Mantic Skeletons

I've already spoken about my assembly of skeletons from Mantic. Below is the semi-finished and then the finished result.

 

The above is one layer of paint over a black primer with Army Painter Strong Tone. As always, I'd recommend anyone using Army Painter go back in, especially over large flat surfaces like shields with some thinner and even it out. The other bad thing about Army Painter is that it pools. You might want to keep some clean paper tools around to dab that off.

 

 



The above picture has been hit with Purity Seal, given some basing material and well, it's done. I could go back in and dot the eyes and add some more basing, add some highlights to some of the cloth and shields and chain mail but that would defeat the purpose of using the Army Painter methodology to begin with.

Reaper Moor Hound

The Reaper Moor Hound is a nice simple figure. I initially bought mine because I thought it would make a good substitute if I wanted to do a run off of Brotherood of the Wolf or something along those lines. I figured it could be a great hunt into the moor where NPCs would get picked off left and right in ruins with a final showdown.

 

Anyway, the Hound had a minimal amount of flash and venting. It went together easy, the left arm being separate from the main body, and just a touch of green stuff to hide the seem.

Have I mentioned that I'm lazy?

When I finally do get things together, like my airbrush, I tend to see how lazy I can be. This guy's body and fur? All done with 'zenith' highlighting with different primers from Vallejo. Started with black, then a light brown from a higher angel, then an almost tan brown from almost the top.  I then hit the skin with a sepia wash and the fur with a brown wash and picked out the claws, teeth, nose, eyes, tongue and mouth. I put more 'effort' if you will into the base. That's some army painter flock and over some Gale Force Nine foundation.

Again, not my best work but... it's done right?

From the Reaper forums, here's a size comparison of the beast compared to a few Reaper figures and I believe Dire Wolves.

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.

Reaper: Barbarian and Hill Giant plus Heresy: Stone Golem

Still painting away on figures I've had for way too long while waiting for more Kickstarter figures. Ugh. Ugh again I say. I hate that I get so caught up in something that even though I have absolutely no need for it I find myself buying it. One example is the current Otherworld miniatures campaign going on right now. I have zero need for adventurers but I'm still finding myself checking it out every now and again. Same thing with Freeporter's Fate, another one on a fundraiser that looks cool.

Ah well. Anyway...

This guy is from the Heresy range and is a 'Colossus' and is listed as being either an earth elemental or stone golem. The page has a few different jobs on it. Note that when you get it, it comes with the base and the figure, nothing special about the base as some of those great paint jobs have. As I have no problem using figures from a variety of ranges, I'm pretty happy with this one. He was easy to put together. I get nervous when a figure comes in multiple parts not because its necessarily 'hard' to do for the average person, but I am clumsy.

Outside of the black on the base, there is no paint on him. I was playing with my airbrush and zeinth highlighting. I started with black, then a shorter angel with grey, then a spray down from the top with white. I then used Secret Weapon's Concrete Wash over him a few times and that was it. If you don't have an airbrush you could do the same thing with spray primer.  My best paint job ever? Not really but a damn easy one? Yup. The base is done with Happy Suppuku Broken Earth.

Since my cleric didn't do too well in the Pathfinder game I'm in, it's time for a barbarian. Initially I was just going to use the barbarian from the 25th anniversary of D&D with the axe overhead and the while and crazy beard but I have enough unpainted figures that I thought, "Screw this" and painted him up.

While I love Reaper figures, I hate their bases. They either fall into the brocoli base or the too small base. This one has some nice sculpting to it though so I didn't cut it off but did glue it to a larger 25mm square base and used Games Workshop textured snow effect. I gave it a wash with a gray blue color and drybrushed it back up to white. Not bad for snow. Usually when I'm doing snow I never like the way it turns out but this isn't too bad.

