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!

Terrain Kickstarters

A few years ago, the hotness in fantasy minis Kickstarters was Twisting Catacombs, a series of resin terrain pieces for dungeons and such by Zealot Miniatures. They are 28mm scale, but I was curious if some of the smaller pieces would look okay in 1/72, the official CFM scale. They had all kinds of fiddly bits like food and tankards and bottles that I thought would look, if not exactly in scale, close enough to work at the table. I was a very late backer, and with the vagaries of Kickstarter fulfillment, I only just got my order a month ago, and have been meaning to take some comparison pics.

I have not done so :(. I intend to, but simply need to take the time. The reason I'm mentioning it now is because of another 28mm fantasy terrain Kickstarter that's still taking backers. TerrainCrate is a project by Mantic Games, whom I didn't realize, in addition to aggressively competing with GamesWorkshop for great justice, was also quietly building a line of plastic terrain pieces. Obviously they're intending to blow up the line, marrying plastic and terrain for value, much like what Reaper Miniatures did for plastic and mini figures years ago with their Bones line. Anyway, the "crates" of terrain look like a fantastic value, and there are still a couple of days left to back the project. It's fairly certain that not everything will work with 1/72 pieces, but I'm hoping many of these plastic pieces might readily be modded or adapted.

PS: Speaking of Reaper and Kickstarters: Bones IV is coming! Reaper won't start it until they've finished fulfilling the last Bones Kickstarter, but you can check out this gallery from a ReaperCon attendee to get a preview. It took me longer than it should have to realize the hut had legs (as described in legends).

More News! (Alliance trolls, Caesar orcs, mystery Strelets)

Here are a few quick news items to complement my last news post. First, Alliance released previews of their first troll set.

This earlier preview shows that these will be large enough for scales larger than 1/72. They look pretty good, plus 8 large minis for less than the $15 Alliance sets tend to retail for is a really good deal! Now we just need to wait for images of the "balrogs" they promised.

Second! Caesar released these preview shots of their next orc set.

Via Michigan Toy Soldiers.

The heavy blacklining makes the detail look a little exaggerated, but I think these are compatible with Caesar's now sort-of classic set (which now seems OOP). Pretty nifty! The old set was heavy on the primitive-looking orcs; these aren't exactly civilized, but seem to be a better mix of armored and unarmored. Note the chieftan/shaman dude in front.

Last bit of news: As noted in this forum thread, Strelets has a new "campaign" (i.e. historical era) listed on their site. This one is mysteriously called, er, "Mystery." There's nothing there currently, but such a heading invites speculation. The aforementioned thread suggests Strelets may be jumping into fantasy or some other non-historical genre, which seems like a natural conclusion. Of course we'll have to see, but it's worth keeping an eye on.

New Alliance minis!

We've been awaiting these sets for a while, but Redbox just recently put up previews of many of their new sets. Check out the new "Modern Amazons" and "Cimmerians."

The "Modern" part seems to simply mean the opposite of "Ancient" or "Hellenistic," as these have a more generic look that Alliance's previous Amazons. I had half a notion that "Modern" might mean something like "appealing to more modern, edified ideas about women in fantasy;" I think it's safe to say that's not the direction Red Box took the line. These are still pretty heavy on the cheesy, chainmail bikini side of things.

But let's look at the figures:

It's always hard to tell with the low-contrast red that Alliance uses for their preview shots, but the figures are certainly consistent with the battle-stripper look of the box art. They don't seem too egregious, though, and may be adaptable for more sanely dressed female fighters. And I can see that this previewed, super-sensible figure is in the middle of the bottom row of the first set, so maybe they won't be so bad. But I'm not really thinking too much about that now, because holy smoke, unicorns! That's right, the cool Amazon mounts that were previewed ages ago have materialized, and they're more bizarre and wonderful than I expected. Stags! Felines! A gorram dinosaur, for goodness sakes! Here's hoping Redbox puts out an "Amazon mounts" or "Exotic mounts" set, similar to their wargs set. It could see a lot of use for all kinds of modeling beyond fantasy mounts.

