatures and to make them more real, and also to represent variants that you are not able to find on the market or just to reenact real WW2 situations. You may want to collect only miniatures from a military formation like the LRDG or only miniatures from the Battle of Kursk or from a theater of war, like the Desert War, or only from 1945, with some of the war equipment being relevant and continued to be used decades later (so there you go, you can use some of the miniatures for Modern wars, like Team Yankee and the hypothetical WW3 than was fought in ‘80s – H&R, like other manufacturers also has separate ranges of miniatures for Modern wars - T34/85 was used by some armies even in late '80s). These are only some of the thoughts that came into my mind, this field of ideas is never ending and H&R is doing a good job in supporting your dreams and projects.

I like the accessories produced by H&R like oil drums or stowage with which you can customize very well your miniatures. I do not like the buildings produced by H&R, maybe except pillbox, because they lack details and because they are produced from metal and weight to much for my tastes and storage possibilities. The same for trees, detailed, but due to the weight you have to make a good base for them to stay straight and this is achieved also with an increase of weight. Maybe they will work for you. On the other hand, trains and tracks I think make a nice addition to your collection or wargame table – not many nations from H&R have access to them, but wagons and engines are varied, and can be used for other nations.

With a big collection comes many problems – you may invest a lot, or you can do it step by step at affordable rates. Here comes one of the problems of H&R – the site does not display images for all the miniatures, problem resolved here on Paint. Play. Repeat! unpaid, not asked, but by my desire to better organize the collection, to know what I buy and to decide what to buy based on the miniature and its characteristics. In this respect, the H&R case is not the only one, for WW2 we have Scotia Grendel for example, problem resolved also here, like for 6mm sci-fi, with the example of Ground Zero Games. Another reason why I have assembled this image gallery and review is to help the community of hobbyist in order to decide what to buy from H&R, even compared with other manufacturers (that is why an 8mm cube is present in images next to the miniature that is the subject of the photo), and to clearly identify a miniature, or to help others in starting painting, with the painted example of the miniature provided. I also need help to identify correctly some of the miniatures so, help, write me comments. The same in the case of painting skills (I started painting with H&R miniatures, now I have improved my skills, but there is room for improvement – also historical information about WW2 needs to be improved, and for each and every war equipment that was present in WW2). I learned a lot from other internet places and think this gallery and review here will also help. 

The Heroics and Ros range of miniatures is complex, but there are segments which can be improved, or some miniatures that should be redesigned. Among some of the miniatures from Heroics and Ros that I like very much I name: the trucks with passengers, LRDG vehicles, Italian vehicles, the many softskins of United Kingdom, the infantry is very complex in terms of variety and representation and I think the best on the 6mm market.

The Heroics and Ros (H&R) range of 6mm WW2 miniatures is impressive in so many respects that you have little time to mention its shortcomings. You cannot go wrong if you decide to start collecting 6mm miniatures from H&R, or want to play a wargame, or just to improve your collection already constituted from miniatures from other manufacturers. If you paint in 6mm and WW2 is your thing, you have no real option in skipping this manufacturer, H&R is a legend.

 

Feedback

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Click on the links to access the galleries of the ranges of miniatures, totaling 450+ miniatures and thousands of corresponding images.  

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AUSTRALIA

 

CANADA

 

FRANCE

GERMANY

 

HUNGARY

 

INDIA

 

ITALY

 

JAPAN

 

POLAND

ROMANIA

RUSSIA

 

UNITED KINGDOM

 

UNITED STATES

 

TRAINS AND TRACKS

OTHER