Pistols At Dawn: Kromlech Vs Evil Craft Vs Anvil Industry

A warrior's sidearm is often his last resort, so picking the right one is essential for your armies. Today I have not one, but three awesome 'Bolt Pistols' to share with you today, in a three-way battle for supremecy. I will be looking at several factors including value, quality and detail.



In the blue corner, we have the Legionary Thunder Pistols from Kromlech.

In the red corner, there is the Chaos Pistol, from Evil Craft.


And finally in the green corner, we have Anvil Industry's Heretic Pistols.

Now, fight!

Value

First up is value, which is based on not only the price, but how much you get for your money.


Kromlech offers you ten pistols for £5.05. You get two designs, pistols both with and without optical scopes. This works out at a shave over 50 pence per unit.

Evil Crafts are much more expensive, at £5.90. Like the Kromlech guns, you get ten per pack, but unlike them you get five designs (two copes of each). This extra variety comes at a cost, at 59 pence per unit.

Finally we have Anvil's offering. At only £2 per pack, they are the cheapest of all three sets, working out at a tiny 40 pence per unit. Unlike the others, you only get five a set, and only one basic design, though the bullet belts are all slightly different on each gun.

So in terms of price it is a clear victory to Anvil Industry.

Quality

This one is hard to deterimine a winner for, as all three companies have a high-quality product. Anvil Industry's product is clean, but is quite simple in design so there was little to go wrong.

The other two offerings are far more detailed, and yet came out just as crisp. None of the examples I'd received at any imperfections or serious mould lines.

Evil Craft's pistols are perhaps harder to remove from the sprue, as the resin sections holding the guns to the sprue are the thickest.

In terms of quality then, it is a three way tie, with perhaps Kromlech edging a millimetre ahead, due to smaller resin gates.

Details

All the guns are designed for the larger 28mm human (i.e. Space Marines), but after that the guns each take a different path, but all are well suited to their designated styling.


The Kromlech gun has a special-ops feel, and would be well suited for highly trained veterans. The drum-fed scoped guns are perfect for representing specially trained operatives on long missions and unit leaders with extra kit.

Evil Craft takes the most ornamental route. Each gun is lovingly detailed with spiked trim and skulls. All the pistols have a magazine style clip, and sharp fanged barrels. These guns are the largest of the three, with a more 'true scale' vibe. These are best suited for unit champions and warlords, where the ostentatious designs would not look out of place.


Anvil's is the most utilitarian. Each gun, with a belt feed, looks like it would work in real life, with perfect proportions which all look the part...well that's about it really. They are very functional in appearance, but there are no real details to speak of. They paint up well, but there are no trims to embellish or details to pick out.

Conclusion

This is a difficult one to pick one winner, each has their own appeal. The Evil Craft pistols are perfect for Chaos Space Marines, but are a bit too expensive to be rolled out across a whole army. The Anvil guns are perfect value and have a simple but appealing appearance, and the Kromlech ones are a good all-rounder, with a few nice details, a bit of choice and a fair price. If I were to give a large squad pistols I'd choose the Anvil guns, if it was a veteran unit the Kromlech ones would be my #1, and if I wanted to give a mighty Sorcerer or Lord a daemonic pistol, Evil Craft would take the trophy.