Pics, previews of new Alliance minis!

We know that Alliance is coming out with new fantasy sets, namely half-orcs, Amazons, and zombies. This coincides with this year's release of the new sets from Caesar, so this is shaping up to be a great year for 1/72 fantasy.

I was looking for info on these new sets at the 1/72 group on vk.com, a Russian social site that seems to be a great source for 1/72 news that doesn't always make it to the English-speaking part of the web. And I found these pics! Here are some masters from one of the zombie sets:

These seem to be more modern, but they look like they'd complement the new Caesar zombies quite nicely. A lot of kid zombies in this set, which I find slightly discomfiting for some reason. But they definitely look good in a duly horrible way. There's also some box art to see, but it doesn't tell you much about the figures.

No preview pics of the Amazons, but there is a preview of the box art. I suppose it's NSFW, so I'll just link to it. It does give a bit of an idea what the figures will be like; definitely Greek in style, maybe a little more cheesecake than it has to be. I am looking forward to seeing what the actual figures will be like. There will be two sets, by the way; one for infantry, and one cavalry.

The post I found these in describe the sets' release date as "not soon," but hopefully there will be some more info available soon enough!

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.

Bags o minis! Twilight Creations, etc.

I recently mentioned Twilight Creations in a news post. I've since gotten ahold of a bunch of minis from their board games. Their minis are a bit smaller than most board game minis and are a good fit for 1/72 scale.

Let's start with their Zombies!!! minis, which are their most well-known figures. Shown are the male and female zombies from the original series, available in the core game or various expansions, and also available in cheap "Bag o" sets of 100.

These are made of a very rubbery plastic that bends easily—the other figures on this page are made of firmer, less flexible stuff. I don't particularly like the first sculpt, with that weird overlarge arm, but I used the heads from these for my 1/72 zombie project. The female sculpt is a lot better, especially if you trim off the severed head it's holding. It could easily be used for witches, hags, ghosts, and other monsters. Also sometimes available though seemingly out of production are bags of zombie dogs (useful!) and zombie clowns (idiosyncratic! though possibly adaptable to more general purposes). I've also mentioned the figures from the Zombie Zoo expansion and from the 3rd edition of the core game, which I'll also show here.

Photo cred Twilight Creations

So long as I'm mentioning content from previous posts, here are the minis from Dante's Inferno, available in sets without the game from Twilight Creations' store. Lots of neat 1/72-ish monsters.

I also just got Twilight Creations' new Cthulhu!!! game, especially for the minis. Here they are.

The two on the left are player minis, of which there are three each. They're just a hair bigger than Sven, who is standing on a larger base, but could be useful for pulp gaming. The stars of this game are the next two figures, the "byakhee" monster and the cultist figure, of which the game includes 25 of the former and 75 of the latter. The monster is a little odd but surely useful for something. But the cultist is great! There is no "Bag o Cultists" that I know about, which is too bad, because lots of gamers could use a bunch of generalized dudes in robes. They are again a little tall, but could easily be made shorter since they are in robes. The one odd detail is the face; I can't tell if the figure is open-mouthed or just has a large nose. But the robes are perfect, and the pose is pretty evocative.

Lastly, something a little different, figures from a "Bag o" set not made by Twilight Creations. These are from a "Bag o Chthulhus" made by Fantasy Flight, intended as counters for their out-of-print (I think) Call of Cthulhu card game.

There 6 of the large figure and 36 of the smaller ones in the set. These are made from a very hard plastic with a lot better detail than many of the Twilight Creations figures. Any of these could be used as statues, gribbly monsters, or in the case of the large sculpt, He Who Sleeps himself.

Edit 10/21/2014: I mentioned the Bump in the Night minis, which I'll show below: see this post for more. Also, see my seller page for information on buying some of the minis on this page.

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.

New and old stuff from Twilight Creations

A thread with reader Kevin Morton led me to a bunch of news items from Twilight Creations, everyone's favorite producer of gonzo horror games and horror 1/72-ish scale minis. Kevin mentioned that Twilight Creations were selling the zombie zoo animals I've discussed before in bagged sets at Gencon, and I found out that they're apparently going to start selling them to the general public soon. So now you can get 90 of these figures without paying for the full game, like I did, which is great!