Let's move on to the "Cimmerians," Howard-inspired barbarians with a definite Chaos look to them:

The box are features a generous gamut of barbarian archetypes, from bare-chested Conans to horsey steppelords to the bundled-up Viking type in the middle. The figures are similarly variegated.

Two foot sets, unlike just one for the Amazons, presumably because they've already released an Amazon foot set. Again, a mix of shirts and skins here: I actually like this, since more variety means more use from a single set, but they'd certainly make a ragtag unit! Also, lots of horns, spikes, and oversized weapons, perfect for fantasy Chaos warriors. Note the shaman-guy in the bottom left of Set 2.

Cavalry:

Normal mounts this time, though unsaddled. Again, pointy bits and crazy arms galore.

So far I like these. The Cimmerians could see a lot of uses in fantasy gaming. The Amazons disappointingly seem once again to be a little heavy on the cheesecake, but the crazy mounts make up for it. I haven't seen them available on Hannants yet, but I look forward to it!

Heartbreaker Next, plus blog blogging

I've gotten into D&D 5th Edition lately, aka "D&D Next," and since I find it hard to encounter a new system without messing with it, I've been doing a lot of homebrewing. So today's Heartbreaker breaks the thread of recent installments, as I'll instead show off some of what I've been doing.

But first! Those of you with blogs know of the carbuncular irritation that is referral spam. I thought it had largely subsided here at my humble micro-acre of the web, but like Hydra, or fever blisters, it always seems to come back. It appears that the only way I can filter it out is installing Google Analytics. I kind of hate to do this, since I believe it means installing cookies on visitors' computers. Rest assured if I do go down this path, I'm not trying to spy on you or steal your data. I'm just trying to make blogging a little less annoying for myself, and possibly do my part to put a stop to these guys. If you have concerns, do let me know.

Also! I may spin the Heartbreaker stuff off to a different blog in the near future. I know I said I'd keep everything in house, but if I'm going to do more homebrew stuff, I'd kind of like for it to have its own space on the web. I'll link to new Heartbreaker posts at this space if I start a new blog.

For now, new Heartbreaker stuff below the fold. But first, how about some news? A few upcoming sets have caught my attention. New producer "Linear-A," which seems to be the crew from "Linear-B" breaking off their relationship with Strelets, have an upcoming set, "Folk of Judea," with lots of great looking civilian figures. They've also announced a set of "Silk Road" figures.

Strelets has another neat civilian set in the pipeline, "Norman Army Camp." Lots of interesting poses to look forward to.

Brief RPG design stuff below the fold!

Heartbreaker: Attack!

It's another installment of Heartbreaker, my amateur RPG design sub-blog here at CFM. Remember, 1/72 fantasy news first, then under-qualified RPG-design musings below the fold.

Today's news is again from the 1/72 miniatures wall at VK.com. We've been following upcoming sets from Alliance, Red Box's fantasy line and one of two manufacturers of plastic 1/72 scale fantasy figures. Here's a short but dense blurb with some more news, run through Google Translate:

"The promise of fantasy sets - it Amazons, Barbarians, a la Conan, trolls (4 sets) and Balrogs and orc Catapult."

We also get a new shot of the aforementioned trolls:

Good stuff! We already knew about the new Amazon, barbarian, and troll sets, but the "Balrogs" and orc catapult are news to me. One imagines the Balrogs as larger demon figures, like from the Lord of the Rings movies that Alliance is clearly borrowing from, but I suppose they could also include smaller human-sized devils. The catapult will also be interesting. I'm looking forward to more pics!

Now the RPG-design stuff. Just click the "Read more" link below.

New Year's News

Belated Happy New Year! Auld Lang Syne, etc. My new year's resolution is to paint those darn giants and bugbears, something I'm sure I can do before December (they say it's healthy to set obtainable goals).

