I recently ordered some 28mm sci fi weapons from Hasslefree Miniatures on a whim. The vague plan is to use them to try scratch building a Necromunda Scavvie warband, and maybe just random sci-fi figures in general, which was the same reason I lalso picked up some sci-fi heads from Pig Iron Productions..
I ordered two baggies of Squad Support Weapons and two baggies of Sci fi Human and Halfling guns from Hasslefree. They arrived promptly and well packed in a bubble wrap envelope. Nothing was damaged or required straightening which is good considering the distance they had traveled to reach me in New Zealand.
In the photo above you see a couple of the white metal sprues as I took them out of their baggies. There was a moderate amount of venting spikes on both of them, but they were all easily flicked off with an Xacto blade. There were no prominent mold lines, but I did spend around five minutes per spure taking the weapons off and tiding them up with a needle file.
The ‘squad support’ sprue on the left contains a bunch of solid looking sci-fi weapons: a mix of automatic projectile weapons, a grenade launcher, a large plasma weapon and finally a gatling style weapon of some kind. The ‘Halfling and Human’ weapons sprue on the right contains a more interesting mix of weapons: an auto pistol, something that looks like an Aliens Pulse Carbine, a rather simple, large, flat plasma weapon and a couple of archaic firearms – a shotgun and a WWI Lewis gun!
Overall the weapons are fairly well sculpted and detailed, with one or two possible exceptions – personally I don’t really like the large flat boxy plasma style weapon on each sprue. Scale wise the weapons are certainly suitable for 25-28mm figures. To give many of you a better idea of scale I’ve placed them next to various Games Worskhop plastic parts.
Top row is a Warhammer Fantasy Empire Militia blunderbuss next to a Warhammer 40k Cadian Imperial Guard grenade launcher. In the middle right you have a 40k Cadian Imperial Guard laser rifle, while finally bottom left you have a Necromunda Goliath revolver. You can see that the Hasslefree weapons are generally smaller than the heroic scale 28mm Games Workshop plastic parts.
The difference in scale does make them a little less fearsome looking – compare the Goliath revolver to the Hasslefree auto-pistol bottom left for example. So I’m not entirely sure they’re a good match for Games Workshop plastics which is a little disappointing. However I’m still going to try and work a few into my scratch built Necro Scavvies and see how they go. In terms of price, sculpting and casting quality I can’t fault Hasslefree however, so if you’re looking for sci-fi weapons to work with ranges other than Games Workshop’s I’d say give them a try.