Gnoll-ification

More gnoll puns where that came from.

Let me start by suggesting how you should do 1/72 scale gnolls, since my way is basically bonkers: Just some Splintered Light 18mm Hyenamen, either in units or the boxed set. They're almost exactly 18mm tall, so you can either use them unmodified and settle for short gnolls, or try to make taller using some of the techniques EY uses to adapt 18mm figures to 1/72 scale. It's maybe a buck a figure, and it's not much of a fuss.

So here's what I'm doing:

A work in progress, obviously. I'll need to fill in the gaps and maybe add some mane with Milliput. The bodies are Alliance elves. I bought a set when it seemed Caesar Miniatures had stopped producing their set of elves, and these were the only alternatives in plastic. I got them despite their having notoriously large and spindly poses, as I thought I could use the heads for swaps with human-sized bodies for less weird-looking elves and drow. Then I thought about what to do with the bodies and realized that one classic D&D fantasy monster with tall and lanky proportions were gnolls.

The heads and tails are from gnoll figures from the World of Warcraft boardgame. I managed to get a whole bunch of them cheap, though they're now hard to find. Maybe Skaven heads would make a good substitute?

On the right is the original figure. My original plan was to take this pose and do a bunch of weapon swaps for variety, but I think they would still look to much like clones. For a magic user and champion, I used Arcane Legions mummy figures—you can see their original heads on the shaman's totem. These are also tall and spindly, and while I'll have to fill in the more skeletal bits, I like that the leaders are even more wildly skinny.

Height comparison. You can see just how much taller than Sven these guys are. I'm planning on preserving one of the original figures as a brute, maybe swapping his basic sword with something a little more fierce and crazy-looking.

I'll do another post when I'm done with all the conversion. Hopefully I'll have time to paint them in relatively short order, but we'll see.

New fantasy minis from Caesar and Alliance!

Photo credit to Mike the Bunkermeister

Via this thread at Benno's. Hannant's is listing a bunch of future releases from Caesar Miniatures and Alliance. In addition to new dwarf, orc, and half-orc sets, Alliance will be offering sets of zombies (about time!) and Amazons. Of the latter, the manufacturer says in the aforementioned thread: "Amazons of the Greek type. Is there and some fantasy." Which I take to mean that they'll be modeled in a generally Greek style, but adaptable to fantasy. At any rate, this would have been a great set to feature when I wrote this post.

Caesar's new offerings include more orcs, zombies, including a set of "modern" zombies along with a presumably more generic fantasy set; and more surprisingly, lizardmen and ratmen. I'll be very interested to see what these latter models look like; looks like you'd be able to run a Warhammer game using Caesar models alone. I'm also hoping that this new line also means Caesar will start restocking some of their harder-to-find original fantasy sets, particularly their elves.

I realize this is the second news post in a row, which seems like I'm cheating somehow. But I was very excited to find all this out and wanted to share. I'll show off some unpainted models in the near future.

Update (9/27): Confirmation a week ago from Michigan Toy Soldiers. "4th quarter releases," they say.

New and old stuff from Twilight Creations

A thread with reader Kevin Morton led me to a bunch of news items from Twilight Creations, everyone's favorite producer of gonzo horror games and horror 1/72-ish scale minis. Kevin mentioned that Twilight Creations were selling the zombie zoo animals I've discussed before in bagged sets at Gencon, and I found out that they're apparently going to start selling them to the general public soon. So now you can get 90 of these figures without paying for the full game, like I did, which is great!

TC is also coming out with a new version of their flagship Zombies!!! game, which among other things includes four unique zombie minis. The "Deluxe Bag o' Zombies", now available, likewise gets you 100 of these minis without paying for the full game. TC's webstore offers this photo:

I like that there are now multiple cheap zombie sculpts, which makes the "Bag o' " line an even better value. These sculpts aren't quite generic enough to be too useful for fantasy, unfortunately, plus it's odd that the zombie plague seems to have affected the construction, law enforcement, and, um, chanteuse industries so discriminately. For more modern scenarios, though, the set should prove quite useful.

That's the new stuff: the old stuff is that as TC makes room for all their new games, they are clearancing out some of their older products. Check out the deals here. Highlights include Dante's Inferno ($5 for the whole game!), Little Dead Riding Hood (still too expensive for just the minis, but the only source of plausible 1/72 plastic werewolf minis I've found), and Easter Island (with plenty unusual Maori statue minis). They also had Bump in the Night, which has some great minis, for $15, but they seem to have sold their stock. You can now get it for $15 at Noble Knight, though.

I'm assuming that all the games I mentioned here are in the same almost-1/72 scale as Twilight Creations' other products I've seen. I can only really vouch for the Zombie Zoo and Dante's Inferno minis (Mike the Bunkermeister has these comparison shots with the Easter Island minis). If anyone can tell me anything more about these other sets, I'd appreciate it!

Four more orcs (of sorts)

Wrapped up a few unfinished minis over Labor Day weekend.

From left to right: An unmodified Caesar Miniatures orc, an orc scout or shaman made with an orc head and weapon and an Imex "Friendly Eastern Indian" (originally discussed here), an orc musician made with an orc head and a Hat "Jungle Adventure" figure (a repaint, since the paint started coming off the original figure, seen here. Somewhat disappointed by how this turned out, since I botched a lot of the details trying to quickly re-prime it), and lastly an orc figure from the D&D Wrath of Ashardalon game, adapted here as a 1/72 scale bugbear.

Here's Sven hanging out with all my orcs.

And here he is trying to fit in with a few of my bugbears.

The other bugbears include another D&D figure (actually manufactured as a bugbear, first shown here), and a few converted Age of Mythology figures. I'm thinking about repainting or replacing the AoM figures; they make merely adequate bugbears, and at any rate I think I can do better paintjobs and conversions now. The D&D orc and bugbear figures, on the other hand, complement each other quite nicely.

This will be a busy month, but I have a few post ideas. Stay tuned!