Brick Review: BrickWarriors’ Gladiator Items

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Dave

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Check out the selection of Gladiator items from Brickwarriors

Full disclosure: not all of these weapons and other items are 100% gladiator inspired. But you know what? I don’t care. They’re all more or less medieval/classical/fantastic, and I think that works for the theme I’m trying to build here. Right? Right? At any rate, on with the review.

Armor

First up, we’ve got a couple of helmets. The Ranger Helm is a pretty nice piece, with some really interesting curves along its crest. It’s also got a tiny eye hole, which makes your minifig look pretty damn menacing. I did notice that this item fits pretty snugly on a minifig head, so removing it from an older figure that doesn’t have much grip left on the neck might take a little work.

The Ranger Helm

Next is the Goblin Helmet, which is just awesome. It’s covered with spikes, but has an open face. I’m not sure is this is directly based on anything in particular, but it makes a minifig look pretty hardcore. I can just imagine these things on a small army of thugs and lowlifes.

The Goblin Helmet

The Gladiator Pauldron is an interesting item. Like the Bandoleer from our Western Review, it takes the place of what is generally painted onto the figure. I really like this item. It’s a lot different from what you’d normally expect for an over-the shoulder item, but is also instantly recognizable and adds to the cool factor. The pauldron works for both gladiators and barbarians, as well as post-apocalyptic thugs in the style of Mad Max.

Gladiator Pauldrons

Next is the Trojan Shield, and item I really like. This thing is perfect for building an army, but also works pretty well for a solo character. Right now it only comes in steel, but hopefully they’ll release a bronze version someday.

A shield

Smashing Weapons

Next up, we’ve got what I like to call the smashing weapons. The “Skull Crusher” hammer looks like it could indeed easily crush some skulls. The Gladiator Ax looks like it’s ready to do some serious chopping, or some impaling with the spike on its opposite site. Finally, the Spiked Mace is just a nasty looking piece of equipment. You really don’t want to get hit with that thing.

I guess you wouldn’t want to get hit with any of these weapons, but still.

Weapons for smashing stuff

Swords

Next come the swords. The Xiphos, Dervish Blade, and Great Sword are all fantastic additions to your collection. I’ve always loved the design on the Xiphos (although I never knew what it was called), and BrickWarriors’ reproduction does it justice. The Dervish Blade has a fantastic shape, but the real highlight for this item is the styling on the handle. Really great stuff. Finally, the Great Sword is, indeed great. This this is giant; you wouldn’t want to mess with the minifig wielding this sucker.

Swords!

Special Weapons

The Cestus is basically a Roman version of brass knuckles, only with a bunch of spikes on them. Pretty cool, right? The trouble with the Cestus is that it’s a really small item to begin with, and once you reduce it to minifig scale, it’s tiny. But somehow BrickWarriors pulled it off. This little accessory is small, but instantly recognizable, and nasty-looking to boot.

The cestus

Final Thoughts

While Bricks of the Dead doesn’t do a whole lot outside the modern era, I think these are some really cool items. I’ve always been fascinated with ancient weapons, and I think these are well realized and interesting. I also appreciate BrickWarriors’ releasing a couple fairly weird items, like the pauldron and the cestus, both of which came out much better than I expected.

Check back next week for our review of the Modern items, including a pretty awesome time bomb. And make sure to check out BrickWarriors’ website and BrickLink Store.

 

21 thoughts on “Brick Review: BrickWarriors’ Gladiator Items”

  1. I’m still struggling with photography on these items. I don’t know why, but they’re coming out darker than they really are.

    • Try shining a light directly level?

      This is amazing…I am buying these right now…

      • I’ll give that a try. I think it has something to do with brightness and white balance, but all my fiddling hasn’t helped.

        • The contrast is pretty shallow too. I’m assuming your using a white background but you’re setting looks gray. Almost light blueish gray.

        • Not sure, exactly. For white balance I took a sample of a piece of white paper inside the lightbox.

  2. I really like the Cestus. I use spiked brass knuckles in Fallout 3 all the time. Like to get my hands dirty. lol

    • The Cestus is way cooler than I thought it would be. I’m quite impressed with it.

      And now that you mention it, it’s perfect for a Fallout/Mad Max type MOC, just like the Pauldron.

      On a related note, Have you picked up New Vegas yet? I haven’t because I wasted a couple hundred hours of my like with Fallout 3, and I just don’t want to get addicted to another one.

      • Oh yeah…..you’ll be even more addicted…

        • I figured as much. It looks awesome.

      • The guyat gamestop tried to sell me on it but I’m not ready to log that many hours either. Fallout 3 is mssive enough.

        • Damn Gamestop employees trying to separate you from your free time and disposable income.

  3. Yeah I picked up a few of these and they came in the mail on Tuesday, I just haven’t had time to play around with them yet on any of my minifigures.

    I’m already chomping at the bit after getting mine to order a few more for play.

    • Did you get any of the guns they released at the same time?

      • I passed on the guns as I’m not a huge must do every military concept possible!

        I might get more of an arsenal as I gear up on getting my Punisher Minifigure ready.

        • Sounds like an awesome custom!

  4. “Billy… you ever watch movies about gladiators?”

    • Have you ever seen a grown man naked?

  5. they should make some of these items in different colors. A great sword looks awesome in silver(iron whatever). but this is still an awesome set. I love the battle ax.

    • They did release more colors on their last batch, so hopefully they will on these items too. Like I said, a few of the items would look really fantastic in bronze.

      • We will definitely be releasing these in other colors over the next few months, including black and also a bronze-like color.

        • Yay for bronze!

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