TC is also coming out with a new version of their flagship Zombies!!! game, which among other things includes four unique zombie minis. The "Deluxe Bag o' Zombies", now available, likewise gets you 100 of these minis without paying for the full game. TC's webstore offers this photo:

I like that there are now multiple cheap zombie sculpts, which makes the "Bag o' " line an even better value. These sculpts aren't quite generic enough to be too useful for fantasy, unfortunately, plus it's odd that the zombie plague seems to have affected the construction, law enforcement, and, um, chanteuse industries so discriminately. For more modern scenarios, though, the set should prove quite useful.

That's the new stuff: the old stuff is that as TC makes room for all their new games, they are clearancing out some of their older products. Check out the deals here. Highlights include Dante's Inferno ($5 for the whole game!), Little Dead Riding Hood (still too expensive for just the minis, but the only source of plausible 1/72 plastic werewolf minis I've found), and Easter Island (with plenty unusual Maori statue minis). They also had Bump in the Night, which has some great minis, for $15, but they seem to have sold their stock. You can now get it for $15 at Noble Knight, though.

I'm assuming that all the games I mentioned here are in the same almost-1/72 scale as Twilight Creations' other products I've seen. I can only really vouch for the Zombie Zoo and Dante's Inferno minis (Mike the Bunkermeister has these comparison shots with the Easter Island minis). If anyone can tell me anything more about these other sets, I'd appreciate it!

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.

Replacements! (Castle Ravenloft monsters in 1/72 scale)

So this is the rather involved and curious project I'm undertaking. I recently thought to myself, why not buy all the D&D Adventure System board games, replace the minis with 1/72 equivalents, and sell the rest on the secondary market? This sort of thing only begins to make sense if you are already collecting 1/72 fantasy minis (and who doesn't?). A few reasons one might be interested in this: you do what I did and buy the full game, keeping the minis you like and selling the rest. Or you can buy all the game pieces separately at places like Auggie's or Hoard o Bits, and get cheaper minis for the game as shown here. Or maybe you just like to see what minis can be found in scale. To be honest, this last point is also part of my motivation: it's a bit of a challenge to see if I can recreate these game minis in my scale of choice, and gives me some direction when considering what minis to seek out next.

This will be first of a series of posts. I'll start with the monsters from Castle Ravenloft, the first D&D Adventure System game. I'm excluding villains for a later post. I'm also excluding the rat swarm minis, as they also work for 1/72 scale, so I have no interest in replacing them. These shots include the original mini and their smaller scale replacements for comparison.

Gargoyles. The replacements are Twilight Creation demons.

Ghouls, also from Twilight Creations. You wouldn't think of them as undead, but they have both the pointed ears and the edible hand of the original mini which is a rather unusual coincidence.

Wraiths. These are mods from Caesar Miniatures undead. Read more about these (and the ghouls and gargoyles) here. Arcane Legions has some clear ghost minis, but they're dressed in Chinese armor, so I decided on something more generic.

Skeleton warriors. This one was easy, just Caesar Miniatures undead.

Blazing skeletons. I despaired at ever being able to find something like that in 1/72, but I realized that they were basically skeletons with ranged attacks. So these skeleton archers from Caesar will serve as adequate substitutes. I suppose some clever work with skeletons and Milliput could also work, if I ever have the inclination.

Zombies. The 1/72 guys are mods between Italeri barbarians, Caesar undead, and Twilight Creations zombies. More here.

Giant spiders. The original mini would probably have been just fine as a slightly more giant spider in 1/72. Other alternatives would be the giant spider from the World of Warcraft game (the blue mini), or the toy Halloween spider.

Kobold skirmishers. These are Reaper Bones minis. Clearly these are spears and not the "javelins" the monster card describes, but they are perfectly fine. The original mini is just a little too tall for my taste, but would probably look okay in 1/72.

Wolves. Depending on your taste, the original figure might be just fine in 1/72 scale. The ostensibly 1/72 Iberian wolf from Arcane Legions is not much smaller. I happen to have three of the Reaper Bones dog familiars, so I'll probably use them to replace the three Castle Ravenloft wolves.

I may feature monsters from other games before I undertake villain and hero minis. They're doable, but may take some work. At any rate, I hope this feature will be at least somewhat interesting, and not entirely peculiar or esoteric.

