Alright folks, today we’re heading into the jungle with Rubicon’s Vietnam range, so roll a doobie, queue up Fortunate Son, and get ready to rock n’ roll.
I recently noticed Rubicon’s rapidly expanding Vietnam range at my local gaming store and picked up a box of their “US Army” and their redundantly titled “USMC Marines” sets. Each come with thirty 28mm infantry models arrayed across five hard plastic sprues, with the USMC set coming with an extra command sprue containing additional weapon and equipment options.
Scale & Sculpting
Rubicon tends to sculpt their models in true-scale fashion, and these kits are no exception. You won’t find any bobble-headed soldiers here. For those who like realistic proportions, this is a blessing, but when it comes to assembly, true-scale does present some problems, as we’ll see later.
To check their height I used the highly scientific method of lining them up against 28mm models of other manufacturers. While their arms, hands, and heads are certainly skinnier than heroically-scaled minis, height wise they seem to be in the same ballpark (although the Rubicon models do come with 25mm lipped bases which are about 3mm high, which gives them a little extra lift).
Both sets come with a variety of pouches, equipment, and backpacks so that the soldiers can be modeled as either early or late-war. Black soldiers are also represented on the sprue with their own head options, which the instructions confusingly refer to as “Ethnic African Soldiers”.
Weapon options consist of M16 rifles, M203 rifles w/under barrel grenade launcher, M79 grenade launchers, and the M72 LAW. The Marine set, meanwhile, contains several additional weapon options, such as the M60 machine gun, M1911 pistol, M14 rifle, and a Remington shotgun. Oddly, the Army box doesn’t seem to come with M60 machine guns, several of which would normally be present in a US Army platoon. The Marine box, thankfully, comes with three.
Assembly
Assembling the minis takes a bit of work, as each soldier needs a lot of gluing to complete. An average soldier here is broken into a head, torso, legs, left arm, right arm, plus 2-4 pouches. The front pouches and canteens are a real pain in the ass to get on, as they’re absolutely tiny. Several disappeared into my carpet, vanishing like a Viet Cong fighter into the brush, never to be seen again.
The options for poses are pretty good, allowing you to build your soldiers running, kneeling, aiming, firing, and throwing grenades. I really liked how dynamic the end result felt, with every soldier appearing to be in the middle of the action and no one standing around stiffly.
Mold lines were visible on many parts and required me to scrape them off before moving onto the painting step.
Painting
Heading into the painting stage, I was a little concerned that the true-scale sculpting style would lead to a rather flat end-result. However, this turned out to be a false alarm, as the final models came out looking very nice. The folds in the clothes, in particular, lend themselves well to holding shadows and allowing for a nice highlight.
Here is the quick painting method I used (all colors are Vallejo unless specified otherwise):
- Prime the models using Russian Uniform spray primer
- Highlight the uniform with Russian Uniform 70.924 mixed with Deck Tan 70.986
- Paint boots with 70.889 Olive Brown
- Skin was painted Medium Fleshtone 70.860 or 70.043 for black soldiers
- Webbing and pouches painted using Citadel Zandri Dust
- M16 body & helmet strap German Grey 70.995
- Rifle strap Green Grey 70.886
- Helmet camo based with German Camo Beige WWII 70.821 then splotched with Park Green Flat 70.969 and Saddle Brown 70.940
- I covered the whole thing in a mix of Citadel Agrax Earthshade & Lahmian Medium for shading. Once that had dried I brushed on a layer of AK Interactive Ultra Matte Varnish to protect it and remove any shine.
For basing I used Luke APS Base Ready basing material, which I use for all my minis as it looks great and is a huge time saver. Specifically I used the “Fields of New Zealand” mix, then added bits of clump foliage for bushes and Gamer’s Grass plants and tufts.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I am very happy with how the models turned out. Building them is fiddly and time-consuming, but I think the end result is worth it. Rubicon retails each box at $47, which is about $1.50 per mini, which isn’t bad. I was able to get mine on sale for $35/box which made them certainly worth the investment, especially here in the US where Empress & Gringo40 metal minis can be expensive.
As a final thought I will say that I think the US Marines box is the better of the two options. The models require less assembly and come with twice as many weapon options as the US Army box. In particular, the lack of M60 machine guns in the US Army box is disappointing.
Next up, I will be working on some Vietnamese opponents to face off against the Americans, so stay tuned!
Questions, comments, suggestions? Looking forward to when we make Alex review the NVA and Viet Cong? Let us know in the comments or Contact@goonhammer.com
