My Giant Ego

Hello completed-project-town. It's been too long!

Hill giants, or possibly ogres. I was never too sure of the difference. They are mostly Tim Mee cavemen, mostly with headswaps from some Warhammer ogres. Conversions were described previously.

Tim Mee bods, Warhammer heads. Because the heads had some large gaps in the back, I had to do some sculpting, which I think turned out well. The back of the rock hurler's noggin in particular looks pretty good, I think.

These two are a little different from their Brobdingnagian brothers above. The one on the left is an unmodded Tim Mee caveman, the best sculpt in the set, I think. On the right is a World of Warcraft boardgame ogre with a Warhammer head. The berserker-rage head-uptilt was sort of an accident, but I think it works.

The ettin, or two-headed giant, is a Reaper Bones sculpt. More complex than his monocephalic comrades, but a lot of fun to paint. I don't know why it's carrying fish on its belt.

Comparison with Sven.

I'm fairly pleased with these. One regret is that my usual black magic-wash looks a little sloppy here. If I used a brown wash they might look a little neater. Another issue is the figures, and here we see the difference between toy-quality and hobby-quality minis. The Tim Mee bods are great figures, but many lack a lot of deep detail. The point of the magic wash is to bring out those details, so with such details absent, the wash often just sort of flowed and pooled. I think the Warhammer heads and the Reaper ettin look a lot better since they are just better models, even if they are plastic. Still, that's the tradeoff between price and quality, and speaking as the Cheap Fantasy Miniaturist I have no regrets!

Unusually, I don't have a new project cued up. I have lots of options but no clear ideas. So I'll let you guys decide!



A poll should appear above; if not you can find it here. Let me know what you think!

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.

Giganticisms (and Bugbear-icisms)

Time for a new project, yes? Actually this is one I started a while ago but am just getting around to featuring. You may remember these nifty Tim Mee cavemen. They make great 1/72 hill giants, no modification necessary. But I just couldn't leave well enough alone.

The red guys are the cavemen. The gray heads are bits from one of the Warhammer ogre sets, acquired via Hoard o Bits. The green bod is a World of Warcraft board game ogre. The white is a Reaper Bones ettin. The Warhammer heads are great, but they have big gaps in back that I had to fill with glue and putty. They are arguably a little bit too large, but I think they look pretty good. Here's a shot of them primed.

I also have a few more bugbears I'm working on.

These are all D&D boardgame pieces with some mods. The left is a Temple of Elemental Evil bugbear with a Warhammer bit for a shield. The middle is a ToEE hobgoblin with a headswap. The right is a Wrath of Ashardalon orc with arms from the same bugbear that gave the hobgoblin its new bugbear head. This last figure has a close cousin that I already painted; the armswaps are so it doesn't look entirely like a clone.

Here they are primed, along with another old D&D bugbear I just got for pretty cheap.

Painting? Who knows?! It's the holidays, which are of course busy, but maybe not as busy as they could be this year. Stay tuned!

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:

Dollar Tree Halloween scenery for fantasy gaming

Tis the season! To raid dollar stores for cheap horror-themed bits for gaming! I picked up some resin bits at Dollar Tree several weeks ago, including some figures. The figures are way too large for 1/72 scale, the preferred scale of this blog, but at $1 for a set of three figures, I decided they were worth getting to experiment with.

As you can see, the painting is awful, but the poses and detail aren't terrible, so I think they hold some promise for repainting. I have them in groups of three, as per the 3-pack they came in; that is, each group was purchased as a single set. In the northwest, some mummies and a gargoyle. Northeast, a creepy tramp, witch, and werewolf. Southwest, two mad scientists and their assistant. And in the southeast, a Frankenstein-esque monster, some sort of goblin-person, and another creepy tramp or possibly a scarecrow. Again, most of these are too tall compared to Sven the 1/72 comparison viking (that gargoyle isn't bad, though), but they seem like they'd be great for more conventional 32mm figures. (Note that Sven is exactly 1" tall from foot to crown.)

Here are some scenery items, $1 each at Dollar Tree. The gazebo and gate are from last year, but they are selling basically the same pieces this year. I think they are a little too tall for Sven, though I can't imagine anyone broader than Sven fitting through that narrow gazebo doorway. The mausoleum on the right is more like it, if I can think of something to do with that spider on top.

Chris Palmer recently painted up some of the scenery items Dollar Tree sold last year, and I think they look pretty nice. Repainting can do a lot to reclaim the value of these pieces. When I bought these a few weeks ago, the folks at the store said they were already selling fast, so unfortunately I don't know if they are still in stock. If they are, get them while you can, or wait until next year!