Zombie Animals (and other not-so undead wild beasts)

Like these figures, but don't need 90 of them? Check out my sale page, where I'm selling sets I don't need.

Okay, zombie animals weren't exactly something that was on my bucket list, but when I found out that Twilight Creations had a new expansion to their popular Zombies!!! game, and that it had a ton of animal minis in six different poses, I had to check them out. Twilight Creations usually only has one pose per set, but when they have multiple poses and sell them cheap, they're worth a look. They look like this:

A hyena, tiger, lion, bear, gorilla, and chimpanzee. Spilling entrails and rotting flesh included!

Let's ignore the zombie-ness of these figures for a moment and consider them just as animals. Here are some real-life comparisons between these animals and humans, courtesy of National Geographic:

Hyena, tiger, lion (no mane)

Grizzly bear, gorilla, chimp

Apart from the large hyena—which could be adapted as a bear—, you can see that these figures are actually a pretty close match for 1/72 scale. That's actually great, because 1/72 scale wild animals are pretty hard to find. I figure a little bit of Milliput or even wood glue in the, um, exposed areas will suffice to make these look like normally vital megafauna. And if you happen to need a 1/72 scale zombie chimpanzee, you'll have plenty.

Comparisons with other animal figures:

Comparisons with a lion, wildcat, and monkey figure from Hat's Jungle Adventure set (formerly Airfix's Tarzan set). Not bad figures, but that lion looks absolutely tiny. The middle figure is actually pretty accurate as a lioness, though.

Comparisons with a polar bear and gorilla Safari Ltd. Good Luck minis. Yep, that hyena will definitely work as a bear.

The figures themselves are actually of a harder plastic than the usual rubbery Twilight Creations material, and are quite durable. I paid under $18 for the game, and with 90 minis included, that comes to under 20 cents a mini. Not bad if you need a ton of zombie animals or don't mind converting them into un-undead beasties.

1/72 Zombies step-by-step Pt. 3: Zombies complete!

(Update: New camera, new photos!) Zombies are finally complete! Part 1 of this tutorial covered modding figures to make 1/72 zombies, part 2 covered actual painting, and this part will cover finishing touches, including the "magic dip" method for adding outlines and shadows.

IMPORTANT UPDATE (10/2013)!: After using this method on several miniatures, I've concluded that the solvent used in the Minwax dip is reactive to certain kinds of plastic, creating a sticky sheen that matte spray can't kill or contain. This includes the softer plastic used in Caesar Miniatures and Twilight Creations minis used here, plus the material used in Reaper Bones. The Italeri minis used for these zombies seems unaffected, as does the harder plastic used in Warhammer, Arcane Legions, Age of Mythology, and strangely, the soft plastic used by Hat.

I can't really recommend this method anymore. If you still want to use it, make sure it's on plastic that won't react by testing first, or find a way to seal the plastic before dipping (primer and paint isn't sufficient). I brushed on a coat of Pledge Floor Care Multisurface Finish (aka Future Shine) on all my affected minis, and it seems to have alleviated the problem significantly; it may also be enough of a seal to protect minis from The Dip.

1. The first step is to finish the bases. I just paint them with a couple coats of flat black paint. I don't like anything more detailed, preferring as neutral a base as I can so I can feasibly use these figures for a number of scenarios. If I added static grass, for example, they would look strange in an indoor dungeoncrawl.

2. The eponymous "dip" is this stuff: Minwax Polyshades, Classic Black Satin finish. It's wood stain and finish in one.  The figure is mounted here on a battery-powered drill: this is another reason I glue my minis to nails when painting. Some people prefer the control of painting the "dip" onto their figures, but as I find one needs to wipe the dip off no matter what, I like actually dunking the figures in the dip

3. I do this with a box nearby and plenty of paper towels on hand. I open the can, dip the mini while holding the drill, then immediately hold it over the box and spin the drill, to shake off most of the excess dip. Be sure to do this in a well-ventilated area, and to put the lid back on the can when you aren't using it to minimize exposure to fumes.

4. After it's dipped, you'll need to remove even more excess dip. Blowing on the mini while it's in the box will get rid of the globs that tend to accumulate between arms and legs, and a paper towel will soak any dip that pools in the neck and other places. Dab if you want to reduce the amount of dip, and wipe if you want to remove most of it. By the way, your minis usually won't turn out this dark: I have a problem with too-thick dip that I'll need to solve.

