Tag Archives: miniatures

Awesome Ship Kickstarter

Since I am running a long pirate campaign that’s headed to the Razor Coast, I was jazzed to come across this ship and terrain Kickstarter – with various ships including a 60′ barque (La Belle), 90′ sloop-of-war (HMS Drake), and a 130′ frigate (HMS Surprise).  It’s a chunk of change but… I had to do it! Go check it out if you plan on some naval action in your game.

Skull & Shackles Minis Reviews By An Eleven Year Old Girl

Well I liked my Skull & Shackles minis – awesome sculpts and really good paint jobs, better than previous sets even, and the plastic the perfect medium between too hard/brittle and too soft/bendy. (Set one was too soft and set two was too rigid).

But the real test is when my daughter checks them out!  She reinterprets them and ranks them in order from least to most scary.

  1. Jack Sparrow (Kerdak Bonefist)
  2. Miss Creepypasta (Luccaria)
  3. Machete Dude (Barnabus Harrigan)
  4. Sea Monkey (Elder Brykokalas)
  5. Water lady with aqua-puppies (Duppy)
  6. Blaze Monkey (Greater Host Devil, wingless)
  7. Shark Mama (Brinebrood Queen)
  8. Mr. Yelly Shark (Shark)
  9. Mr. Derpy Shark (Hammerhead Shark)
  10. Cyclops who looks like he’s throwing a temper tantrum (Cyclops)
  11. Giant snake with lady face (Aquatic Naga)
  12. Mad sea monkey (Sea Devil)
  13. Mr. Cuddles (Drowning Devil)
  14. Barry the Chopper Dragon (Sea Troll)
  15. Mrs. Tarantula Lady (Paeta)

I generally agree though think Mr. Cuddles is scarier.  But then again I was already married to a spider with a woman’s face so perhaps I’m used to it. It’s unfortunate that the least scary is one of the end bosses of the Adventure Path though!

You can’t see the “aqua-puppies” in the Duppy pic very well since it’s in the clear part but they’re there.  And the expression on the Cyclops’ face really is hilarious, it makes up for him being anemically small (I’m sure it’s book legal since they’re only 8 feet tall or something, but I hate large minis that are really only marginally taller than medium ones – make it a taller than normal cyclops if you have to, but he doesn’t look that intimidating next to normal characters…)

Naturally since she selected the Paeta as the scariest I then chased her around the house with it for a while.

(Also see her and her friend’s review of my Rise of the Runelords minis…)

Skull & Shackles Minis

OK, after I got all my Reapers Bones minis I tried to tell myself I didn’t need any more minis. But then Paizo/Wizkids came out with their Pathfinder prepainted plastic Skull & Shackles minis that are all piratey.  And I’m still running  my years-long Reavers pirate campaign

So I gave in and got a brick from my favorite cheapest-on-the-Web source, RPG Locker. They came in and they’re sweet!  Lots of pirates, but also the Large minis are a lot more impressive.  In each booster is 3 small/mediums and one Large. None were broken or missing and unboxing was simple. [Ed. Later when looking at mini pics online I have come to realize my Greater Host Devil is broken and missing his wings.]

I’m getting set to run Razor Coast and pretty much all of these minis are perfect for it…

Without further ado here’s some pics! First some pirates and folk.  Some of those are “named characters” and some aren’t, but they’re all just as well done!

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The sharks really impressed me, especially the hammerhead. Really thick, has a threatening plumpness to him. Note the paint job on the multiple rows of teeth on the other shark!

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Now some of the larges. Check out the naga!  There’s also a medium version.

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And the scrag, or sea troll.  The land troll looks a little small and wimpy, but this guy is huge!

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When I opened this box I screamed “OH GOD NO WHAT IS IT!?!”  Apparently a “drowning devil.”  The largest and most menacing of all of them.

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And a lady-faced spider.  Not an aranea.  Not a phase spider.  Yet another, a “Paeta.”  But ignore that and use the mini for all of them!

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Action shot with a medium guy facing off against them!

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A bunch of really nice minis!

My Reaper Kickstarter Unboxing

I took part in the Reaper Miniatures “Bones” kickstarter for unpainted resin minis last August and they’ve been working away to produce them.  I came home this week to find this jumbo box sitting on my doorstep!

IMG_1262I popped it open and it was chock full.

IMG_1274I opened it up and took out the components…

IMG_1275Besides the “Vampire” level of funding, I bought a “starter paint kit,” two minis cases, a red dragon and six “deep dwellers.”IMG_1276The paint starter kit is ridiculous huge!  So much paint! And I’ll need it…

IMG_1277Here’s my extra minis – the red dragon, deep dwellers, and then some skeleton with a shovel was in with the paints.

IMG_1279There’s the dragon sculpt, right off the Pathfinder book. Pardon the graininess of my iPhone camera, but you get the gist.  The wings and arm and head were separate components that snapped right on. Now, to the main event!

IMG_1280In the big white Vampire box – 6 keys of smack!  I mean minis!

IMG_1281Here’s one bag.

IMG_1282And in it – a billion little bags!

