Review: 77239: Skeleton Guardian Spearman from Reaper Miniatures

I was briefly at AdeptiCon this year. I went to check out the vendor hall. Several companies, including Scale 75 and Games and Gear, were there. , I wanted to save myself shipping and handling charges as I order their products through +RK Berry .

Reaper Miniatures was also in presence. I backed their Bones 2 Kickstarter and received my figures. I noticed that I made a mistake on my order, and have been trying to work with Reaper to correct that issue.

Because of that error, I did not have all of the new figures produced for the Kickstarter. So while at AdeptiCon, I picked up several packs of the skeletons.

Skeletons are one of those miniatures where I can always use them. You can paint them up in different styles to represent different fallen Empires or paint the bones themselves different colors to represent different types of monsters.

This guy comes in a nice three pack. That's a link to the Reaper image itself.

The figures are tall, long boned. There are some mold lines and the Bones material is a little more difficult to remove if you're not careful. I say this because there isn't a lot of resistance to the material. Push to hard and you'll cut right through it.

I didn't bother. They were for table top play so my worry was minimized.

The details are a little soft. This is most noticeable on the edges of the spear and around the shield itself.

The figures are also 'bendy'. In pictures to follow, you'll note that it's the same figure, but the stance is slightly off on each. I used a lot of hot water to get the spears into something resembling 'normal' and could probably have done more work on that later.

The good news is that the material is soft. If you want to do conversions with bits, especially Games Workshop, that tends to provide overage of such? You won't have any problems. I wouldn't recommend anything metal though unless you're going to have that weapon in a downward position.

For me, the good news is that they have what I'll call 'Old School' aesthetic. A belt, but not dozens of belt pouches. A buckle, but not dozens of bands. A weapon, but not covered in chains or other miscellany.

I primed it with Games Workshop Imperial Brush on Primer. Did not have great results. The bottle wasn't mixed enough despite much shaking. I glued them onto the round bases that I received with the Reaper Kickstarter.

Not too sure about that. These figures are 'tall' and the bases added a lot of height. In addition, I have this far away dream of one day using my figures in Reaper's skirmish game Warlord, and they use square bases. Still, the price was so inexpensive if I want more I should be able to afford it.

I then mounted them on some blocks with blue tack. I don't have to touch them that way and there is less chance of rub off. Because I have the Games Workshop complete miniature paint case (or at least the last one before the Technical Paints and the Hard Edging Paints came out) and bending is a problem due to back issues, I find the Games Workshop case easy to access so used them with one exception, an Army Painter shader.

For these I tend to go with 'layering'.
1. Mid Tone: Something that isn't the brightest or darkest color I'll be using for the part in question.
2. Shade:Often I'll use a wash to darken parts of the figure.
3. Layer: One or more layers that are progressively lighter and occupy less space on the miniature.

Bone: Zandri Dust
Clothes: Steel Legion Drab
Spear: Dryad Bark.
Metals: Boltgun metal. (For some reason I have a lot of the old metallic range.)
Leather: Mournfang Brown
Base: Charadon Granite (this bottle will soon fade from the world, one of my few remaining Foundation GW paints)

Bones: Army Painter Soft wash.
Clothes: Reikland Fleshshade
Spears: Agrax Earthshade
Metals: Nuln Oil
Leather: Agrax Earthshade
Base: None

Bones: Highlight 1 Ushabti Bone, Highlight 2 Screaming Skull
Clothes: Highlight 1 Tallarn Sand, Highlight 2 Kraak Stone
Spears: Highlight 1 Gorthor Brown, Highlight 2 Baneblade Brown
Metals: Highlight 1 Ironbreaker. Highlight 2 Runefang Steel.
Leather: Highlight 1 Skrag Brown, Highlight 2 Deathclaw Brown
Base:Highlight 1 Dawnstone, , Highlight 2 Terminus Stone

Due to their 'clean' nature and lack of various pieces of bric-abrac, these were a quick paint job. If I wasn't having some health related problems, I could probably have knocked this out in under an hour. I might also have went with some more highlights and might have tried to age the metals a bit more.

