Victrix vs Perry Mini Review

I've been on a heavy work schedule lately so not too many games.  I have been managing to do some painting however.  I just paint whatever grabs my fancy on a given evening and have recently finished up some Victrix hard plastics that I acquired at Owl Con.  Overall I'm pleased with these guys, with the exception of the white, and the lousy shading job.  I will be going back to retouch that part.
This was my first go with Victrix.  Up till now I have assembled and painted some Gripping Beast, Wargames Factory, and Perry Miniatures hard plastics.  I've also viewed several products without assembling.  Since the Gripping Beast and Wargames Factory minis were Vikings, I will leave them off and just compare to the Perry Dragoons that I posted last month, as well as some line infantry I have viewed on the sprues.  This is just my opinion so far from the items I've had experience with.  As I get more info I will probably post more because I had a devil of a time researching this when deciding what to buy.  So here we go!

Quality of the molded parts:  As soon as I pulled the respective parts from their boxes I immediately noticed that the Perry parts are molded much cleaner.  I actually never even noticed any flash on the Perry parts, but there was a fair bit on the Victrix.  However, only about two or three sprues from Victrix had significant flash, so it was not a chronic issue in the box I had.  This means that I may just have received an abberation and this is not the norm, but I am not sure.  Also, the Perry miniatures seem to be a little bit more robust.  Things like the weapons appear to be stronger.  I am not sure if this is because of the plastic quality or if it is because the Victrix seem to have slightly slimmer accessories.  While painting my Grenadiers I accidentally snapped off a bayonet without applying all that much pressure.  It happened so easily that it really surprised me.  From the products I have purchased so far, Perry wins in molding quality hands down.

Quality of the sculpts:  Now here we have a different situation.  The sculpts from both companies are very nice.  The Victrix are incredibly detailed and may possibly edge out the Perry simply because there is a little more variation and the poses seem slightly more natural.  Both companies have very well proportioned figures and there is nothing I can find to gripe about in either camp.  They both look great and I give them a tie.

Poses and versatility:  This is where Victrix starts to regain some ground against the Perry plastics.  Victrix allows a significantly greater choice of poses and customization than Perry per box.  Right off the bat, the Victrix boxes allow you to make all kinds of troops within the company, and has provisions for a lot of skirmishers.  Since we skirmish game, this is important to us.  There is nothing wrong with the Perry figures, but Victrix just has more options.  I give this category to Victrix.

Scale:  So far, my experience has been that both the Perry and Victrix Napoleonic miniatures are big boys.  They seem to work very well with each other, but I feel that they are both a bit bigger than most other lead miniatures out there.  But this is a very dangerous statement because nobodies figures match!  This is just my experience from my world.  Just a note of interest, both the Perry and Victrix Napoleonics dwarf my Gripping Beast and Wargames Factory Vikings!  So my advice is that if you are going with hard plastics, try to stay with them, or at the very least, get some samples to line up before you paint a lot of miniatures.  Once again, both these brands of Napoleonics look good together.

At the end of the day:  If you are skirmish gaming, then I think that having both of these brands is a good idea, but if I was to choose only one then Victrix is more versatile.  If you are not skirmish gaming then I think I prefer the Perry miniatures slightly more because they seem more durable and I feel that they are a little higher quality.