This is another Reaper figure. The stance made me put him on a 'huge' base but he is a pretty large figure. Still not anywhere near as big as the Warlord version or the Games Workshop giant but pretty good nontheless. No assembly on him outside of gluing him to the base. I did pin his feet to the base but wasn't used to the dremell so actually punched through his leg and had to green stuff it. I could have went a lot further with this figure in terms of bringing out the details but... he's not a display piece, I'm not running anything right now, and I'm at the point where good enough is good enough.

Still have a bunch of stuff on the table that I'm working on including some Retribution for Warmachine as well as some skeletons from Mantic's range so hopefully I'll be posting more soon.

Reaper Reven (Orc) Warlord Archers

I honestly have no idea how I wound up with so many figures for a game I don't play. I've had these guys for quite a while. I went with a fairly simple paint scheme so that I could finish them relatively quickly. A few washes and some Army Painter basing materials and while they could get a few more treatments, I already had to go back in and glue the flock down as it became one mass and was starting to lift. Ugh.

Still, when I run fantasy RPGs I'll have many an orc or goblin to throw at the players.

On the bench...

I know GW gets a lot of flack for their Finecast and pricing but the Giant is an exception of value. Lots of possible variations and he is huge.

An Actual Painting Update!

Games Workshop High Elves. I've had these guys for a while. I bought them on clearance at Dice Dojo and will add them to my horde of unplayed High Elves. For some reason I've got a ton of the bastards.

Just for S&G, here are some of my 'old' High Elves. I can tell their old not because my painting style has evolved that much or anything, but because the bases are Goblin Green.

Reaper Miniatures has an undead faction for their Warlord game and this charging ghoul is one of the figures. It's hard to tell but outside of the stonework on the base there's a sewer lid on the back. Both made using Happy Suppuku molds.

That might be a little more revealing. Should have made the colors a lot more distinct between the street and the sewer. The molds allow you to press down some green stuff and then slap the mold on top of it and bam, instant base. I like the sewer base because how many things are always coming out of those things eh? I'll probably play with that one a little more because it has a ton of different designs on it. Might be good for Skaven or something as well.

Ack! My poor cleric. I went with a real simple paint job on him because I was needed to have him for a game a few days right after I bought him. And this Reaper cleric wound up going the route of dominated slave to a bugbear vampire. Boo!

Ah well, at least it wasn't a complete loss. Now I've got a big ole fat priest whenever I need that type of character.

Still have a ton of stuff that I'm messing with. My airbrushing has been at a virtual standstill because I've been working on small miniatures or units with some character to them. I hope to get back to that soon.

Good painting everyone!

The Kickstarters I'm Looking At...

http://www.indiegogo.com/otherworldDA An Indiegogo for Otherworld Miniatures. They do some great old school bits and this would be for the adventurers. I loved the old Citadel figures because they had character not just ultra bad assery going for them. These guys look to follow that model.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/centerstageminis/28mm-demons-and-devils-center-stage-miniatures Center Stage is another old school but this is focused on demons and devils. It's almost certain I'll be throwing some cash at this one.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/97182592/dominion-of-the-gods-tactical-miniatures-game Don't know much about them but I love that Cyclops and some of the concept art is fantastic. Sitting on the fence. While it has some great potential I'm looking at the others and looking at my wallet which is begging for a break.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1941357427/dungeon-crawler-minis-tidal-wave-dcm This one is for some interesting looking prepainted figs. I think it might be a little too high for the initial 'win' and I think that they may make it because they still have some time. I've seen their previous works at Gen Con and was going to buy some but they weren't taking credit cards at the time so... And of course the ONLY way to really pay with it now is credit with an Amazon account. Irony?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/607885648/dwarf-gladiators-finely-sculpted-28mm-resin-miniat?ref=live Dwarf gladiators. I really like the concept. The problem is its very limited in use if you're not doing some 'Blood Bowl' or doing a gladiator campaign theme in your setting. Still... I'll have to see how finances are but it doesn't have that long to go. I'd love to see them do some art styles like Angus McBride's gladiators.

http://www.indiegogo.com/Carnevale I don't play Carnevale but damn does that look bad ass.

