Miniature Market is offering its annual Spring Cleaning sale through May 17th 2013, with an additional 20% off all clearance items. I noticed that one such item was the Burning Crusade expansion for the World of Warcraft board game from Fantasy Flight, which is a trove of dozens of great plastic fantasy minis. Unfortunately, they seem to have since sold out, but you can find the expansion elsewhere (Amazon affiliates, for example) for under $30, which is still a fantastic deal.
Anyway, the sale made me think of the WoW board game minis I already have. The figures are 28mm, but a lot of them work surprisingly well in 1/72 scale. There was a time where you could get a lot of figures for the original game on eBay, but that seems to be less commonplace now. Still, the Burning Crusade expansion has one of each of the minis from the original game in purple plastic, so they can still be had.
The first set of photos are figures from the original World of Warcraft game, but again, they can also be had in the expansion. First, a couple of gnolls, a ghoul, and a murloc. I wish I had got more murlocs when they were available, as they make great human-sized fish-monsters in 1/72. The gnolls are arguably a bit oversized (MageKnight gnolls are a better fit, apparently), but gnolls are supposed to be a bit on the tall side. I plan on doing weapon swaps with some Warhammer skaven bits, like I did with the blue gnoll.
An ogre, a large demon Wrath Guard, and a Wildkin. The latter will make a perfect owlbear once I trim the antlers.
An Infernal, which will make a fine earth elemental, and a Drake, which is WoW-speak for dragon, I suppose. I like the poses on these: the Infernal gives the sense of how a giant rock monster would stomp toward you, and the Drake looks like it's regarding a smaller foe in irritation.
 |
| Or perhaps like it has just spilled mustard on its favorite shirt. "Dang, I just had this dry-cleaned!" |
This next set of photos are of minis that are only in the Burning Crusade set. Here's a Yeti and a Fungal Giant, which is suitable for many sorts of giant monstrous creatures, fungal or otherwise.
Last, a Ravager, a giant undead Abomination, and an Ooze. The Ravager makes a nice generically Lovecraftian or demonic monster. I may want to modify the ooze so it doesn't have a face or arrows coming out of it, but as most ooze minis are pretty expensive, considering they're just amorphous lumps, I was glad to find it.
These are just some of my favorite minis from the World of Warcraft Burning Crusade expansion. It literally has several pounds of plastic minis, and if you can find it at the right price, it's well worth obtaining, even if you never play the game.
They might look like they'd work, but the boys at Benno's forum would say otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThey very well might! But when it come to trusting them or my lying eyes, I'll trust my eyes.
ReplyDeleteFwiw, some of these figures clearly wouldn't work. The worgen, for example, are even larger than the gnolls.