Guards! Guards!

Human guards, foot soldiers, etc.

These are mostly from a couple different sets of "medieval knights" from Caesar Miniatures, with a few Accurate "English Men-at-Arms" in addition. I wanted these to be useful for either "good" or "bad" guys; blue is classic for good and red for bad, so I split the difference and went for purple, which sadly is barely perceptible here even after image enhancements. For some reason the pics here didn't turn out very well, so if you get a slightly queasy feeling looking at these, my apologies.

Dudes with polearms. The chap in the middle apparently drew the short stick, literally. These are three poses with headswaps and a few other mods for variety. The halberds on the left are a little bendy; the spears on the right were even more so (as you can see in this post), until I decided at the last minute to swap them for some more rigid Italeri barbarian spears. I was worried that this operation would be catastrophic, but the soft plastic Caesar uses was able to bend and not break. That softness of course was what made the original spears intolerably bendy in the first place; there's some sort of lesson here, but I can't put my finger on it.

Anyway, more guard fellows with livelier poses. The two captains in the middle are the Accurate figures. The one on the right got a headswap with the second crossbowman from the left, which I had actually forgotten about until I tried to find the original figure on PSR. What I'm saying is I think the Accurate and Caesar figures work great together here.

The guards of course complement the bandits from my last big painting project.

I'm sure this is a political metaphor of some kind.

As with the bandits, I tried to mix up my usually Caucasian humans with some duskier skintones. Not historically accurate, but as these aren't intended for historic gaming that's not an issue!

Stay tuned for more mini comparisons. I'm going to give the multi-figure projects a rest for a while and try my hand at some dragons, so look out for those as well!

New Alliance minis! Trolls and demons and war machines

Via the 1/72 wall at VK.com. Red Box/Alliance keeps chugging along with the new fantasy releases. Check out these preview pics.

Disorganized thoughts: We've seen Alliance's blocky Peter-Jackson-style troll before with their first troll set. They actually paint up pretty nicely. Sets 2 and 4 here look a little too blocky; the Set 3 poses are a lot more dynamic and interesting.

Set 4 is possibly referencing the Orc Catapult set. I'm not really sure what's going on with the huge bases and limited number of figures and poses here. The Catapult itself looks like a lot of fun. Check out the one intrepid orc, apparently ready to take catapult-assisted flight!

The Fire Demons here are the long-promised "balrogs" (It's interesting to look at that post and see all that all the announced sets have now come to fruition. Good for Alliance!). The limited number of poses in interesting. They seem to be a bit larger than the trolls, but I'd also bet that the wings are separate pieces that take up space on the sprue. If the boxes are around $10-12, that puts the per-figure cost close to what Reaper charges for similar figures. True, they might be a bit bigger, but the sculpting also doesn't seem as good. I'd like to see them painted up before deciding for sure.

~Edit for 9/6/2017: I just realized that the box art here says that the Troll set 3 has only four figures total, while Troll set 4 and the two Fire Demon sets only have two figures each! Maybe that's a misprint, as it's a departure from the large troll sets Alliance has released already. But if it's right, then unless these will be much cheaper than Alliance's other sets, that makes the value proposition a little dicier. Even if they are as big as Reaper's larger trolls, let's say, if the boxes aren't cheaper than usual, the per-figure cost between Alliance and Reaper is about the same. And Reaper's figures are just better-looking.~

Still, it's great that Alliance remains committed to new fantasy releases. I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with next!

Last Day for Bones IV Kickstarter!

It's the final day of the current Kickstarter for Reaper Miniatures popular line of cheap plastic minis. There's a bunch of good stuff that's been unlocked, so if you are interested and haven't pledged yet, now's the time!

I did a bit of blogging during the first week or so of the project, and my thoughts haven't changed too much. As always, I come at these projects from the weird point of view of looking to adopt these "normal"-scale fantasy minis to the somewhat smaller 1/72 scale, the preferred scale of this blog. That means smaller minis, larger minis, and terrain. The former tend to look good as either medium or smaller critters in 1/72 scale, while the latter two are often more or less scale agnostic and very adaptable.

So I'm super into all the kobolds, for example (including, finally, a kobold archer!), and the goblins look good as well, either for 1/72 gobbos or orcs. Several of the larger beasties, like the rat ogre, or the griffon, or the cyclops, look like they'll work for me as well. A few of the add-ons, like the trolls or the monster skeletons, were tempting but a little rich for me. The same goes for some of the terrain pieces; I liked the Tree of Despair and Baba Yaga's Hut, but they were a bit too much for what they were. On the other hand, the "Fantasy Scenics" set that was just offered broke my resolve: a lot of cool set pieces for $5 each!

That and the core are all I wound up getting, but it's plenty! I was worried that the stretch goals were a little sluggish compared to previous Bones Kickstarters, but the core set seems to have as many pieces as Bones III, and when you consider that this one includes a big old dragon, that's pretty generous. Plus a fair number of add-ons, including four (update: make that FIVE) expansion sets, all of which were quite interesting even if I had no reason to get any of them.

The core set, of course, also includes a ton of medium-sized figures and other stuff that I won't have much use for, so once they ship (Feb. 2019 at the earliest!), I'll have plenty to sell, as I have in years past. To bolster my hobby budget and justify jumping into this Kickstarter after I already backed Mantic's TerrainCrate Kickstarter this year, I'm considering something like a pre-order system. I'm on Wave One and in the U.S., so I'm likely to be among the first to receive these. I'll do a more formal post if I decide to do this, but if being among the first to get some of these minis without backing the whole Kickstarter appeals to you, let me know!

