Mongo

painted up a large miniature, its called Mongo but can't remember who makes it.

as an experiment I used just washes over a light grey basecoat, am rather happy with how it came out in the end.

 

Oathsworn dwarves (part 2)

painted up another 3 dwarves, very happy with how the berserker came out, bit of a stereotypical job but what the heck!

 

sci fi robot

painted a robot recently acquired from my good friend John. Not sure which firm produced it, I think its a cracking mini and came out quite well with a simple paint job

 

 

Reaper hellhound (KS bones # 9)

another mini painted, mounted on a decent base. maybe a bit more detailing required?

 

 

reaper frost wyrm (remorhaz) (KS bones #8)

finished another bones, I guess they refer to it as frost wyrm for copyright reasons...

 

Mantic Basilean men at arms

Last year I backed the Mantic Kings of War Kickstarter. It has been ok, but was annoying in that they started and finished their dreadball KS before completing KoW, as well as doing Loka (fantasy chess) via KS as well. I still have some faith in Mantic, and have backed their Deadzone KS.

I was not impressed. As far as I was aware Mantic was founded on fantasy miniatures, I'm all for them diversifying etc and pulling in new customers with new ranges, but they need to remember the core customers who helped them get to this position in the first place.


Just last week I received the last part of my shipment of the KoW KS, Basilean men at arms. Just looking at the sprues I was not impressed, lacking in detail particularly on the faces and chain mail, also the shield designs are a bit odd.

I thought I would hold back a final verdict until I had painted them up. My opinion has not changed much. I'm obviously not as good a painter as the professionals that Mantic commissioned to do their minis, but I like to think I can get a few minis to tabletop standard.

I guess that from 2' away they will look ok, but up close the lack of detail shows through. The faces I did with a thin skin colour then flesh wash, but there was very little detail showing through after that.
The chainmail still doesn't 'look right'. The shield 'wings' look oversized and would probably just get in the way, although on some pics I have seen a spear can be poked through the semicircle at the top.

On the other hand, the swords and spears are quite nice, and I may use them on other fantasy minis. Also Mantic are to be commended for allowing a choice of weapons, unlike some of their scifi miniatures which come with rifles molded onto arms.

Final rating: 6/10

going back, waaay back / needs more skullz

Back when I was a lot younger I used to play 40K, recently after talking to my brother am thinking of getting back into it and have ordered the Dark Vengeance box to share with him. In the meantime I looked through my old minis and found some marines from space crusade as well as some terminators I picked up to play space hulk with.

I think they came out ok. None of them are in particularly dynamic poses, but I seem to remember that was typical for the time they were made

 

Reaper 'armoured warrior' (KS bones #7)

 a couple more photos of another bones mini