New Caesar fantasy comparisons

Thanks to a great trade with CFM reader Jeff, I now have figures from the new Caesar fantasy sets! There's already a great review of these figures at 1/72 Multiverse, so check it out if you want a closer look. I thought I'd show some comparisons with some of my other figures.

First, the Caesar lizardmen in unpainted plastic. My painted Warhammer skinks, plus a Caesar orc, are there for comparison. The Caesar figures are about same size as the other fires, though the Warhammer figures are a bit stockier, and they have bigger crests. Their bases are a lot wider than the orc's, such that I'll have to trim them if I glue them to 3/4" washers like I usually do.

Here are the ratmen. Interspersed are a Warhammer skaven clanrat, a skaven plague monk, a Reaper kobold, and a Caesar goblin. Like the skink, the skaven figures are about the same size as the Caesar ratmen, but have a much stockier build. The plague monk is much tinier of course, but it will make a good ratmen spellcaster. They are just a bit bigger than the goblin and kobold; I think with some headswaps the ratmen could be used as kobolds or other small monsters.

Finally, the Caesar fantasy zombies (I didn't get any of the "modern" zombies). Interspersed are a Twilight Creations zombie, a Caesar skeleton (from their "undead" set), and one of my kitbashed zombie figures. The TC figure looks a little big, but otherwise all these figures fit well together.

Finally, some rank speculation. The one fantasy set Caesar announced that hasn't been released is called "Orcs 2". If you look at the box art for the lizardmen set, you'll see that the lizardmen are fighting what appear to be armored orcs. Maybe the new set will also be armor-clad, to contrast with the more primitive-looking orcs from the first set.

Let's take the speculation further: it seems the original Caesar sets are for the moment out of production. In particular, their elves are hard to find. Now the elf set was evenly divided between elves with Peter Jackson-esque armor--what I call "cone head elves"--and more lightly outfitted elves.  It would be odd if Caesar started selling these less-popular races like ratmen and lizardmen without more traditional races to bolster the line, so one imagines that the new sets will soon be re-released. And as I'm guessing with the orcs, maybe the elves will be newly marketed as two new sets, one with armor and one without.

No promises, but if I guessed correctly, then you read it here first!

Photos of the new Caesar Miniatures fantasy sets!

I mentioned these before. I just stumbled upon these preview shots on a Russian minis forum.

Pretty sweet to finally see what these look like. They all look pretty great, though I'm not sure the painjobs and photography do them justice. They all seem to be of the same magical, not-flat casting that Caesar is known for. The lizardmen have a thick, primitive look to them, and the ratmen look suitably short and nasty. The zombies are duly shambling and horrible; the crawling poses are a particularly nice touch. The modern zombies largely look like they would fit in with their fantasy counterparts, if not vice versa.

These images are being hosted by a Russian hobby shop, which suggests to me that these figures should be for sale soon. I have no idea when, of course, but stay tuned! In the meantime, what do you all think of Caesar's new offerings?

Update (11/20): Michigan Toy Company has these in their catalogue for pre-order, including most of the same preview shots as above. Here, here, and here.

New fantasy minis from Caesar and Alliance!

Photo credit to Mike the Bunkermeister

Via this thread at Benno's. Hannant's is listing a bunch of future releases from Caesar Miniatures and Alliance. In addition to new dwarf, orc, and half-orc sets, Alliance will be offering sets of zombies (about time!) and Amazons. Of the latter, the manufacturer says in the aforementioned thread: "Amazons of the Greek type. Is there and some fantasy." Which I take to mean that they'll be modeled in a generally Greek style, but adaptable to fantasy. At any rate, this would have been a great set to feature when I wrote this post.

Caesar's new offerings include more orcs, zombies, including a set of "modern" zombies along with a presumably more generic fantasy set; and more surprisingly, lizardmen and ratmen. I'll be very interested to see what these latter models look like; looks like you'd be able to run a Warhammer game using Caesar models alone. I'm also hoping that this new line also means Caesar will start restocking some of their harder-to-find original fantasy sets, particularly their elves.

I realize this is the second news post in a row, which seems like I'm cheating somehow. But I was very excited to find all this out and wanted to share. I'll show off some unpainted models in the near future.

Update (9/27): Confirmation a week ago from Michigan Toy Soldiers. "4th quarter releases," they say.