Brain in a Jar

While we're watching the current Reaper Bones Kickstarter, here's an item from the previous Kickstarter that I painted up.

Just like it says on the label, a mechanically animated jar wired to the brain therein. Dig that translucent plastic for the jar.

The metal parts of the jar were painted with silver paint, then drybrushed with medium brown and dark red for a rusted look before getting my standard blackwash. The result is a little more steampunk than I anticipated, but I quite like it.

The brain is attached to the lid, and both can be removed for closer biological inspection. This piece is a gift for someone who is, let's say, in the brain business, so I got some pointers for proper anatomical coloration. Any liberties observed should be interpreted as creative license by the artist.

Rear view of the yellowish cerebellum and medulla, as distinct from the somewhat pink cortex. The wet look was achieved with a layer a Future shine.

Sven and the very big brain. It's too big for any gaming I'd do, but it'll make for a fun trinket in some brainiac's office.

Bones IV!

The fourth (fourth!) Kickstarter for Reaper Miniatures popular line of affordable plastic minis has just begun. Anything cool for the 1/72 scale fantasy miniaturist? Let's find out!

8/1 update: Okay, lets see what we actually have here so far. Lots of humans, of course, which look great but of course aren't any good for 1/72. That dragon looks impressive but is probably much bigger than anything I'm after. However, the owlbear, rat ogre, and dire beasts could probably work. Most interesting are the smaller minis; all the goblins, including the armored goblins, could work as 1/72 scale orcs, and the "minitaurs" look great as 1/72 beastmen.

8/2 update: Stretch goals seem to be coming in a bit slower than years previous. However, this Kickstarter is going to run for over a month, so maybe Reaper is trying to find the right pace. It's a little less exciting to observe, but it's certainly also less hectic for the Reaper staff. I'm glad to see more kobolds, though I can't believe that in four Kickstarter we still don't have any ranged units! The devils and trolls also look like they'd be great for larger monsters in 1/72.

8/13 update: Back from vacation. Nothing seems to have changed too much, considering we're now about a third of the way through (remember, pledging now unlocks stretch goals faster!). I do like some of the larger pieces that have been revealed, the wyvern, griffon, and upcoming "cave dwellers" in the core set, plus the optional trolls and skeletal monsters. The upcoming "tree of despair" is interesting: the tree itself is more or less scale-proof, and the vultures it comes with would probably look okay with 1/72 figures; they might actually be a little large, but wouldn't look it at the table.

Made-for-scale terrain in 1/72

Obviously I've been on a bit of terrain kick lately. Most of the stuff I've been discussing lately isn't actually made for 1/72 scale, the preferred scale of this blog, but there are actually plenty of options native to the scale. Let's discuss them, starting with some plastic sets.

Imex has a lot of great detail sets, the Battlefield Accessories and Southwest/Alamo Accessories being particularly useful. Below are fences from the Battlefield set and a well (on the left) from the Alamo set.

The other well above is from Italeri's Desert Tents set. Italeri also has an Urban Accessories kit that is mostly modern but very useable for all kinds of games. Linear-B's civilian sets often come with accessories; their Roman Tavern has a lot of good stuff for fantasy gamers, taverns of course being common locations in such games.

Fountains from Italeri's Urban Accessories set.

There are many more options in metal and plastic. In 20mm scale, there's the metal Moveable Objects line from CP Models and the resin Blitz Bits line from Frontline Wargaming. Phersu Miniatures and Nikolai Modelling also have lines of resin 1/72 scale accessories. Baueda's line of "supplies" is billed as working for "15-28mm" scale, and since 1/72 falls in that range, I'm including them here!

I don't have any examples of these sets. They are unfortunately hard for me to come by, as they are not only fairly pricey, they are also all made in Europe and not sold in the same shops, so shipping would be crazy for me (though with the pound historically weak to the dollar, this might be the best time to go for it). If anyone gets ahold of these and can sell to me in a batch, drop me a line!

Crate work, everyone!

Hey, speaking of terrain:

Crates! These are a mix of Reaper Bones plastic and Rebel Miniatures resin. Painted up pretty quickly using something like the techniques described in this thread. I use mostly Delta Ceramcoat craft paints: here I did a base coat of Burnt Umber, then a heavy drybrush of Raw Sienna, lighter drybrushes of Straw and white, then another light drybrush with Raw Sienna again to balance the lighter colors. Then my standard "magic" black wash. Ecce, mirabiles!

Sven, who remember is about 1 inch tall, among the Reaper crates. These have a lot of great detail but somehow became noticeably warped. The leftmost crate is obviously askew here.

The Rebel Minis crates. These also have pretty good detail, and the resin of course isn't going to warp like the PVC plastic Bones are made of. Unfortunately, some bubbles must have formed when these were cast, leaving some rather bad pockmarks on some of these.

Despite these flaws, they look pretty good as a group.

Sven playing hide-and-seek.

I painted up a few more of the Reaper crates as cargo for my son's toy trains. Painting minis is tricky without a base to hold onto! I added an extra layer of Future Shine for added durability during play. They need a blast of Dullcoat, but it's been too hot for spraying.

And yes, my son painted those hopper cars himself!

P.S. I hope all my dear readers remember that I also have an RPG design blog, which isn't entirely moribund. I just started a series of posts on initiative checks, which will hopefully initiate more RPG blogging in the near future. Remember that the link to new posts can always be found in the sidebar.