5. Give the dip at least a full day to dry (IMPORTANT UPDATE: I've since learned that 3 or 4 days at least is necessary for the dip to dry, or it will eventually turn sticky). Even with the satin finish instead of the gloss, the dip looks way too shiny for most minis. A matte spray will solve this problem, and will also provide another layer of protection. Do this outside on a fairly warm day with fairly low humidity, and be sure to rotate the figures and spray as much of them as you can.

6. Give the matte around an hour to dry: You'll see that it kills the shine and also gets rid of a lot of the blobbiness the dip leaves. At this point you can simply pry the minis off the nail head, and they're mostly ready to go (the nails are reusable). You may want to use a hobby knife or emory board to get rid of any excess glue or paint that accumulated around the nail head on the bottom of the miniature, so it will rest flat on the table.

I hope this tutorial was helpful to at least some of you. As I mentioned, I'm concerned by how dark and splotchy the dip is leaving my figures lately. It's a decent effect for zombies, but I used to get a much cleaner look from this method. I think the problem is that I was lazy about fully sealing the can of dip when I was done with it, which allowed for a degree of evaporation that has now left the dip too thick. I need to figure out a way to thin it with something that won't eat my plastic figures. I'd welcome any suggestions!

Sven's bad day, part 2.

1/72 Zombies step-by-step Pt. 2: Painting

Last time, we performed some simple head swaps to create the Unpainted Undead.

Now let's get them looking a little less unpainted and a little more undead. These are some pretty basic tips here, as my painting doesn't involve much fancy technique, but everyone needs to learn the basics some time.

1.) The first step is to wash the figures with a mix of dish detergent and water, scrubbing with an old toothbrush. This cleans off the mold release agent miniature makers use, which can keep paint from sticking.

2. Next, I superglued the minis to their base, here a 3/4" fender washer. Usually the base that's molded with the figure will cover the hole in the washer, so I don't usually bother with more complicated basing. I then glued the washer to a framing nail, so the mini can easily be handled or kept in a styrofoam block when not in use.

3. I then sprayed the miniatures outside with a white plastic primer. You need a fairly warm, fairly low-humidity day to do this, or the primer won't stick or dry correctly. I make sure to rotate the figures so I cover as much as I can. I'm not totally sold on Krylon as a primer, but it provides a bright, fairly even palette that along with washing the minis will ensure the paint sticks.

4. One impulsive modification I made was to hack at the zombie bodies with a hobby knife, so they looked a little less like the healthy barbarians they originally were and more like the decomposing undead monsters they are. I painted these areas first. If I was smart, I would have also painted the teeth and eyes at the time.

5. Instead, I started painting the fleshtones, here a livid blue. It's a little bolder than what's probably realistic (for the walking dead, that is), but I like my hordes to have a distinct, consistent color scheme, and I hadn't painted a blue army yet. You can see that since the wounds are a layer beneath the zombie skin, it makes it easier to paint the skin over and around the wounds than the other way around. This is also why it would have worked better to paint the eyes and teeth first.

6. Here are the eyes and teeth painted in. I typically need at least two coats of paint to cover, so it wasn't that big a deal to repaint the flesh around the eyes and teeth once they were colored. I usually don't bother painting facial details, but the mouths on these minis are very obvious, and I thought the yellow eyes would give some zing to what would otherwise be a very unlively (heh) color scheme.

7. And here's our undead friend with all the color on him. I could have showed more steps, but I basically just blockpainted the zombie's clothes, with a little bit of drybrushing (painting raised areas with a brush with most of the paint wiped off) to bring out the details on the scabbard. Most of the paint I use is Delta Ceramcoat, a craft paint sold in stores like Hobby Lobby, along with some even cheaper brands. If I used tricks like outlining or wet-blending, I'd probably use paint specifically blended for miniature painting, but the cheaper paints are just fine for my purposes.

As far as I'm concerned, the zombies are painted, but not complete. The final steps will take the figures away from their current flat, plastic look into something with a little more definition and detail. Hopefully these will be done by the end of the week (update: zombies are complete!); otherwise they'll be delayed just a bit. Either way, I'm please with how my zombies are looking so far.