I was going to do another Heartbreaker post, but I'll save it for later as I have a few news items to share. First is a note I got from Hannants' nifty watchlist feature, saying that Caesar Miniature's elves are back in stock. These were clearly the best 1/72 plastic elves on the market, much better than the weird, gangly specimens from sole competitor Alliance, but they were out of production for years and getting hard to find. What was once lost is found! They've also restocked Caesar's nifty undead set, and they still have their goblins, ratmen, lizardmen and zombies sets in stock, but their sets of dwarves, orcs, and adventurers are sadly missing and rather hard to find. That said, seeing how the elves were eventually restocked, we may eventually see those sets again. In any case it's good to see Caesar is still dedicated to their fantasy line.

Next is not exactly news, but I wanted to share a couple somewhat recent 1/72 releases that I thought were well-suited for fantasy gamers. The first are these Roman Senators from Strelets.

Pic from Plastic Soldier Review

Dudes in robes are always welcome. They could be wizards, NPC patrons or, for the "Julius Caesar Act III" figures, even assassins.

Next are these fellows from Red Box.

Pic from Plastic Soldier Review

"Russian War Monks," in infantry and artillery flavors. The linked reviews do a good job explaining why Russian Orthodox monks ever had to take up arms, but for our purposes, more dudes in robes! I see these guys perhaps as cultists, or maybe as some wizardly order. Maybe some of those muskets could be modded into magic staves!

Speaking of Red Box, my last item is a teaser pic from Red Box's Alliance line, posted on the 1/72 wall at VK.com.

Those Turkish cavalry figures are from an upcoming historical set. But hey look, trolls! Big trolls, big enough for you "normal" fantasy miniature fans reading this. I don't know any more about them, but I just like seeing that Alliance is still cranking out fantasy ideas for their line.

So there you are. Lots of cool stuff available, or soon to be so, in the world of 1" tall plastic fantasy critters. Hopefully I take time to do more painting soon as well. Happy 2016!

Heartbreaker: rethinking the critical hit (plus new Alliance minis!)

Time for more of Heartbreaker, my sub-blog about my purely amateur interest in d20 fantasy design. Again, I'll start with a quick news blast for the Cheap Fantasy Miniaturists here who don't care about RPGs, then I'll continue with the meat below the fold.

Via VK.com's 1/72 group, here are some intriguing pics from Alliance, one of the two big 1/72 fantasy hobby miniature lines out there.

     

The description the Alliance guys give for these is interesting. When they were making their Amazons sets, they were thinking of whom the Amazons might fight and came up with the figures on the left. They describe them as Conan-esque (the Russian word for barbarian transliterates as "varvar," by the way), though they look a little like Chaos warriors to me. The figure on the right looks more like how I wished Alliances Amazons looked—less cheesecake, more Joan of Arc. Not many details on when or how these might show up, but they are very interesting.

Now to the RPG stuff. Just click the "Read More" link below the "You Might Also Like" stuff.

Introducing Heartbreaker! RPG-design sub-blogging here at CFM!

A while ago I mentioned/threatened my interest in blogging about my purely amateur interest in role-playing game design here at Cheap Fantasy Minis, which I am calling "Heartbreaker" for reasons explained below. When I asked you guys, those who responded mostly said they'd be interested, largely preferring that I keep all my blogging here at this familiar blog. Still, there were plenty of responders who admitted to being utterly uninterested in such blogging, so being the solicitous fellow I am, I had to come up with a way to please all camps.

So my solution is to start with a brief item pertinent to cheap fantasy minis, then continue below the fold with the game design stuff. It could be news, or a cool blog post or forum item, or some other such thing. So let's start with the news:

I had thought that Caesar's elf set was more or less defunct, but I'm seeing clear signs of resurrection. Caesar's new store lists them as in stock. So does Taiwanese seller Always Model, which seems to have a close relationship with their fellow patriates at Caesar Miniatures. Other retailers list the set as "in stock soon." Interestingly, the Caesar dwarves are now the set that seems to be harder to find. Still, it's good to see that Caesar is still interested in the older sets of their fantasy line.

Now onto the RPG-design stuff:

Alliance Amazons pics!

