March 13, 2007
Reaper Pre-painted Fantasy
Wow, Reaper's prepainted non-collectable (meaning that they are aren't randomly packed like the D&D minis) have their inital lineup announced 3 orcs for $7.00! If the painting quality holds up then this is a GREAT deal! Can't wait!
Posted by msoong at 02:13 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 10, 2006
Fantasy Miniatures
The very first miniatures I've ever painted (the Grenadier D&D boxed set) are fantasy. Shortly thereafter I've been on the historical path. Be it Ancient, Colonial, Napoleonic, or other secondary periods like Renaissance, WW2, what have you, I was pretty snobbish about playing periods that's "historical". This went on for pretty much 26 years (ever since 1980 when I got those D&D figures).
There have been occasional lapses. Once in a while a fantasy range will come out that just so cool that I have to paint them to get a fix. One such occasion is when Rackham released their Confrontation figures in the US. They are sufficiently rare then that I have to go on eBay, and pay the astronomical price of ~$10 for three whole figures (If you come from the Fantasy side this kinda pricing might seem normal to you, but for us grognards who's used to $1.00 25mm figs, this is VERY EXPENSIVE indeed).
The Rackham figure rage lasted about 3 figures. the next time the fantasy bug hit is when Tom Meier came out with their woodelves line. These figures are so well made (they look like 54mm figures in their details) that now I have a Woodelf army (not sure what I am going to do with it yet, but I'll get there).
Up until recently most of my historical stuff have their painting being outsourced to Fernando Enterprise in Sri Lanka. They do a competent job at a very low price so it's great for getting large amount of stuff painted. One downside though is that the only hobby activity I am doing is basically basing (which is still better than the alternate but similar hobby of rebasing, but that's another story). After a while this gets old, and I either get to a low point in dealing with miniature gaming, or I start to get a hankering for painting.
The latest manifestation of the disease is that I feel like painting some fantasy figure. In fact the trigger is the Hordes line from Privateer Press.
For those not familiar with PP, they are an American company who's trying to come up with a viable alternative to GamesWorkshop's approach to Fantasy/Sci-fi gaming. They have a complete world setting (Iron Kingdom) which encompasses both their miniature games (Warmachine & Hordes), as well as their D20 based RPG product.
The world of Iron Kingdom has a history that's evolving in real time, (i.e. as in the company product release cycle). So the official plot evolves along, and when something happens (The Skorne Empires invades!) it corresponds to new figures releases of Skorne army box, as well as RPG material relating to the latest development. It's soap opera as marketing device for the gamer nerds.
The world setting is kind of a steam-punk world which is kinda like our renaissance world with steam powered robots running around (i.e. warjacks). It's not a setting that I can readily identify with. Given that the setting is innovative and not just the standard Tolkienesque rehash.
Warmaster is their first miniature game release, which consists of a lot of robots and human figs. The game mechanics are heavily influenced by CCG (make sense since the company is based in Seattle, and have many CCG veteran designing it) in the sense that the whole game is about setting up the right combo (Heroclix did that to a certain extend for mini games, but I think WM kinda took it to a new height). Another reason it took off is that the figures needed for a game is low. A typical game only has < 10 figs per side so one can get an army going in no time.
It's that kinda thinking which got me in trouble when Privateer released their Hordes game. Instead of a Warcaster controlling a bunch of warjacks, you have a warlock controlling a bunch of beasties. The key part of the game is Fury management. In this setting a warlock can "force" his beasties to do things, and everytime someone is forced it generates fury, which in turn becomes mana for the warlock to cast his spells. The problem with Fury is that if there are any fury points unused on the beast by the start of next turn, it'll go "frenzy" (basically you lose control and the beasty will stampede like a Carthaginian elephant full of arrows). The game becomes a risk management game of how much you force your beasts to do cool things w/o losing control of them.
Figure count is low, figures are pretty nice (not as cool looking as Rackham, but fun to paint), and the only down side is that most figures requires some assembly which can be fiddly. I'll probably have my first figure dullcoted by tomorrow and I'll put up some pictures...
Posted by msoong at 02:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 08, 2005
LOTR Playing Aid (Osgiliath)
Here's the ArmyBuilder generated rosters for gaming the LOTR Osgiliath scenario in HTML format:
Evil , and good.
Too bad I can't make the game, but I'll be looking forward to reading the AAR!
Posted by msoong at 06:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 19, 2004
Painted Goblins
After I got my hands on the excellent Tom Meier Goblins, I just got to paint them! This is my first paint job in about a year, so have mercy! See photos here.
Posted by msoong at 07:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 25, 2004
Tom Meier's Sculptor’s Confidential
Sculptor's Confidential Sculptor extrodinaire Tom Meier has a in depth look at the inside workings of old Ral Partha on his website. Pretty facinating reading for those that grew up with RP miniatures...
Posted by msoong at 10:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 18, 2004
Thunderbolt Mountain Miniatures
Many of us can trace our hobby life to key product release: Do you remember where you are when you saw your very first Magic Card? Or what's it like when you ran through your first D&D adventure?
The same is true for miniature gaming, I became a hardcore colonial gamer after the release of Ral Partha's seminal 25mm colonial line back in the early 80's. I still remember: A pack of 10 figures for $4.00! And they are still quality figure even if judged by today's standard (albeit a little small since these are "true" 25mm). The line is of course the work of Tom Meier, one of the best sculpturer in the biz.
After a few other historical lines (i.e. The Landsneckts, and their Ottoman turks, both incomplete), Tom seems to stopped doing historicals and went into a Fantasy only mode. Since then I've lost track of his work, having discovered new loves in the world of minis (Foundry).
Mr Meier now runs his own company: Thunderbolt Mountain Miniatures, where he mainly concentrates on collectors pewters (you know, those wizards figures you see in gift shops). But recently he just released the first of a line of fantasy figures that's aimed squarely at the gamers market (large 28mm to 30mm in height, and competitive pricing). And these figures are simply amazing!
The first range is the wood elfs, with Goblins and Men figures to come later this year. Tom seems to have gotten many of the inspirations from LOTR BOOK (as oppose to the movies), with elements from traditional mythology. The elves are tall and slender, with a fierce look in their faces that's true to the more "terrible" nature of the elves alluded to in the books. Afterall, these are the first born of Middle Earth, not some cuddly blond kid who skates down a rampart. I will say now that these are probably the best gaming figs that I've EVER seen (with Copplestone's Darkest Africa a close second). At about $1.50 a pop (with the unit deal), what's not to like?
His next release is goblins, which is coming out in september. After that it's the Men (probably suitable for Gondorian or Rohirrim). Looks like I am getting into fantasy again after all....
Posted by msoong at 10:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 28, 2004
D&D Miniatures Handbook
I just picked up the new (to me anyway) hardbound D&D Miniatures handbook, and it actually looks pretty good.
It's aiming to be the miniature rules for those familiar to the D20
world, at the same time trying to attract the Wizkid crowd (as can be
seen from their packaged painted miniatures), as well as the warhammer
crowd (since the rules now contains mass combat rules).
The rules themselves are pretty clear and well laid out, and reads more cleanly than the verbose conversational style of GW. There are plenty of illustrations to help you along. The skirmish game is played on a grid while the mass combat game is over ungridded table top. The rules are simple, retains some favors of the D20 combat system but yet
simplified (there are also rules to convert your D20 character stats to the miniature game stat). This could be cool (I am looking to tryout the LOTR figures and scenarios using these rules)....
Posted by msoong at 12:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack