Anvil Industry Review





Note: This review was not paid for or provided by Anvil Industry in anyway. All models were purchased by myself using my own money. Anvil Industry has no idea that I am reviewing their products. I do not know anyone at Anvil Industry, nor do I have any connection to Anvil Industry.





Seeing as this is my first review... I want to give clear cut guidelines for my future reviews. The categories will be simple: Ease of Ordering, Customer Service, Costs, Customization, Details, Construction, and Paint-ability.





Ease of Ordering





This one is a little difficult as Anvil Industry is UK based. While shipping to the world, they only offer their products in pounds. This is great when the pound is down for us in the US, horrible when it goes back up. Really the only place to get it is direct from Anvil Industries. Not too big of a deal as the website works pretty well.





I decided since this is my main force for Renegades that I would be ordering from the Regiments Builder . I used the miniature viewer to assist in picking out each bit that I wanted. While this worked wonderfully for me, it required a lot of patience. I found the app to be quite laggy. Sometimes even a little bit buggy. It took a while for my selections to upload onto the miniature, and sometimes it wouldn't upload the right item.





Example of a bug within the software.

This happened because of the arms needing to come with the weapon and not selected at the same time. Without playing around with it, I was unable to quite get exactly what I was looking for without a significant time investment. Which is fine because the ability to customize is amazing.





Once I was finally able to pick out what I wanted, the rest was a breeze. I used the Custom Platoon Builder to select what I wanted and was on my way. I found it to be pretty easy to select what I wanted and what I needed. That being said however, beware the optional head. I selected mine with the idea that I could use the heads on my weapon squads and specialists. I ended up getting roughly 50/50 heads, which is not what I thought I would be getting.





Score: 7/10









Customer Service





Once I sent out my order, I received e-mail communication immediately. Confirmation of my order was well done and immediate. Communication was clear and within a couple days my order was filled. I ordered my items late at night on August 24th and received the first e-mails the day of. I was expecting it to take significant time, especially since I was in the UK for work at that time. I figured I had a week in the UK left (turned out to be longer), and could probably get these items when I got back.





I received notice that the items were shipped on August 29th. Pretty acceptable time table in my opinion. Especially since I ordered an excess of miniatures. Roughly 4 days from order to ship for a custom order. With it being a small company I think this is more than acceptable for a significant order.





I was given a tracking number for the Royal Mail and advised that shipments to the states could take 2-4 weeks. I enjoyed watching the royal mail's tracking until the item landed in the states. Communication there dropped drastically. I don't blame Anvil for this, but UPS. Either way, the item arrived on September 8th. Roughly 2 weeks from order to delivery.





It has arrived!





Score: 8/10









Cost





So this is hard to do. Not because I don't want to share with you guys the prices. But the score at the end might be skewed. Mostly because I have been very anti-GW in the past and a lot of the people reading this are likely to be large fans. As such I'll do my best to keep my bias's in check. I'd rather you all know my bias's going in prior. Basically, I'll set my standard as a 5/10 for GW. With higher scores meaning more bang for your buck, lower scores meaning less.





So after conversion rates my order cost me $380.05 USD. For this price I got the following:

8x 10 man squads

3x Flamers

3x Snipers

3x Mortar HWS

3x Tesla cannon HWS (To be used as whatever I see fit.)

3x Phase Cannon (To be used as Lascannons.)

Command Squad.





In total I got 99 legs and chests. Which means then, 3x2x3 or 18 models go to the HWT. 6 go to the flamers and snipers, and 5 go to the command squad. As a result 29 models go to the 10man squads. All together making 7 10 man squads.





Lets compare what I paid to building a cadian army. Sure I'll get more weapons bits by doing cadians this way, but I would get the same number of miniatures.





Cadian Command Squad - $25

Cadian Heavy Weapon Squad - $40

Cadian Snipers - $15

Cadian Shock Troops - $29





Total comes to: $363.00





Thus, Anvil Industry is a little bit more expensive than GW for a regiment. That being said, this is comparing to the cheapest Astra Militarum units. Catachans, Steel Legion, and anything besides Cadian is more expensive. Even as I research right now Catachans are out of stock through GW.





While you can get 20% off retail for GW, which improves the price, your choices decrease. Online Retailers cannot get anything but cadians right now. So if your looking for anything besides cadians, I'd say this is probably the way to go. If you're happy with Cadians, GW has them cheaper.





Price - 5/10.









Customization





Their entire bit range is available to you for the same price.





10/10





Details



