"War of the Ring" minis (Thanks Sam!)

I've been uncharacteristically productive hobby-wise lately, so I have a bunch of stuff to show off. But first, some cool news. My perennially popular (okay, click-baity) "Where to buy cheap minis?" post included a mention of the board game War of the Ring, a strategy board game based on the Lord of the Rings, which contained many true 25mm plastic fantasy figures. I said it was promising if the price ever came down, but probably didn't have enough stuff I was interested in to be worth it.

Sam, at the excellent Sam's Minis World blog, saw my post and was motivated to track these figures down. He was kind enough to send me some of the fruits of his search, for which I offer hearty and sincere thanks. He discusses his haul here. Really, this post is more of the same, with shots of the minis and comparisons (with special appearances by the One Inch Guild, among others). I'm just so pleased to finally have some of these figures, and at Sam's generosity, that I wanted to share.

Elves. The gray is supposed to be Legolas, the blue is rank-and-file. A Caesar figure is for comparison, as is Sven the comparison viking.

Various dudes with swords. The unpainted figures are the Witch King, Aragorn, and Boromir. Another Caesar fig and Sven are included. The Witch King will make a fine evil knight, which are kind of hard to find in this scale

Wizards! Gandalf and Saruman are on the right. An unpainted Caesar wizard and a couple repainted Arcane Legions figures are on the left. The War of the Ring figures are arguably a little big, but will look fine at the table.

The dwarves have the opposite concern, as they are generally noticably smaller than my other plastic dwarves. Caesar and Arcane Legions dwarves, then Gimli and some dwarf troops. Gimli looks particularly odd with his smaller size and pointed head.

Hobbits! Very exciting to have actual in-scale halfling figures in plastic. In the middle are Pippin, Merry, Frodo and Sam. Frodo and Sam share a base, but I may be able to separate them. They are flanked by a Games Workshop hobbit and a D&D halfling. They are both noticeably taller than the WotR figures, especially the GW one. But as they are all shorter than Sven, it shouldn't be a problem, unless I'm trying to make a halfling army for some reason.

The Nazgul, with a couple tan Age of Mythology figures for comparison. These are the 1st edition sculpts; the 2nd edition of the game has less top-heavy Nazgul. Sam gave me two of these: If I can find a way to remove the chibi wringwraiths, they'll make great generic monsters.

I should mention that Sam, in addition to just plain old giving me cool stuff and having an awesome blog, also nominated me for a Liebster, which is a sort of combination attaboy and chain letter that lets lesser recognized blogs get some attention. I probably won't be nominating anyone myself, because I'm pretty close to the bottom of the blogger pile. Anything in my links sidebars is certainly worth reading, if you're interested. Anyway, double thanks to Sam for being such a kind and generous fan in so many ways!

Party at CFM's!

You have no idea how long I've been sitting on that pun. Anyway, one of my many recent side projects was because I was getting a little tired of painting monsters all the time. So I wanted to see if I could wrangle a typical dungeon party. Behold, the one-inch guild!

From left to right, a Caesar Miniatures elf, dwarf, and adventurer; a repainted D&D halfling, and a Caesar "15th century knight." Yep, those earlier D&D halfling sculpts are quite suitable for 1/72 scale.

Heroes would feel pretty silly if they delved a dungeon and found there were no monsters there. So here they are!

A Caesar orc, D&D bugbear, and Caesar goblin. The goblin got a headswap because I wanted a commander figure, who I figure ought to have both a big axe and shiny helmet. Like the halfing, it seems the earlier bugbear sculpts were much more compatible with my preferred smaller scale. I've got a later D&D orc sculpt I'm painting that is very similar to this bugbear and is about the same size.

Comparison shots with Sven the 1/72 comparison viking.

I still have lots of projects I can slowly finish up as I scrounge for time. Watch this space!

Fight! Fight, fight, fight!

Arcane Legions for generic fantasy gaming

This is essentially a repeat of a post I made at ENWorld a few months ago, but since I still have a few of these miniatures and other related items for sale on eBay (see the sidebar!), I thought I could talk a bit about Arcane Legions miniatures.

Arcane Legions is a miniature fantasy/quasi-historical wargame produced by some refuges from Wizkids, the company that makes Heroclix, Mage Knight, and other popular miniature games. It was unique in that its miniatures were in 1/72 scale, the preferred scale of this blog. Maybe it's because of this "weird" (not 28mm) scale, or its unusual setting, but despite some innovative ideas, the game recently went defunct after a few years of production.

Their loss, while unfortunate, is the cheap fantasy miniaturists gain, as it means an already cheap minis game is now being liquidated in many places. Miniature market now sells booster bricks (60-70 painted figures, including several larger figures) for $24, and the core game, with over 120 unpainted minis, for $15, as well as individual army and cavalry boxes for $8. For generic fantasy gaming, the core game might not be very useful unless you need a lot of centurions and other bronze-age troops. But the boosters have a lot of figures useful for all sorts of fantasy genres. I'll detail some of my favorites here (note that they look a bit taller in these photos than they are, as their peg bases meant they had to be mounted a few millimeters from the backdrop.

Some moderately modified centaurs, with headswaps from Italeri's Barbarian set (the originals had Greek-style helmets that I chose to replace). Most of the spears are from the Egyptian cavalry, while the rest of the centaurs are from the Egyptian booster brick

A large undead, a cyclops, and two minotaurs. The minotaurs are Roman boosters; the rest are Egyptian.

Some "great ones" from the Han booster set.

More Han boosters, which make suitable generic quasi-Asian fantasy heroes and troops.

A Roman wolf, Han foo-dog, Egyptian sta, and Han yeti.

Nuwa, and two jorogumo, both Han boosters. I included an Age of Mythology medusa and a toy Halloween spider for comparison. The spider is actually about the same size as the spider-people; it just has a flatter pose.

Three constructs, and three ghostly figures. The two middle constructs are Roman, the rest are Han booster. The ghosts and the woman sorcerer are cast in clear plastic. I may try to see if I can strip the paint.

Some Egyptian heroes. The pharaoh on the far left is a painted Age of Mythology figure for comparison. The mummified pharaoh to his right is about the same size, just on a smaller base (for now). I think I'll repaint him with a more vital complexion.

Some Egyptian monsters: a sphinx, an Anubis guard, and a criosphinx. The tan minis are Age of Mythology figures, there for comparison.

Some unpainted Egyptian undead, from the Egyptian army set (and core game).  The Age of Mythology mummy and Caesar Miniatures lich are for comparison. The Arcane Legions figures are not really over 30mm tall, but they are a bit taller than other 1/72 figures.

All of the preceding paintjobs, except for the centaurs, are from the manufacturer. I plan on repainting most of these. Here are some comparison shots to show what a decent paintjob can do for these figures (these are all Roman boosters, by the way).