I'm sure there are a lot of them out there I"m missing. Anyone have any that they're looking forward to getting in on?

The Kickstarter Post for Minis

I generally have fewer issues with Kickstarter and Indiegogo for miniatures than I do for Roleplaying games. It's not a 'real' thing mind you. Plenty of the miniature campaigns have been late. It just seems to me that the miniature companies are way out ahead of it not needing to be asked, "So... what's going on." They're also a lot more visual and we get to see a lot of the work as its being done. They also tend to be 'cooler' in the terms of stretch goals.

Having said that, let's take a look at where some of the stuff is.

Bushido the 5th Faction Ito: Remember how I said generally? http://www.indiegogo.com/bushido shows the last update a long time ago. They've done some postings on facebook and other places but... yeah, won't be supporting them again for Indiegogo or Kickstarter. As someone who does that, I like regular updates. I like seeing WIP on the project page. I like knowing when stuff is coming out and when I should be expecting it. Making me ask? Huge mistake. Shows a lack of interest or ability on the part of the project manager. When your campaign is showing more and more and more of whats going to happen to draw in the funds, you KNOW that its bringing in more intesrest, more views and then is funded and you see nothing? Not something I'm interested in backing.

1650s Rulebook. Man, these miniatures are going to be sweet. I'm just going to have to force myself to paint them. http://www.indiegogo.com/1650rulebookandmore?c=home Not quite as quite, they've let me know what's going on in e-mail, which is often better than a general post, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Blackwater Gulch is a bit too slow going for me. Mind you a HUGE part of this is my fault. I was running so many games at Gen Con that I didn't take advantage of their offer to pick up stuff at the convention. On the other hand, I don't like that we'll be 'buying' stuff from the store as now I have to be more involved. Can anyone tell a lazy theme for one Joe G Kushner here? http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1763460781/blackwater-gulch-gangfights-in-the-old-west?ref=live

Kings of War already sent out most of the stuff. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/kings-of-war shows that I'll have some more goodies coming next year. I've very happy with the job Mantic did on this one. If they do more fantasy stuff, I'll probably be into it again.

Pirate Goblins http://www.indiegogo.com/pirate-goblins has been pretty straightforward and I imagine I'll be getting mine realtively soon. I went with two sets. I hope that if they do anything else in the future, they have more grunts. Part of the 'problem' I had with even ordering two sets is that the figures are just too unique and no one looks like a grunt.

The Reaper one, http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1513061270/reaper-miniatures-bones-an-evolution-of-gaming-min?ref=live , is way too far out to think about. Still, from what I understand, the stuff that can ship now is shipping now. Or soon anyway. They've been very good about updating status on different things ranging from paint and scultping, to letting the backers know when things have changed up.

Red Box, http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1103158358/red-box-games-helsvakt-horde?ref=history , shows that the man is a machine with lots of WIP jobs and apparently a deadline date that will be met soon. If you see my bitching about it next month, you know it failed.

Relic Knights is a bit too cheesecake for me but there were enough factions I liked that I wound up getting into it. Since these are the same people who did Zombicide and I actually ahve my copy of said board game, I'm good with them. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/relic-knights

The Dwarven Adventurers set has had a lot of great updates and a lot of the things, like character sheets, and WIP jobs have been posted. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2087444096/dwarven-adventurers-box-set I'm pretty happy with the pace so far and getting to see the stuff as its coming down the pipe is nice. It's important to note that because I went with the cheap shipping, my stuff will be coming later even though some have probably already got theirs.

Tectonic Crafts Studios... yeah, I'd like to say that the updates and seeing the stuff their working on is good and all but they're a little TOO late. I get that the machinery can be complex and we're not talking about simple stuff. And I hope they do well. But I personally will not be supporting them in the future for Kickstarter projects. For purchases of stuff they have? Sure. But for something that was supposed to be sent out in... June I think, we're up to October and well, while he has indeed started shipping things out, at my level I think it's just going to mean more waiting.