The Skeleton Guardians weren't available from the Reaper's webstore last I looked, but was available to view here.

Is there something else you'd like to see mentioned in future reviews? A scale shot with the figure next to other figures? More WIP?  Different style of paint jobs? I know the camera work leaves much to be desired so if you have a site with some good tutorials, lay it on me.

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Reaper Bones Skeletons and Warrior Woman

One of the things I'm trying to do in 2014 is finished the partially painted miniatures I have. THis warrior woman, who is a true 25mm personality, is one such figure. It was in various stages of painting for years as I just didn't like the sculpt. It came in one of those multiple packs that were sold by the guy who routinely sold the true 25mm fantasy figures including a lot of the old Grenadier range. I'm blanking on it now but if someone remembers it, please share.

Any any time I'm painting, if I have something I can quickly finish, like say some Reaper Bones skeletons? Why, all the better.  Amazon has a SKU under Skeleton Spearmen but I'm not sure if those are the prepainted ones or not. Relatively inexpensive because of the Bones material at $4.75 but the s&h kills you.

These guys were primed black, given a drybrush of a dark ivory I have, one layer on shield and spear, two layers on spear heads, then given a brown wash, and then a lighter drybrush with a standard ivory. That was more than enough for skeletons of which I have dozens if not hundreds.  

Note that despite the fact that these are the same figure their stances are slightly different. This is the Bones material at work. The first one I had to dip into near boiling water and try to straighten out. The back one you can tell that the base itself is warped. For characters that would really aggravate me. For no name skeletons? M'eh.

So total for 2014 is 21 miniatures. Let's see if I can keep this train rolling.

Skeletons: Wargame Factory Versus Mantic

For some reason, I'm always on the lookout for skeletons at an affordable price. I used to love the old Games Workshop bare bones skeletons save for one problem. They were fairly brittle and a little bit of a pain to assemble.

When I initially bought my airbrush, I wanted some inexpensive figures that I could spray up with it in a variety of colors. Skeletons were right at the top of my list.

So I bought some Wargames Factory and some Mantic skeletons.

Let's start with Wargames Factory.

What a huge pain to assemble. The feet are seperate from the legs which are seperate from the torso which is seperate from the head which is seperate arms which is seperate from the weapons.

They also seem smaller than 28mm or perhaps they are merely true 28mm. What's worse, they are fragile or at least the ones I was assembling were. Another potential issue is there are no bases. For those who have excess bases or who are using a certain type of army, you'll need to provide your own bases. After playing a few of them, they went into the bits box. I can always use bits and it does come with a nice variety of weapons, shields, and even some broken earth.  The other advantage, and it is a huge one, is the price. At $19.99 for 30 of them, even as a bits box, its worth a look into.

The Mantic Skeletons have some pros and cons to them. Compared to some other figures out there, the price is right at $14.99 for ten figures. The pack I bought was $24.99 I believe and came with twenty skeletons and a skull throwing catapult with two more figures in addition to a freebie skeleton dog and a skeleton bursting forth from the ground. It also comes with a variety of weapons and bases. Mind you, these bases are 'Mantic' bases so they're designed for Mantic figures, having a circular spot empty in the center of them for the circular base integrated into the figures.

The real benefit for me? Assembly. Most of them are only two pieces. The shield arm is integrated. On some of them you can customize the head option or the weapon option. I'm clumsy so I had a bit of a struggle with the catapult but finally managed to get it together. I've already primed them up and thrown on a few base coats and will then go onto the inking.

I'm using that picture because it has an image of the sprue of the skeletons as well as the bases and stickers that come with it.

The posts in the Mantic skeletons are a little stale but they do line up fantastically. The real problem for me is I wasn't paying attention to the fact that I might want them to line up later on and put the musician's horn standing way out to the right so whenever I assemble the troops, he'll have to go on the outside.

If price is your only concern, the Wargames Factory ones should be for you. With all the deals on the various stores though, the Mantic ones were the clear winner for me.