Bones II minis for 1/72 scale

I'm still selling several Bones II minis. Pics are now available on my sales page. Also, in case you missed it, I updated my post on WarQuest with some new information.

I received my Bones II order a few months ago and was pleased to discover how many work with 1/72 scale. As I discovered with the first Bones Kickstarter, smaller minis look human-sized in 1/72, while large minis seem just a bit larger, in a more fantastic way. Let's take a look.

These small humanoids are about the size of 1/72 humans. On the left are Balazar the gnome summoner, Lini the gnome druid, and Woody the halfling ranger. Their heads look rather large, but they should be fine for 1/72 otherwise. On the right are a kobold champion and sorcerer, with a kobold spearman in between. These new minis are quite a bit larger than the old kobold Bones, despite having the same sculptor, but they should work for 1/72 lizardmen or dragonmen.

These are also close to human-sized in 1/72 scale. Two mushroom men (or "myconids" in D&D), a lesser demon, a kelpie, a demilich, and two "hordlings."

Animals: a wolf, bear, wildcat, wolverine, and hawk. These are all bigger than actual 1/72 versions of the same critters, but they are good for "dire" or monstrous beasts. Besides, that hawk is about as small as it can be and still be useful at the table.

Medium-sized beasts: a basilisk, barrow rat, chthon, mind eater, prairie tick queen, and spider from the first Kickstarter.

These monsters are close in size to Reaper humans, but I think they are nice as larger monsters in 1/72. A "Ti'ilk" fishman, lesser demon, two Egyptian avatars, Thoth and Sekhmet; and a crystal golem. The "lesser demons" are all about the same size, though the vulture demon is a lot bigger. Dig the blue plastic on that golem!

Some huge monsters: a chimera, water elemental, and "burrowing horror" (or "bullette" in D&D). Again, I love the clear blue plastic. The water elemental is about the same size as the clear red fire elemental Reaper made for their first Kickstarter.

Finally, some giants: a "swamp things" troll, stone giant, mountain troll, and ice troll. These are all much bigger than the ubiquitous cave trolls I painted last year. I still like how these big guys look compared to Sven.

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!

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!

Reaper Bones II minis for sale!

Okay, I'm jumping the gun a little, but I thought I'd better take care of this soon. Reaper just got the last container for their recent Bones II Kickstarter and have begun shipping this week. Mine went out today and should be here by the end of the week! The plan was always to sell many of these and keep the ones I need, selling at around $1 per medium-sized mini. I don't have a formal list yet, but that shouldn't stop you from checking out my sales page for instructions on claiming the ones you want. Go at it!

10-figure endrowment (drow and drider mods)

For my gnoll project, a bunch of Alliance elf figures donated their bodies, leaving me with a small pile of elf heads. So it seemed natural that my next project make use of them. Hence, dark elves, or drow as they are known in D&D.

The orange heads are from the Alliance elves. The gray bodies are either Caesar "conehead" elves or Caesar adventurers. The sorceress was originally human, but I borrowed an elf head from the Caesar set.

Some more mods with the Alliance elf heads. The bodies here are a Hat "Robin Hood" figure, a Twilight Creations cultist, a Hat Gallic commander, and an Arcane Legions warrior priestess. The cultist figure got a bit of a height reduction just by cutting off the base and part of the robes.

Figures from the back, mostly to show off how I kept the hair on the elf heads mostly intact. Note the yellow bits of Milliput that fill in the gaps.

While making the drow, I decided to make some driders as well. In D&D, these are drow that have been punished—or rewarded, depending on the edition—with the spidery form of their spider goddess Lolth. The "jorogumo" figures from the Arcane Legions Han booster provide the spidery body.

The drider sorceress' torso is from a Caesar elf. The others are Alliance elves. Without their gangly legs, they actually look pretty good as elfy creatures.

With the Caesar elves seemingly OOP, the Alliance elves are the only choice for 1/72 plastic, but they are awfully tall. As a source for headswaps, though, I hope you'll agree that they can be worthwhile.

I'm hoping to get these primed this weekend, then we'll see about painting. Stay tuned!

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!