Splintered Light and Rebel Miniatures sales

I've often mentioned that a number of 15mm metal fantasy mini companies have potential as 1/72 figures. Splintered Light Miniatures and Rebel Miniatures are two such manufacturers. They are both having sales until the end of the year; it's not too late to take advantage of them! For Rebel Miniatures, just enter coupon code Rebel2014 when you checkout for 20% off your order. Likewise, for Splintered Light, just enter code xmas2014 for 20% off. Splintered Light is also offering 30% certain items in their store.

I'll feature some of these figures in better detail in future posts, but I thought I'd show off what I bought to show the potential of some of these figures.

A Large Wolfhound, Dire Hyena and Dire Wolf from Splintered Light. They all look just fine next to Sven. The hyena will make a fine hellhound or direwolf.

Heroes of Shadow, also from Splintered Light. They're about the size of some of my halfing minis, such as Lidda from the One Inch Guild.

A Splintered Light hyenaman/gnoll and kobold are on the left. The rest are from Rebel Minis: a Deep One, two Wolven, and two Monkey Boys. The kobold is sold as 20mm, but is a little small for my taste. Most of these I think are a bit on the small side, but the Deep One works as a small fishman, and the Wolven are actually perfect as 1/72 werewolves (the "15mm Werewolves" that Rebel sells are probably too small for 1/72, so don't mix them up!).

Many of these figures I got as free samples on request. Both Rebel and Splintered Light are great companies that will happily provide such samples; just leave a note with your order. I'll definitely be making future orders thanks to seeing some of these figures in person.

Metal minis are a bit more expensive than plastic, and though I understand that these are delicate figures, I wish there were cheaper shipping options at both companies. Still, they often have figures that can't be found or made in plastic, so when they offer sales like these, it's a great time to stock up.

Ask the CFM: Here fishy fishman!

Pic credit: Wookiepedia

Going out of town this week, so no time to paint! Instead, it's Ask the Cheap Fantasy Miniaturist, where I answer your questions about 1/72 fantasy minis. Back in October '13, David Thorpe asks:

Are you aware of any mermaid/mermen/sea people etc in 1/72? Would like some to create an army for a Poseidon I have. I already have large sea monsters and some 1/72 dolphins/sharks/rays for riders if I can make some, but actual mer type people seem to be hard to find or too large. Thanks

My original answer:

Depends on what you mean: these fishmen from Elhiem Miniatures are ostensibly 20mm, though they're apparently on the stumpy side. I also like the murloc figures (on the right) from the WoW board game, though you may have trouble finding them (I got lucky and found an incomplete set of the board game on eBay for cheap). 

For mermaids, there's this 15mm model from Rebel Miniatures, or these HO scale figures from Preiser. Both may be a little small, and either would be kind of an expensive way to make an army. I also think these snake women figures (discussed in this post) could make for good conversion possibilities.

You could go the other way: find some tails from some fish minis that are about the right size (these Safari Ltd. critters, possibly?) and swap them with the legs of some suitable 1/72 soldiers. Ironically, these "Sea Peoples" figures might fit the bill.

Further thoughts: The new Zombie Pirates set from Mars, which I recently discussed, has a 1/72 mermaid figure. Mars' original Zombie Pirates set has a few movie-inspired sea mutant figures that may also work for a marine army, depending on how grotesque you want to get.

Got a question about 1/72 fantasy? Feel free to leave a question in the comments.

Potpouri: Zombie Pirates, Uruk-hai, scale wonkery

Way too much to do this week to have free time for the hobby, but I thought I'd take what little time I have to share some interesting news and discussions related to 1/72 fantasy gaming.

1.) Plastic Soldier Review had a news item about new products from Mars miniatures that included a cryptic and snobbishly dismissive note that "one set is zombies." There was no other info, but I managed to track down this pic from a Russian minis forum.

If you didn't know, Mars made a previous Zombie pirates set, based on the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise. 1/72 Multiverse reviewed the set, which featured fewer actual zombie pirates and more unlicensed characters from the movie than you might imagine. This set seems to correct the issue by featuring more undead swashbucklers and fewer extravagant cinematically-inspired sea-mutants than its predecessor. I also dig the evil mermaid figure. I'm looking forward to this one!

2. Also from the same Russian website, this teaser image from Alliance miniatures.

They seem to be fleshing out their not-LOTR line with not-Uruk-hai half-orcs. With bonus evil-white-wizard anarchist, it appears!

3.) Finally some interesting discussions at TMP. I recently started a thread about adapting 15-18mm minis to 1/72 scale. Fellow 1/72 fantasy enthusiast TwinMirror started a similar thread from the other direction, discussing "true 25mm" figures and their adaption to the preferred scale of this blog. Both should have a lot of useful info for the cheap fantasy miniaturist.