IMG_1283Some of the smalls are on sticks – some I could twist off but most will need an x-acto knife.

IMG_1284It took a long time to open all the little baggies.  They’re not perforated or anything, scissors are required. I was careless once, and sheared off a spear-tip while cutting baggie after baggie. Here’s the figures from the first bag.

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This one had a bunch of space marines in it!IMG_1286

She wants me.IMG_1287First impressions – they are rubbery – very rubbery.  This is good in that there were no broken minis (except the one I cut while de-bagging) but several of the minis (mainly smalls and skeletons) have trouble standing up. The scuplts are beautiful.

Bag two, now with ectoplasm!

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IMG_1289IMG_1290By the time I was done – an army of minis!

IMG_1293One bag of trash…

IMG_1292And one big box of minis!

IMG_1295Final count:

  • 246 minis (no pieces missing)
  • 0 broken (except for my scissors accident)
  • 5 that won’t stand up no matter what despite loads of bending (and many more that have quite a lean to them)

I’m quite pleased! For a decently low investment, a mess of minis, and all the scuplts are great.  The Pathfinder iconics and goblins are my favorites!

I’ll have to see how the rubbery texture does with painting, it seems a little questionable.  If Reaper’s reading this, I’d go a touch stiffer with the material in subsequent batches. You mainly want to surf the fine line between breakage and wobbliness. I remember Paizo’s first prepaints were too soft, and then the latest ones are really stiff to the point of some breakage. These are way softer than the Paizo/Wizkids ones even at start (or the D&D Minis), and could use a couple levels of stiffening.

If they could add perforations to the baggies it would be nice too, though probably in the future people won’t have to be opening them in such volume.

Anyway – thanks Reaper, and I hope this Kickstarter did well for y’all!

Dwarven Forge Mini Terrain Kickstarter

OK, did you do the Reaper kickstarter and are wondering how you’re going to use your hundred plus minis when they come in?  Well, here’s an idea.

Dwarven Forge makes those super sweet ridiculously detailed 3D resin miniature terrains you may have seen that no one can afford. But… Kickstarter to the rescue!  They are starting a new line of Game Tiles, which is basically the same terrain but made from a less expensive material. And they are Kickstarting them at a ridiculously affordable level!  You can get them “unpainted” – which is still dungeon stone grey – or get them hand painted for a small upcharge.  Man, I wish that was a Reaper option, I’d pay $50 extra to get them all painted for sure.

The Kickstarter is up to $1.2 million already and has only 3 days left. I never considered buying terrain before – this is such an unnecessary luxury – but damn, 2 sets and a bunch of dressing extras, hand painted, for $170 – I’m in.

Pathfinder Rise of the Runelords Minis, I Haz Them

I was in a local game store and discovered they had the new Wizkids Pathfinder Battles Rise of the Runelords minis!  I grabbed some boxes and thought I’d share.

I got one Huge box that came with a Storm Giantess,

then each of the normal boosters had a Large; I got an Ogre Brute and Malfeshnekor himself;

and then each normal booster had three medium/smalls in it – from left to right, Lucrecia, a wraith, a faceless stalker, Lyrie Akenja, a goblin commando on a goblin dog, and an ogrekin.

And here they are in ensemble to show relative sizes.

The sculpts are very nice and the painting is very nice, I like all these figures, they’re very distinctive.

I am disappointed a little in the Huge, however.  For $25 there’s no real fine painting work – her cloak, for example, is one big ol’ swath of the same purple and her trident is a homogeneous green (and made of a much more flexible plastic than the rest of the mini, it’s quite warped and not able to be made convincingly straight.  On a Huge I expect more detail than that.  The Large ogre brute is really nice and has more detail and nice washes – he looks better than the Huge; heck that whore with the cat (Lyrie) has more detail than the storm giantess.  Lucretia’s high cheekbones and piercing eyes are really, really good

But there’s a lot of improvement from the already good Heroes and Monsters minis – go see my old review of those and compare the ogre and goblins to this ogre and goblin – the ogre in particular is like 1000% better sculpt and paint.  And the small boosters having 4 rather than 1 mini is much better.

What they did right, they kept up – the bases are nice and flat, none of that D&D Minis falling over/warped base crap. Easy to unbox, all were in fine shape.

They’re high quality and nice.  I am not sure I plan to buy a lot though – they are expensive as crap! I just dropped $60 on these 9 minis.  Sure, you can get discount cases blah blah – I might do it if I were about to run Runelords, but other than that I’ll get a couple and use my rich legacy base of minis, Reaper kickstarter unpainteds, and pawns to fill in the gaps.

Want A Mess Of Cheap Miniatures?

Well, Reaper Minis is having a Kickstarter for their “Bones” (unpainted resin minis) line, and it has raised – get this – $750,000!!!  Their gain is your… gain, because now for a $100 pledge you’ll get 145 minis (and maybe more, as more pledge money pours in!).  The latest nine are officially licensed Pathfinder goblin minis.  You have a week left to sign up!

