New Miniatures Online Magazine

Has there ever been a more exciting time to collect, paint and game with miniatures? New games, new minis, new genres even, they seem to pop up more and more. I thought I had a pretty decent handle on what was happening in the mini/gaming world, but it seems I was completely wrong. Have a look at this new digimag from Kinetic 7, with an empahsis on skirmish games, it's a good read, some very skilled artist contributions and lots of new minis to discover. It's  free to download, very well put together, so just go take a look.

Monthly Mini Porn Issue 8

Over the past month or so I have been contemplating which direction to take in collecting a Saga Warband. As part of that research I have looked at many historical miniatures, the most notable of which form the majority of this month's issue.

Some historical minis are pretty basic, but these Saxon leaders from Musketeer Miniatures can hold their heads high. Lovely sculpts and almost certain to become the major characters in my Saxon force.

There are hundreds of larger scale miniatures, well known among painters but perhaps less by gamers. This first pair are from Romeo Models.

The last hairy old warrior is another Saxon, this one from Latorre Models.

Coverage of the GenCon show provides the last set of mini porn for this month. These are concepts rather than minis, but a few blurry pics of the actual models seem to match them pretty well. Produced by Spartan Games for a new, upcoming 28mm steampunk wargame called Dystopian Legions, definitely one to watch.

Avatars of War sneak previews

Those very busy guys at Avatars of War have released a couple of sneak peak pictures in the past few days. There's the Corrupters of Apocalypse, Nurgle warriors or perhaps marauders, whatever you want them to be I guess. I am not sure if those large items in the front rank are meant to be banners or gigantic weaponry. Check out the guy second from left of the front rank, what kind of wierdness is going on there?

The harpies are much easier to decipher. A nice teaser shot, without giving away all the details. For me, these would make very nice fell bats in a Vampire Counts army, as well as the more obvious use in a Chaos army.

It's all very intriguing stuff, presumably more details will emerge in the next few weeks.

Another tempting kickstarter pledge

I noticed the Reaper kickstarter project a few weeks ago, when it had just started and there were about 30 models on offer. It seemed a nice idea to me, but I was quite sure I could resist it. I already have Battle for Alabaster on my list of upcoming projects, and I will almost certainly order the 40K starter set too. That's about 150 figures to add to the pile that's already hundreds strong. So it would be mad to make that even bigger, right?

I have actually painted a Reaper bones figure, a troll. The soft plastic is more reminiscent of cheap toy than finely sculpted miniature. Indeed, there is a definite softness to the figure, so that bits that should be sharp, like teeth and claws, are a bit thick and blunt. But, as a unit filler for a couple of pounds, it was a good option.

The current Vampire package shown here is amazing value, I would imagine that roleplayers, duneon crawlers and skirmish gamers are frothing at the mouth at this deal. As a Warhammer player (lapsed), there is some scope in this package, especially for Vampire, chaos or orc generals. There's a bit of everything in there if you look closely - pirates, sci-fi, villains, heroes, critters, there's even a few bits of dungeon furniture!

If I played a dungeon or skirmish game, I would be very keen. As it is, the whole thing ends in a couple of days, so I have just a couple of days to find a decent game that I could use some of these figures to play. To pledge, or not to pledge?

The Fog Lifts

It's been almost two months since I have got down to some serious hobby painting. It's not for a lack of material, there are piles of stuff here that are half-painted, or almost finished, or just primed, or even (turn off now if you are easily shocked), assembled but not primed. The summer weather and holiday break is partly responsible, but mostly it's down to me not being sure about where I want to concentrate my efforts. Hence the hotch-potch of figures painted over the past few months.

However, I have finally made my decision. A couple of months ago I started playing Saga and got very excited about the possibility of building a viking warband. I dug out some old metal vikings and pondered the merits of the current crop of plastics available. I played a few games and enjoyed it, but I wanted to try out some other warbands before I committed. Vikings are agressive and quite easy to play, whereas other warbands had me pondering over how best to use them. I enjoy this thinking side of the game, so I decided in the end to plump for Saxons/Danes. At some point I know I will add vikings into the mix, but fist things first, I am happy to be settled on Saxons.

I have ordered some Wargames Factory Saxon fyrd to build up some units of warriors. In Saga, warbands are based on a very simple points system, whereby 1 point equates to 4 elite troops, or 8 standard troops, or 12 poor quality troops. Each warband has unique qualities/strategies dictated by the use of Saga dice and battle boards. The Saxons have a fair few of these which work best with units of 10 or more, so numbers count. Thus, my first task is to paint up 3 points of standard troops, that is, 24 Saxon fyrd. I will most likely play them in two units of 12, but that's a story for another time. For now, it's just an impatient wait to get my hands on the plastic and turn them into something like this.

New plastic dwarfs

I spotted this picture on facebook, a regiment of Avatars of War Dwarf Ironshields. There's not much information at present on price or release date, so for the time being all you can do is peer at the picture. Apart from the banner top, I like what I see. Hopefully more images will be released in the near future.

My Glass Cabinet

Here's a few pictures to show the current contents of my glass cabinet. The top shelf contains my old high elf army, started back in the 1990's as you can see from the single pose plastics, green bases and even a pegasus. There's also a few oddments in there, on the right, the tester units of an abandoned Empire army.

The second shelf contains some single figures, a few from way back right up to my current Studio McVey effort. There's plenty of space to add to this shelf.

The third and fifth shelves contain most of my chaos collection, some still paint in progress, some needing a base to be finished off.

Finally, the fourth shelf contains my dwarf army, with space for even more beardy bodies.

Not shown are my orc and goblins army, wood elf army, vampire counts army, my 40k collection (orks and chaos marines) and Battle of Five Armies collection. I really need to get out more.