We've seen the zombies, but we've been waiting for something more from Alliance regarding their upcoming Amazons set. Via the 1/72 wall at VK, we finally get a closer look! Here's the back of the infantry box showing the poses inside:

Very Hellenistic! Mostly spears and bows, crested helms, lots of Greek trappings, as we knew. It's hard to tell for sure, but the figures seem, um, lightly dressed, which I guess isn't surprising. I'd have preferred something more family-friendly, but with some judicious painting I could certainly make them work. Despite the Greek look these should be easily adaptable for generic fantasy.

Also available is this preview from the cavalry set:

The dress is more to my liking, but what's really striking are the mounts. Unicorns! Lions! No saddle on the unicorn, so maybe these could be standalone monsters as well as mounts. Maybe Redbox will even sell them separately, like they did with the wargs from their orc cavalry.

I gather that the release date is a long ways away, but these will be very welcome sets when they finally arrive.

PS: I feel a little disappointed that I've left this site and the hobby in such neglect. This is normally a busy time anyway, plus I've got a big freelance project that I'm working on, so painting and so on haven't gotten much attention. I'll be able to paint more in a few weeks, so stay tuned!

By the way, the Reaper Bones II sale has been going very well. I still have a few figures left to sell. I naturally haven't had time to update my sales page with what's available, but please feel free to inquire! All the info you need is on the sales page. Thanks!

Warquest, a new source for 1/72 fantasy?

Pic source: Shut Up & Sit Down

File this under rank speculation. Via Shut Up & Sit Down*, we find out about Warquest, a new fantasy war board game with a Kickstarter being planned for April. Information is scarce, but here's the blurb at BoardgameGeek:

WarQuest is a game of grand strategy, conquest, and heroic quests in the fantasy world of Myrathia. Immerse yourself in this chaotic and mystical world! Take on the role of a warlord who seeks to reunite the fractured land under your banner. Recruit wood elves, dwarves, goblins, orcs and beast-men to fill the ranks of your armies and engage in epic battles. Travel across the tormented lands in an effort to drive back chaos by completing desperate quests. Conquer and control strategic cities and regions, and if successful, declare yourself ruler of all Myrathia!

So why should I care about another fantasy board game? Because the designers and publishers are largely key folks out of Eagle Games. Eagle Games publishes a lot of Avalon Hill-type tactical board games with minis 1/72 scale, including CFM favorite Age of Mythology. I don't actually know that this game will also be in 1/72, but it appears to be a big tactical war game from guys who have favored that scale for these sorts of games in the past.

More speculation: It's not officially being published by Eagle Games, but Eagle sells components of their games on their web store for dirt cheap: here are the Age of Mythology pieces for sale, for example. Imagine buying minis for one of the factions mentioned above for just a few bucks.

Of course all this speculation is just that, and for all I know they'll make another 28mm game like everyone else. We probably won't know until April at the earliest when the Kickstarter begins. But if the designers play to type, Warquest could be excellent news for the cheap fantasy miniaturist.

*A fantastic site, by the way. Smart, funny, thoughtful news and reviews of board games and other tabletop games.

Edit for 3/11/15: Warquest has a Twitter page, and they have a couple of pics of their minis from what appear to be playtesters: here and here. Hard to tell how big they are, though.

Edit for 4/15/15: The Kickstarter for WarQuest went live about a week ago. It was abruptly cancelled a few days ago; sounds like they were hoping for faster funding than what they got. They say they'll relaunch in a few weeks after reconsidering their marketing and Kickstarter strategies. Worth noting, as CFM reader Xander points out below, is the scale: "25mm from foot to eye." Sounds a little big for 1/72, somewhere in the ballpark of GW LotR figures, but I bet a lot of the figures could still be adapted. We'll have to wait until they get their act together to know for sure.

Edit for 5/11/15: Warquest Kickstarter take 2 went live last week. It funded in just two days, so I guess they fixed whatever the problem was with the first Kickstarter. It's a bit rich for me, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone else is backing it!

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.

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.