Now, I don’t know if I want 145 unpainted minis, because I have no patience for painting.  On the other hand… 145 minis for $100?  Sheeeeeeit. How can I turn it down?  A dilemma.  All of you should sign up so they’ll give us more stuff and it’ll help me make my mind up!  🙂

Pathfinder Minis: Heroes and Monsters Review

Earlier this week I read this review on ENWorld about the new prepainted plastic Pathfinder minis licensed from Paizo to Wizkids. I was in my FLGS today and they had a batch, so I picked up a large and normal booster to see what I thought.

I was lucky in that my normal booster, which can have either one medium or two small minis contained two goblins, and the large booster, which has one large, contained an ogre. The goblins and ogre are very iconic monsters in Pathfinder and have a different and distinct look to them than in earlier D&D.

The figures came out well – in D&D Miniatures boosters figs were usually pretty bent up, and often they don’t stand straight (either the base being bent or the figure doing the “V8 lean” on the base). These figures have nice hard bases and the goblins’ little weapons were striaght and good-looking.  The ogre’s club was slightly bent (he came out of the plastic shell while still in the box) but one bend and it was true.

The sculpts are good and the paint jobs pretty detailed.  The one weakness is that the big primary color they use on each mini, usually for the skin, needs a little more something – a wash or whatnot, it looks very homogeneous.

Here’s some large scale pics for you to check out.

The ENWorld review complained a lot about the amount of wrapping they come in. I was ready to ding them on it too, but really it’s just a box with a plastic blister in it – not even the little annoying plastic baggies that D&D Miniatures used. I do wish that they had boosters with more minis in them – buying one or, in rarer cases, two to a pack is a little annoying – but here’s my “trash picture” to compare to the ENWorld one.

Basically I put the plastic blister back in the boxes and then put the small box inside the large one and closed it. Voila. Less packaging is always good but I think the guy was being a bit of a drama queen about it – of course if you’re buying cases worth you’re going to have box detritus. If you want them to just put a dozen minis in a ziploc and send them to you I suspect you’ll have a lot of complaints about other stuff in return. But I was happier with the packaging here than with D&D Minis because the unpack process is “open box top, pull out mini, done.”

In fact, I just went and bought a brick from RPG Locker because I enjoyed these guys so much! I’ve never bought minis “in bulk” before…

New Pathfinder Prepainted Miniatures

Paizo has announced Pathfinder Battles, a new line of randomized prepainted miniatures much like the D&D Miniatures that WotC discontinued back in January. These are different from the non-random prepaints they announced in May.

There’s a good bit of glee and consternation over the news.  To break it down:

  • Again, Paizo does it better than Wizards.  Ha ha ha ha haaaaaa.
  • The minis are randomized, though a normal booster has just one Medium creature in it. I don’t mind the randomization, it’s kinda required to make the economics work.
  • The normal booster price is $3.99, which is steep for one mini. If they put them in boxes of multiple minis, wouldn’t that help keep per mini price down (and waste a lot less packaging)?
  • The scuplts look good, but I am frankly dubious about the paint jobs.  The rat’s fur and the gnome’s hair, for example, use very unnatural simple colors.

So good on Paizo.  I’ll probably buy some, assuming they look good when they come out, but a better per mini price would make me a lot more bullish about it.

Prepainted Plastic Pathfinder Minis!

I just saw on Troll in the Corner that Paizo and WizKids are teaming up to start producing prepainted plastic minis again!  This is great news; the D&D Minis were the last thing I actually still bought from WotC and then they discontinued them.

I have no interest in metal minis – I have plenty that have gone unpainted; I lack a life sufficiently to play RPGs but not enough to waste time with basic menial labor related to them.

Sounds like it’s just the iconics to start but maybe if it does well we’ll see the return of real plastic minis!

6d6 Fireball Fantasy Minis

Got a line from these guys about their new fantasy minis venture, along with a discount code for our readers! I’m home sick today so I have nothing better to do than pass it on.  The code is for “£5” which I hear is some alien unit of currency but worth a lot more than a US dollar right now.  And heck, four-armed apes!  Add some more arms to the new Apelord race that the One Bad Egg guys just came out with and you’re cooking with gas.

We are 6d6 Fireball and by that I mean myself, Chris Tregenza, and Rob Grimley. We are a couple of gamers who have been playing for 25 years. Earlier this year we started 6d6 Fireball because other web sites and companies were not giving us what we wanted.

Rob has been a longtime miniature collector and painter of both fantasy miniatures and wargaming miniatures. He had grown frustrated at how unoriginal most fantasy figures.

I’ve never been into figures myself because writing and running adventures is my passion. Looking around on the net, I couldn’t find any free resources that really helped the GM do their job.

So we decided to combine forces and create a web site and our own range of fantasy miniatures. The blog has been running for a few weeks and the adventures / GM side of things will kick off properly in a month or so.

The big news is that we have now launched our range of miniatures and we would like to offer your readers a discount code for £5, valid for all orders over £10 in October.

The code is: mxyzplk-1

Our range of miniatures can be found at: http://miniatures.6d6fireball.com/

To go with our Quorakon figures (huge four-armed apes) we have a whole section on their ecology, background and an adventure for available.

Many thanks

Chris